Never Forget - Chapter 15

The sudden physical contact sent a jolt through Ye Zhuyi. Her heart hammered so hard she felt it might leap out of her throat. She even had the fleeting illusion that Zhenzhen could hear its frantic beat from so close.

Reacting instinctively, Ye Zhuyi straightened up and shifted away to create some distance.

Qin Zhizhen didn’t move. He glanced at her, his brow furrowing briefly before relaxing again.

The video was dim, and the sound was low, almost completely drowned out by Chen Ming and Lu Buping’s laughter. Qin Zhizhen watched with an air of distraction.

Ye Zhuyi felt torn. Part of her found it awkward and embarrassing to watch the video of her and her “pull-mother” with Qin Zhizhen. Yet another part of her hoped he would be interested; after all, she had edited the video herself.

But now, it seemed Qin Zhizhen was only watching out of courtesy for Zhou Wen, his expression utterly bored.

“Maybe we should stop watching,” Ye Zhuyi suggested after a moment of hesitation.

Qin Zhizhen countered, “You don’t want to watch it anymore?”

Ye Zhuyi froze. She couldn’t bring herself to say something as accusatory and dramatic as, “It seems like you’re not interested.” Her red lips parted slightly as she let out a soft, “Mhm.”

Qin Zhizhen looked down at the phone and pressed his lips together.

In that instant, Ye Zhuyi felt his mood darken. Without a word, Qin Zhizhen exited the video and handed the phone back to Zhou Wen, reaching right over her.

Ye Zhuyi froze. The gentleness and thoughtfulness hidden in Qin Zhizhen’s gesture melted her heart, leaving her feeling soft and warm.

This was a video Zhou Wen had eagerly recommended. If she returned the phone now, Zhou Wen might be upset. Besides, Ye Zhuyi wasn’t nearly as close to Zhou Wen as Qin Zhizhen was.

“Finished already? There are three parts,” Zhou Wen said in surprise. “Are you not watching it anymore?”

“The lighting is too dark, and the sound is muffled,” Qin Zhizhen explained. Then she added, “What’s the video about?”

So you’re losing interest because you can’t see or hear it clearly?

Ye Zhuyi’s heart, which had sunk to its lowest point, bounced back to its original place with joy. Her lonely mood vanished instantly. She pressed her lips together, trying her best to stop them from curving into a smile.

Seeing that Qin Zhizhen seemed genuinely interested, Zhou Wen no longer cared whether she finished the video. She began to explain with great animation, “It’s about a female Taoist who takes on a young apprentice to hunt demons and ghosts together. Later, they get separated. When they reunite, the apprentice doesn’t remember her master anymore. The story isn’t finished yet, so I don’t know if she’ll ever remember.”

After processing this, Qin Zhizhen asked, “Who is the apprentice, and who is the Taoist?”

“Did you just watch that for nothing?” Zhou Wen asked back with a laugh.

“No,” Qin Zhizhen said with a straight face. “They’re both so old in the video, you can’t tell who’s the master and who’s the disciple.”

Ye Zhuyi listened quietly as the two of them bickered. At this moment, Qin Zhizhen reminded her so much of a proud cat that she couldn’t help but smile.

“It’s told in reverse,” Zhou Wen explained. “The flashback is in the third video. It uses a clip from Going Home, the one you starred in as a child.”

Qin Zhizhen paused, her expression turning strange. Ye Zhuyi noticed the subtle change, and the smile on her lips slowly faded.

After fourteen-year-old Qin Zhizhen finished filming her first project, Going Home, she disappeared from the public eye for a long time. Most people assumed she had temporarily quit acting due to the cyberbullying she faced at the time.

But that wasn’t the real reason. Only a very few people knew the truth.

“I’m going to the restroom,” Zhou Wen said, glancing at Qin Zhizhen and sighing almost imperceptibly before standing up.

As soon as Zhou Wen left, Qin Zhizhen followed her out.

“You’re a grown woman, yet you still need an escort to the bathroom?” Lu Buping joked, her voice a bit slurred from the alcohol. She turned to Ye Zhuyi and asked, “Aren’t you coming?”

With everyone else at the table gone, Ye Zhuyi felt awkward sitting alone. She smiled and said, “I’m coming.”

Ye Zhuyi rose and left the private room.

The restaurant had a lounge area for children, but adults sometimes came here to catch their breath when they were tired of socializing. Ye Zhuyi glanced around and saw that the lounge was nearly empty, with all the benches vacant.

Two young girls, around ten years old, were chasing each other and laughing in the hallway. They accidentally bumped into Ye Zhuyi, and both softly apologized before handing her a piece of candy each.

Ye Zhuyi sat down on a bench and looked at the candy in her palm. Memories came rushing back. When they first met, Qin Zhizhen had forcefully pressed a handful of candy into her hand.

That was the most lost and helpless time in Ye Zhuyi’s life. Her maternal grandmother had another episode and didn’t recognize her. Ye Zhuyi was locked out of the apartment, and she couldn’t get through to her mother on the phone. Just as she thought she would have to spend another day and night starving in the hallway, the door to the permanently vacant apartment next door suddenly opened.

Back then, Qin Zhizhen wasn’t cold and distant like she was now. She was cute, thoughtful, and a bit of a chatterbox. She had simply sat with Ye Zhuyi for the entire afternoon.

Every so often, she would throw out a question.

“I’m Qin Zhizhen. What’s your name?” She used a stone to scratch the words one by one on the ground.

Ye Zhuyi glanced at the writing but didn’t respond.

“Do you live here too?”

“Why aren’t you going home?”

“Want some candy? I have a lot.” Qin Zhizhen pulled a handful of sweets from her pocket and offered them to Ye Zhuyi like a prized treasure.

Ye Zhuyi didn’t take them. She just hugged her knees and lowered her head, remaining silent. Qin Zhizhen didn’t get upset. She put the candy away and quietly sat with her.

When Qin Zhizhen’s stomach finally rumbled, she asked, “Are you hungry? Do you want to come to my house for dinner? My mom’s cooking is really good.”

In the end, the promise of good food won Ye Zhuyi over. She went to Qin Zhizhen’s house for a meal. When her maternal grandmother finally opened the door for her to leave, Ye Zhuyi bowed to Qin Zhizhen’s gentle and beautiful mother but said nothing.

Qin Zhizhen stuffed all her candy into Ye Zhuyi’s pocket.

On Monday, Qin Zhizhen transferred into their class. She was pretty, poised, and bright, and everyone from the teachers to the students adored her.

She and the ostracized Ye Zhuyi were worlds apart. Everyone tried to persuade Qin Zhizhen to stay away from Ye Zhuyi. They called her a bastard child with no one to claim her. They said her mother had gotten pregnant before marriage and that no one knew who her father was. They called her mother a vixen and called Ye Zhuyi a vixen too. They called her a dirty kid.

Even Ye Zhuyi herself tried to warn Qin Zhizhen with a fierce little scowl. “What they’re saying is true. Don’t talk to me.”

Qin Zhizhen gazed at her, her eyes sparkling with delight. “Your voice is so beautiful,” she said. “Why don’t you like to speak?”

“No one listens anyway,” Ye Zhuyi mumbled.

Qin Zhizhen looked at her earnestly. “I’ll listen.”

Ye Zhuyi deflated like a popped balloon, all her anger gone. She fell silent and pulled a torn notebook from her desk. Qin Zhizhen saw the name written in the name slot and read it aloud. “Eleven? Is that your name?”

What eleven? It’s clearly One-One, Ye Zhuyi thought. She didn’t have time to explain and turned to punch Yin Yanyan, the girl who had torn her notebook.

The two girls scrambled into a fight, and someone called the teacher.

This wasn’t the first time. The teacher began scolding Ye Zhuyi without even asking what happened. It wasn’t a lesson but a stream of cold sarcasm and insults directed solely at Ye Zhuyi.

Qin Zhizhen spoke up. “Teacher, why didn’t you ask what happened first? It’s wrong for Eleven to hit someone, but Yin Yanyan tore her notebook first. My mother says being a teacher is a noble profession. You should be fair and just…”

Ye Zhuyi watched her most hated teacher listen blankly to Qin Zhizhen’s long-winded lecture. She burst out laughing, but the laughter soon turned into tears that she couldn’t stop, no matter how hard she tried to wipe them away.

Through her blurred vision, Ye Zhuyi saw Qin Zhizhen smile at her. It was like a beam of light cutting through her dark world, forcefully shining in to illuminate her.

From that day on, Qin Zhizhen became the most important person in Ye Zhuyi’s life, second only to her grandmother.

After school, they would climb the old banyan tree together and watch the sunset dye half the sky red. There, Ye Zhuyi would pour out all her secrets to Qin Zhizhen.

Her mother was an obscure actress who had gotten pregnant before marriage. Ye Zhuyi truly didn’t know who her father was, only that a man would call occasionally and always say he was sorry.

Gossip said her mother had been raped by a powerful man in the industry, which was how Ye Zhuyi was conceived.

After giving birth to her, her mother’s career suffered even more, yet she still insisted on staying in Beijing to chase her dreams. She only came home a few times a year. Whenever she did, she would drink and, in her drunken rants, say, “The biggest regret of my life is giving birth to you.”

Before meeting Qin Zhizhen, Ye Zhuyi often wondered if she ever should have been born.

As the sun hung low on the horizon, Qin Zhizhen wrapped her arms around her and said, her voice earnest and slow, “Eleven, I’m so glad your mother brought you into this world. It’s because of her that I have such a wonderful friend. You are amazing, truly amazing.”

The warm glow of the sunset bathed them both, and Ye Zhuyi felt a deep, comforting warmth spread through her heart and soul.

Held in Qin Zhizhen’s small but firm embrace, she finally lost control and burst into tears.

If things had been different, maybe they could have grown up hand in hand. But the world doesn’t offer second chances.

When Qin Zhizhen starred in Going Home, Old Master Qin still hadn’t acknowledged her as his granddaughter. He had disapproved of his daughter’s relationship, and Qin Zhenghong had always felt the man she chose was unreliable. In the end, Qin Zhizhen’s mother defied her father’s wishes and married the man she loved.

By the time Qin Zhenghong wanted to reconcile with his daughter, it was too late. Qin Zhizhen’s parents were killed instantly in a car accident during a family trip.

When Ye Zhuyi heard the news, she climbed over the school wall and rushed back. She had scaled that wall many times before, but this was the first time she ever scraped her knees.

By the time she returned, Qin Zhenghong’s men had already arrived to take Qin Zhizhen home. Ye Zhuyi froze in place as she met Qin Zhizhen’s gaze.

It was the look of a stranger.

Her Zhenzhen didn’t seem to recognize her anymore.

Before she could ask, the chance was gone. Ye Zhuyi watched as Qin Zhizhen got into the car and drove away. As the dust settled in the air, the cold wind seemed to tighten around her throat.

Her knees ached, her heart hurt, and her throat stung. Every part of her was in pain, yet she couldn’t say a word.

Later, her mother, who had always ignored her, suddenly reappeared in her life.

A single plane ticket sent her abroad.

Ye Zhuyi and Qin Zhizhen became like two intersecting lines, drifting further and further apart in opposite directions.

The sound of approaching voices broke Ye Zhuyi’s reverie. A young mother was encouraging her child to join two girls playing in a ball pit. Ye Zhuyi stood up, glanced at the girls one last time, and turned away without looking back.

As they left the restroom, Zhou Wen asked, “Still can’t remember anything from before?”

“Yeah,” Qin Zhizhen said, rubbing her temples. “Thinking about it too much gives me a headache.”

It must have been a terrible memory. Whenever she tried to recall it, her head throbbed as if it were about to split open, as if her body was instinctively rejecting the thought.

Yet, she still wanted to remember… It was so contradictory.

Zhou Wen looked at Qin Zhizhen with sympathy. “Then don’t force it,” she comforted. “I can’t remember anything from when I was ten, either. As we get older, we forget things more easily. Don’t be so obsessed. Even if you hadn’t forgotten back then, you would have eventually forgotten anyway.”

Qin Zhizhen managed a weak smile but didn’t say anything. She understood the logic, but it was hard to accept.

The atmosphere grew heavy, so Zhou Wen changed the subject. “My grandson’s birthday is this Friday. That little rascal adores you. He’s been begging to see his godmother every single day.”

Only then did Qin Zhizhen offer a genuine smile. “Friday? I’ll make time for it.”

As they reached the corner, Qin Zhizhen said, “Aunt Zhou, you go on ahead.”

Zhou Wen understood immediately. “You’re going to sneak off and pay the bill again, aren’t you?” She knew she couldn’t stop Qin Zhizhen, so she waved her hand. “Go ahead. Since you’re treating, I’ll just have to eat a few more bites first.”

At the checkout counter, Ye Zhuyi held her phone to her ear and said to Xiao Qiao on the other end, “Don’t worry about picking me up; I can manage on my own. If you really want to make it up to me, just make me some yogurt on Friday. Oh, and Huahua wants blueberry mousse. The other two can have anything.”

After she hung up, the cashier finished processing the payment. Ye Zhuyi took the bank card and receipt, then turned around and ran right into Qin Zhizhen.

Qin Zhizhen looked as calm as ever. She glanced at the receipt in Ye Zhuyi’s hand. “You already paid?”

“Yes.” Ye Zhuyi walked over to her, a soft smile on her lips. She pulled two candies from her pocket and held them out like a precious treasure. “Would Teacher Qin like a candy? Two little kids gave them to me.”

Two different flavored candies lay in her dry, pale palm. Ye Zhuyi’s eyes sparkled with anticipation. For a moment, Qin Zhizhen couldn’t find the words to refuse.

Seeing that Qin Zhizhen hadn’t moved but hadn’t said no either, Ye Zhuyi picked up the peach-flavored one and offered it to her. “This one should be sweet.”

The other was lime-flavored, and Qin Zhizhen hated sour things. Her gaze flickered as she took the candy. “Thank you.”

She unwrapped it, parted her lips slightly, and popped it into her mouth.

The round candy rolled around in her mouth, and it was indeed sweet.

Ye Zhuyi ate the remaining lime-flavored candy herself. The sourness made her lose control of her facial expression.

Qin Zhizhen glanced at her, a faint smile spreading across her face.

She looked like a delicate flower blooming in the snow, breathtakingly beautiful. A ripple of emotion stirred in Ye Zhuyi’s heart. Amidst the sourness in her mouth, she tasted a hint of sweetness.

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