Secret Lover Who Stealthily Fell in Love with My Older Sister - Chapter 26

 Chapter 26: The Door to the Past

Chen Xi was about to retort, but when she opened her mouth, she couldn’t utter a single word. Although she was still unconvinced, she could only turn her head away sullenly.

Shen Ya ignored Chen Xi. She put away the remaining dumplings, the anger in her heart bubbling up like the water boiling in the pot.

Chen Xi still stood nearby, her eyes constantly sneaking glances at Shen Ya. The atmosphere between them was indescribably strange.

After the dumplings were almost cooked, Shen Ya took out a handful of noodles from an overhead cabinet. She casually threw some into the pot, then seasoned the broth to her own taste. She scooped the noodles into a bowl. It was a simple, meatless dish without even an egg. Shen Ya placed the bowl heavily on the countertop: “Take it if you want to eat it, leave it if you don’t.”

Chen Xi was startled. She blinked, glanced at the bowl of noodles, then pointed to herself and asked uncertainly, “I-is that for me?”

Shen Ya couldn’t be bothered to repeat herself. She turned off the induction cooker, scooped out her dumplings, found a spoon, and took her bowl to the dining table. Chen Xi then hurriedly picked up her bowl and rushed to follow Shen Ya.

There weren’t many noodles in the bowl—a simple vegetarian noodle soup without even a garnish of scallions. Chen Xi didn’t have high hopes for it, but she picked up her chopsticks and tentatively slurped a few strands.

To her surprise, the noodles were actually better than what her mother made. Perhaps having accepted a meal made her more polite; Chen Xi suddenly remembered her manners. She stammered out a few words: “Um… I, I… I’m sorry.”

Seeing that Shen Ya ignored her, Chen Xi felt even more uneasy. She put down her chopsticks and looked at Shen Ya, sheepishly saying, “Actually, after what you told me last time, I didn’t want to come, but… but Mom insisted on me coming, and she even offered me money to make sure I came back with you. Um… Sister, what exactly is the conflict between you and Mom? Why don’t you go back and talk it out clearly with her?”

“Don’t meddle in things that don’t concern you.” Shen Ya didn’t want to discuss this with Chen Xi. The conflict between her and Shen Qiuyu couldn’t be explained in a few words. Moreover, Chen Xi was the child Shen Qiuyu raised. Did she really expect one bowl of noodles to change Chen Xi’s opinion of her?

Having been rebuffed, Chen Xi fell silent, but she looked up again after less than two minutes: “So, are you going home with me today?”

Shen Ya countered with a question: “Why is she so desperate for me to come back? What’s the matter?”

“Well…” Chen Xi pulled a napkin from the dispenser on the table and wiped her mouth. She leaned closer to Shen Ya and lowered her voice: “I just overheard that Mom might be setting you up on a blind date. All I know is that the person is a woman, apparently quite a bit older, and has a child. They say she’s a fellow townsman of Second Aunt.”

From the previous unpleasant phone calls with her mother, she already knew the other party wanted to introduce her to someone who was about to become a beneficiary of housing demolition compensation, but she hadn’t expected it to be a woman.

After all, her mother did not recognize same-sex marriage. The law allowing same-sex marriage was only enacted after Shen Ya was born. Even after so many years, there were still people in society who couldn’t accept it, and her family was one of the feudal-minded members.

It seemed her mother was willing to suppress her own disgust and push Shen Ya away for the sake of that money. It made sense; she was the child Shen Qiuyu never loved, so there was no mother-daughter affection to speak of. That demolition payout must be much more important than she was.

Shen Ya asked her: “Is the person eating with us tonight?”

Chen Xi shook her head: “No, tonight is just family. Mom probably wants to talk to you about it.”

“Mm.” Shen Ya simply squeezed out a syllable from her nose. She scooped a dumpling from her bowl. The dumpling was slightly flattened and didn’t look very appetizing.

Chen Xi couldn’t read Shen Ya’s expression or understand the meaning of that sound. She could only sense that Shen Ya seemed less averse to speaking with her, so her courage grew: “Sister, where did you buy these dumplings? Why do they look so bad? You didn’t buy some kind of unregulated product, did you?”

Shen Ya gave Chen Xi a sidelong glance: “Don’t talk while eating.”

Again criticized, Chen Xi became completely silent. The small apartment was only filled with the sound of her slurping noodles. By the time Shen Ya swallowed her last bite of dumpling, Chen Xi had also polished off her last bit of noodles. She even drank most of the broth. She reached out to hand over her bowl, but Shen Ya’s sarcastic voice came immediately: “What, do I have to wash your dishes after making you noodles?”

Chen Xi gave an awkward laugh and withdrew her bowl and chopsticks. She then meekly carried her bowl into the kitchen. She turned on the water and asked Shen Ya where the dishcloth was, secretly glancing at Shen Ya several times. “Um… Sister, I’ll wash your bowl too.”

Shen Ya didn’t decline. After handing her bowl to Chen Xi, she went upstairs. She had made up her mind. It seemed she couldn’t avoid going back today. But since Shen Qiuyu insisted on calling her back, whatever happened later would be entirely Shen Qiuyu’s fault.

She found her phone from under the pillow, turned it on, and then went to the opposite walk-in closet to find a long down coat. She checked her phone. Qiao Xi had sent her a photo. The girl’s smiling face took up half the picture, and the other half was a large Golden Retriever with its tongue out and its eyes squinted in a happy smile.

Just one photo made Shen Ya smile. Qiao Xi looked no different from the Golden Retriever beside her, both radiating a comforting joy that could instantly clear away the gloom in her heart.

She saved the photo to her album and replied with a message: 【Very cute.】

Quite a bit of time had passed since Qiao Xi sent the photo. Shen Ya waited for two minutes but didn’t receive a reply. She thought that at this hour, Qiao Xi’s home must be quite lively. It was normal for her not to have time to check her phone.

Shen Ya put away her phone and came downstairs. Chen Xi had already washed the dishes and was waiting for her on the sofa. After being scolded a few times, Chen Xi had become reserved. When she saw Shen Ya looking ready to go out, she asked tentatively, “Are we going home now?”

“Mm.”

Chen Xi immediately sprang up from the sofa and hurried to catch up with Shen Ya. They left the house one after the other. The temperature was low today. The streets on New Year’s Eve were not as busy as Shen Ya had expected, but various shops displayed numerous New Year gift packages.

She didn’t know how many people would be at the house or how many children there would be, but she had no intention of buying any red envelopes.

“Sister, are we taking a taxi back?”

“Subway.”

Shen Ya inherently loathed that place, so she naturally wanted to prolong the journey home. She absolutely didn’t want to waste her money in that direction.

The subway went directly there but took half an hour. It wasn’t very far, as the old city was just on the other side of the city center.

The old city district still looked the way Shen Ya remembered. She couldn’t recall how long it had been since she was last here. She led Chen Xi into the alley. Her breathing became heavy the moment her feet stepped onto the pavement. The closer they got to that house, the more memories surged like waves. The pavement under her feet felt like blades stabbing into her heart.

Old houses like this didn’t have elevators. Just looking up the stairwell, the light couldn’t penetrate the corners. The darkness seemed like a beast waiting with open jaws for her entry. Shen Ya took a deep breath. The damp, musty smell instantly assaulted her nostrils. She stood there, unable to move forward for a long time.

“What’s wrong, Sister?”

Chen Xi was back in a familiar place, and she seemed to have regained her footing. Her body relaxed considerably. She had been merely following Shen Ya but was now already standing on the first step, calling out to her.

Shen Ya clenched her bag. After bracing herself with the cold wind like a suit of armor, she finally stepped into the darkness.

There was a lot of dust on the stairs. She remembered living on the third floor. The short distance from the first floor to the third still took her quite some time. Just as they reached the third floor, Chen Xi was already pressing her finger on the fingerprint lock. The moment the door was pulled open, a cacophony of voices spilled out from inside.

“Mom, I brought Sister back.” Chen Xi’s voice startled the people talking inside.

Shen Ya walked into the house and closed the door behind her. Her eyes quickly scanned the room. The house showed signs of minor renovation, and much of the furniture had been replaced; it was drastically different from her memory. However, the house was still cramped. The two-bedroom, one-living-room space was currently packed with over ten people. Perhaps due to the crowd, and with the windows and door closed, a foul odor permeated the air.

“Oh my, is this Shen Ya? It’s been several years, hasn’t it? You’ve gotten even prettier.” The person who spoke was her Second Aunt. She saw Shen Ya and narrowed her eyes with a smile, scrutinizing her up and down like a commodity.

Shen Ya’s expression subtly changed. Just as the woman was about to reach out and touch her, Shen Ya’s eyelids lifted, and her gaze pierced the woman sharply. The wrinkled hand immediately stopped, suspended in mid-air.

The embarrassment on the woman’s face quickly disappeared. She swiftly adopted the demeanor of an elder, first criticizing Shen Ya, trying to regain the courage that one look had scared away: “Honestly, you’re so grown up and still so naive. Not coming back for so many years—are you really not planning to acknowledge your mother?”

“She’s too capable now. Why would she acknowledge me, her mother? I called her several times, and she wouldn’t answer. It took Xi-xi going to her place to finally bring her back.”

The moment that voice spoke, Shen Ya’s face instantly paled. Her fingernails dug into her palm, the fury in her eyes enough to swallow the speaker whole.

Second Aunt quickly smoothed things over: “Alright, alright. What mother-daughter feud lasts overnight? Qiuyu, you too. She’s your daughter, after all. I know you’re tough on the outside and soft on the inside. You might curse fiercely, but in your heart, you must miss your daughter. Otherwise, you wouldn’t immediately think of our Shen Ya when something good came up, right?”

Shen Qiuyu did not refute this. In front of everyone, she just let out a light “hmpf.” Her expression seemed disdainful, but also as if she was telling everyone that her good intentions were unappreciated.

This kind of back-and-forth disgusted Shen Ya. She was already considering slamming the door and leaving. These people were not relatives; they were clearly a dozen hungry wolves eyeing her, just waiting for her to show weakness so they could tear her apart.

Shen Ya suddenly realized that she wasn’t in an old city apartment at all, but in a man-eating, blood-drinking, bone-swallowing hell!

“Mom! Sister and I just got back, what are you all doing!” Chen Xi wasn’t very clever, but she could sense the blatant sarcasm in their words. After all, her mother and Second Aunt had never spoken to her in such a tone. Why was it different for her sister?

If it had been before, she might have shrunk into a corner and watched, but this morning she had eaten the noodles Shen Ya made. Although their time together was short, she could feel that her sister wasn’t a bad person, at least not as despicable as her mother claimed.

Chen Xi returned to Shen Ya’s side. She grabbed Shen Ya’s arm with newfound courage, pushed past the relatives, and led her into her own room: “You’re all too noisy! Mom, didn’t you say Sister was going to tutor me? I just happened to have a problem from yesterday I don’t understand. I’ll ask my sister first. Don’t come in and bother us.”

Shen Ya was led into the room, and Chen Xi firmly shut the door. Now, face-to-face with Shen Ya, her courage vanished.

Chen Xi released Shen Ya’s arm, smiling awkwardly: “Um… maybe Mom is resentful because you haven’t been back in so long… Oh, just ignore them. They always chatter even when I’m home. Those relatives are so loud, and those two kids are incredibly noisy too.”

Chen Xi rattled on for a while. She pulled out the wooden chair in front of her desk and patted the bed: “Sister, sit down. Don’t mind the mess. I just changed the sheets and duvet cover yesterday. Um… are you thirsty? W-why don’t I order us two cups of milk tea now?”