She Adopted Me After My Biological Mother Passed Away - Chapter 37.1

Just as a major fan posted a newly drawn fan art, her phone popped up with a notification from the band’s official Weibo. After reading the words, she immediately screamed with excitement in her room.

Screaming Goldfish will hold a special performance next month!

The performance was scheduled for Christmas Eve. The band had been planning this event for nearly half a year, finalizing the theme and plan months in advance. Fans had been looking forward to it for a long time, and upon learning the specific date, they began spreading the word and buying tickets together.

Over the weekend, the members were in the practice room discussing the style of their costumes and props. Yu Xiu propped his laptop on his effects pedal and pulled up several costume sketches from the designer.

“It’s a Christmas Eve show, so we can’t dress too plainly,” Yu Xiu said, pointing at the screen. “I think this version is good. What do you all think?”

On the screen was an academic style Christmas suit, primarily in dark green and wine red, with options for a short skirt with garter stockings, shorts with knee-high socks, and long pants. The details were adorned with fluffy white fur balls and flowing red ribbons.

Shi Shuxue leaned in to look. “It might be hard to move. I need to raise my arms to play bass.”

“You can choose the shorts version; some accessories are detachable,” Yu Xiu said, flipping back to compare with other versions. He asked Ci Cheng, who was nearby, “Little Ci Cheng, which one gets your vote?”

Ci Cheng sat in the corner on the floor, head down as she maintained her cymbals. Without looking up, she said, “The skirt is too short. I’ll flash people while drumming. I want pants, but not loose ones.”

Yu Xiu nodded and turned to Tiangua. “And you?”

Tiangua said, “I’ll wear the skirt. Since none of you want to, I will.”

“It’s fine, wear whatever you want. We don’t follow that kind of ‘standard’ route anyway.” Yu Xiu stared at the screen for a while. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shi Shuxue crawling on the ground looking for something. He suddenly remembered someone who, refusing to practice the drums, would roll around on that very floor like a maniac.

Their current drummer, by contrast, was quite quiet. The drumsticks never flew out of her hands, and they certainly didn’t randomly hit anyone in the rehearsal room on the head.

Tiangua asked, “What are you laughing at?”

Yu Xiu leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs. “Ah, I just remembered someone who was lazy and hated working. When she didn’t want to practice, she wouldn’t say anything, she’d just intentionally play the wrong notes to protest.”

“The previous drummer?” Ci Cheng stopped her work.

“Yeah, I heard it from your sister.” Yu Xiu grew excited. He sat up and tugged at Shi Shuxue’s sleeve. “Chi Yeyu isn’t here, so I’ll tell you.”

Shi Shuxue: “Mhm?”

Yu Xiu didn’t feel guilty at all about gossiping behind Chi Yeyu’s back.

“They say when Chi Yeyu first joined the band, she was sent to do chores every single day. She was unhappy about it, so when she was learning the drums, she’d purposefully bash them randomly. The bassist was always the first one to glare. The bassist back then was A-Yuan. Chi Yeyu had looked down on him for a long time and held a grudge, so she’d talk back. They’d go back and forth until Chi Yeyu got so angry she almost picked up a bass to smash over his head.”

Yu Xiu couldn’t help but laugh at the thought. By comparison, today’s Chi Yeyu was far more composed.

Later, Shi Xianyu, who was passing by, stopped them both. She sarcastically remarked that one couldn’t hear and the other couldn’t listen, so what was there to argue about?

A-Yuan immediately had a breakdown, shouting that the bassist was the heart! The soul of a band!

Chi Yeyu shouted back, saying her hearing was excellent, she could even tell how many rounds Shi Xianyu had lost at Mahjong in the next room just by the sound.

Tiangua hadn’t heard this story before. She couldn’t imagine a “young mistress” like Chi Yeyu doing grunt work for the band. “What kind of chores did she do?”

“Oh, so many. Ordering and picking up takeout, going out to buy various odds and ends, running errands to get packages for everyone, cleaning up and taking out the trash. Oh, right, and the most important one, babysitting.”

Yu Xiu’s tone carried unmistakable schadenfreude. Chi Yeyu had used her seniority in the band to prank him before, so he loved seeing her embarrassed.

Shi Shuxue asked in confusion, “Babysitting? What child?”

Yu Xiu gave her a meaningful, slightly surprised look. He paused for a moment, patted her arm, and laughed. “Who else could it be but you?”

That year, Chi Yeyu was 14, a girl who had just started high school. Yet, she was forced by Shi Xianyu to look after a child. She had the kid following her around every day like a little tail.

She was starting to show signs of rebellion, but she hadn’t fully escaped the shackles of her family yet. To learn things and have a sanctuary away from home, she endured the burden and followed Shi Xianyu’s arrangements. She adapted to her role faster than anyone.

However, Chi Yeyu’s teenage temper was nowhere near as good as it was now. She certainly didn’t coddle Shi Shuxue. She treated the 5 year-old as an equal. When Shi Xianyu was around, she’d behave, but the moment Shi Xianyu left, she did as she pleased.

Chi Yeyu would never admit that she was actually envious, even jealous of this child nearly ten years younger than her. Every time she saw Shi Shuxue free from control, no piano, chess, calligraphy, or painting classes, and not even going to kindergarten, she felt a pang of unfairness.

Her own bedroom was twice the size of Shi Xianyu’s rehearsal room, yet she didn’t even have the right to put up a poster.

Her home was full of nannies and drivers, and she was always surrounded by servants. She grew up in a greenhouse, pampered and loved, yet her parents were the only ones who didn’t remember she was allergic to peanuts.

Rather than being a “pitiful vase” at home, she preferred running errands and babysitting in the band. Even though the people here didn’t exactly treat her with “respect,” at least they didn’t treat her like a fragile object.

Moreover, after spending a lot of time with the child, it was inevitable to develop some feelings. The child was young and didn’t remember much. She would sit on a chair all day with a stiff little face, swinging her short legs. Whenever Chi Yeyu saw her, she’d give a wide grin and enthusiastically scoop the child up to “torment” her with hugs.

The child would call her “Sister,” but since there were many sisters in the band, she sometimes called her “Sister Xiao Chi.” The child’s voice was soft and waxy, slightly slurred. Chi Yeyu suspected she was “tongue tied,” so she’d pull at the kid’s cheeks and tell her to stick out her tongue so she could check it.

Later, she realized she wasn’t tongue tied, she just spoke very little and very quietly.

So, when Chi Yeyu had nothing to do, she’d tell her stories. Since the kid wouldn’t talk, listening to someone else couldn’t hurt, right?

She didn’t have any books, and she couldn’t remember many fairy tales, so she made things up. She turned the story of Cinderella marrying the Prince into Cinderella usurping the throne to become Emperor.

Normally, no one told Shi Shuxue stories. she listened with a dazed expression, not knowing how much she understood, and would just nod quietly.

Seeing that Shi Shuxue didn’t criticize her stories, Chi Yeyu found it dull and would make up even more outrageous plots.

But Chi Yeyu couldn’t always babysit for Shi Xianyu. Her high school workload was heavy, and her days off were filled with social events and lessons. On top of that, she had to practice piano for two hours every day, if she hit a wrong note, she’d be scolded by Chi Xin.

Chi Yeyu lived in a fake castle. At banquets, the elders would always push her toward the piano, making her play for middle-aged men whose names she couldn’t remember. She had recently messed up a Chopin piece at a recital, and before this performance, she was warned by a stern glare from Chi Xin. The flames of rebellion rose once again.

The music flowed elegantly, but halfway through, she arched an eyebrow and slammed her palms down on the keys. Amidst the angry shouts of her parents, she sprinted away.

She didn’t want to be the Chi family’s “social business card,” she didn’t want to cater to her parents’ perfectionism, and she certainly didn’t want to be groomed into a so-called “upper class elite.”

But her rebellion felt like banging her head against an ice wall. The wall remained thick and hard, only showing a few spider web like cracks, while she was left bleeding, bruised, and frozen.

One night, she snuck out of the house, ran to the main road, caught a taxi, and arrived at the building where the band usually practiced.

Naturally, no one was upstairs at that hour. The street was silent, and the streetlights were out. She had nowhere to go. A sour feeling rose in her nose. She sniffled in the wind, coldly slapped herself once, and finally found a 24-hour convenience store to sit in and daze off.

She sat on a high stool with her legs tucked in and eventually fell asleep against the narrow table. The next morning, she was woken by the sensation of someone tugging at her sleeve.

Groggy, she looked down. Standing on the ground was a small, short figure with a chubby baby-face and a little ponytail. It was Shi Shuxue.

“Why are you sleeping here?” Shi Shuxue asked.

Chi Yeyu rubbed her aching neck and shoulders, jumped off the chair, and stretched. “I was sleepwalking. What about you? Why are you here alone?”

Shi Shuxue stared unblinkingly at the exposed scars on her arm. After a silence, she said, “I come here every day.”

“…Does Shi Xianyu not look after you?” Chi Yeyu froze and asked.

Shi Shuxue said, “She makes you look after me.”

Chi Yeyu laughed. So, she was the only one doing the “looking after.” How could there be such irresponsible adults?

Shi Shuxue looked up at her. Her baby like curled eyelashes trembled slightly, and her dark, large eyes held a maturity unbefitting her age. “So you can’t die. If you die, no one will be with me.”

Chi Yeyu looked at the morning sun outside and the vendors beginning to set up their stalls. She stared blankly for a moment. Suddenly, she turned, squatted down, and rubbed the small head. Her clean, crisp voice carried a rare hint of tenderness: “I’m not going to die. What are you thinking? If Shi Xianyu won’t take care of you, I’ll just steal you away.”

The night before, she couldn’t even figure out where she wanted to go, but after waking up, her mind had cleared, and her mood lightened considerably.

Exactly. She was only 14. If she had to fight Chi Liting and Chi Xin, so be it. Why should she make things hard for herself when life was so big?

Later, Chi Yeyu recruited Yu Xiu into the band, and the two would occasionally have a drink at a bar.

Chi Yeyu was a few years younger than Yu Xiu, but she didn’t act like a junior at all. She joked and chatted with him, occasionally sharing stories of her past. Yu Xiu didn’t know everything, but he could piece things together from bits and pieces online.

However, he didn’t find Chi Yeyu “pitiful.” If this “young mistress” was considered miserable, then there were no happy people left in the world.

“So, you see,” Yu Xiu said in the rehearsal room after finishing his stories about Chi Yeyu’s past. He looked at Shi Shuxue with a smile. “You were raised by Chi Yeyu for a long time when you were little. Do you really not remember a single thing?”