GV – Chapter 80

Si Shan came to the Ye family after Ye Yuhuan turned five. However, it was not her idea to travel thousands of miles to seek refuge with her sister. She would rather have died quietly in a mental hospital than trouble the sister she hadn’t contacted since she got married.

But before her father died, he insisted she go. He said, “My child, go and keep your sister company. The man she married is not a good person.”

When she first arrived, her condition was unstable. There weren’t many days when she was lucid.

Even though lucid moments were few, spread over a year, they should have been enough. Yet in her first year there, she never once saw her brother-in-law, Ye Chu.

It was then that she understood what her father had meant when he said her sister had married the wrong person.

However, the companionship her father had spoken of, Si Shan believed, should not be for her sister, but for her own niece.

Si Zhen was an art teacher. Logically, her job shouldn’t have been busy, but she still left early and returned late. Later, Si Shan learned that Si Zhen simply spent her time after work sitting in a coffee shop not far from home, for the sole reason of being able to see Ye Chu a few minutes earlier when he came back.

She reveled in her own suffering. Si Shan even suspected that when she drank her coffee, she sweetened it with her own pain. How else could one explain such irrational behavior?

At that time, Ye Yuhuan, so small, waited every day for the delivery man to bring them food. Not only did she have to eat by herself, but she also had to feed her auntie.

But she was very happy with just that. She said, “Mommy doesn’t let me go outside. I don’t have any friends. The kids in the cartoons all have friends.”

“But now I have Auntie.”

Five-year-old Ye Yuhuan was the spitting image of her father, as delicate as a porcelain doll. After she said this with her big, blinking eyes, Si Shan, who had just lost both her parents, suddenly found the motivation to get proper treatment.

I have to take good care of this child, she thought.

Later, after her condition improved, Si Shan began to teach Ye Yuhuan to read, watch movies, and take photographs.

She told Ye Yuhuan, “Even if you’re all alone, you should do things that are joyful even when done alone.”

Ye Yuhuan nodded, half-understanding, and obediently took all these words to heart. She obediently learned everything Si Shan taught her very well.

But no matter how good an aunt was, for a child, she could not compare to even terrible parents.

Ye Yuhuan never complained about Si Zhen’s neglect and anger. She endured it silently, silently correcting everything Si Zhen deemed wrong.

But it was to no avail, because Ye Chu did not come home, and only towards him would Si Zhen ever soften.

Si Shan had counted: in the six years she lived with the Ye family, she saw Ye Chu a total of four times.

Once, to pick something up.

Once, for Ye Yuhuan’s birthday.

Once, for the Spring Festival.

Once, for the Mid-Autumn Festival.

He was indeed a man of stunning beauty.

However, his weapon for moving freely in the world of women was not just his appearance, but more prominently, his dashing and naturally romantic demeanor.

When a man becomes the seducer and a woman the seduced, in this male-dominated society, it means that women have lost their only safe territory.

Ye Chu was a philanderer but not a gentleman. He reveled in lust and the madness he caused in others. When he walked away, he could even coolly say, “You initiated it.”

The house was always receiving gifts and cards from various women. The fact that Ye Chu was married had no effect on his charm. Ironically, it even attracted many women seeking excitement, who believed they wouldn’t become too obsessed with a married man. But every week, there were women who came to the Ye house to persuade Si Zhen to divorce Ye Chu.

Up to this point, it seemed to be just a worldly affair of one willing to suffer and the other willing to inflict pain.

But the problem was hidden in the deepest part.

A philanderer should be a philanderer for life, leaving no room for hope. But he chose to marry, to have a family.

And then quickly abandoned it.

As if conducting a terrible experiment.

From then on, he confirmed that he would not be bound by any responsibility and became even more unrestrained. It wasn’t just abandoned women who came to their door, but also men abandoned by their wives. The furniture in the Ye house was always the sturdiest, but it always needed to be replaced every so often.

If Ye Chu was merely indifferent to the flowers he plucked at will, then to the one he had placed in a vase, he could be described as cruel.

All his vicious nature was exposed before Si Zhen. He even took pleasure in this exposure, enjoying the feeling of being sincerely loved by someone even when he was so terrible.

What did all this mean for Ye Yuhuan?

Si Shan was not Ye Yuhuan; she couldn’t know for sure.

But in her memory, ever since Ye Yuhuan’s appearance grew more and more similar to Ye Chu’s, Si Zhen’s treatment of her became less and less like that of a mother to a daughter.

It was as if she were treating an enemy.

Si Zhen had never been to Ye Yuhuan’s parent-teacher conferences, even though it was the same school where she worked, and she was an art teacher with a light teaching load.

Si Zhen only cooked for Ye Yuhuan during holidays, but those meals rarely included dishes Ye Yuhuan liked. They were basically all to Ye Chu’s taste. So in reality, Si Zhen’s cooking was merely in preparation for Ye Chu’s possible arrival; Ye Yuhuan was at most an afterthought.

Si Zhen rarely, or one could say never, hugged Ye Yuhuan. But she never hesitated to point out Ye Yuhuan’s faults, big and small. Even though Ye Yuhuan showed extraordinary intelligence from a young age, Si Zhen could find a novel way to accuse an eight-year-old child of being too selfish. And eight-year-old Ye Yuhuan was already smart enough to understand that “selfish” was an extremely harsh and negative term. That was the first time Si Shan saw Ye Yuhuan cry like a child, wailing loudly. Yet Si Zhen merely watched with a cold sneer, then turned and went to her coffee shop.

Si Shan sensed that Si Zhen seemed to have transferred the hatred she felt for Ye Chu onto Ye Yuhuan, which was why she could always love Ye Chu so sincerely and purely.

But even this absurd drama of love was destroyed by Ye Chu.

Whether it was intentional or careless, on Valentine’s Day of Ye Yuhuan’s eleventh year, he brought a woman home.

Si Shan didn’t see the woman. She stayed in her room in the Ye house all year round, almost never going out. It wasn’t until later, when Si Zhen began to scream her heart out, that she was startled enough to come out and check the situation.

What she saw was a disheveled man and woman. The woman’s top was in a mess, and Ye Chu’s pants were in a mess.

Nearby was a mechanically screaming Si Zhen. Ye Chu frowned and told her to be quiet, to talk things over properly.

And Ye Yuhuan stood by the half-open door, her schoolbag still on her back.

Ye Yuhuan had good hearing and came home from school early. Before she had even put down her schoolbag, she heard strange noises from the bedroom. The door was not tightly closed. She peeked in and found it wasn’t a burglar, but her own father having an affair with a strange woman on her parents’ bed. Could it be called an affair? They were far too brazen.

It was said that Ye Yuhuan ran to the coffee shop to get Si Zhen to catch them in the act. She must have held some hope that her mother would finally be able to let go of this man.

But in the end, Ye Chu was not hurt, the woman with Ye Chu was not hurt. Only Ye Yuhuan had two bright red palm prints on her face.

When Si Shan came out, she immediately took Ye Yuhuan back to her room, wanting to comfort her, to tell her that this was an adult matter and that she was not at fault.

But facing her niece’s silent and seemingly all-knowing eyes, Si Shan fell silent, merely holding her in her arms.

The two of them waited silently for the farce to end.

After that, Si Zhen moved out of Ye Chu’s house, but this retreat dealt the final blow to her already overburdened spirit. The second mad person in the Si family, just as Ye Chu had cursed, appeared.

Under Si Zhen’s influence, Si Shan’s condition also began to deteriorate rapidly. Not wanting to put too much pressure on Ye Yuhuan, Si Shan voluntarily contacted a mental hospital and checked herself in.

She didn’t know what happened after that.

Ye Yuhuan came to see her every week. They would talk about movies and music, but never about their recent lives.

Three years passed in this silent agreement.

Si Zhen passed away.

Si Shan thought that with this, the long disaster was finally over.

But then Ye Yuhuan said she had sent her own father to prison.

That afternoon, the weather was overcast.

Ye Yuhuan brought a lot of fruit and snacks. At first, she didn’t say anything, just sat there blankly. It wasn’t until Si Shan became lucid that a smile of relief suddenly appeared on her face. “I made Ye Chu pay the price.”

Before Si Shan could ask what had happened, Ye Yuhuan continued on her own, “I had seen him use drugs before. I knew this person would never change, so I sent him to a rehab center. After he gets out of rehab, he probably won’t have a good end. He got many young ladies from powerful families addicted to drugs with him. Their parents won’t let him off.”

“I did this to give my mother closure.”

“I’ve done everything I can for her.”

“From now on, I can finally hate her properly.”

“But, I don’t feel particularly triumphant. I’ve become very lonely now, Auntie.”

“My mother wasn’t good to me at all, but she was the closest person to me in this world. Now I’ve lost her. There’s no more love, no more hate. Whatever I do is useless.”

“How terrible it is, if this is what it means to be alive.”

The girl before her, not yet fifteen, was covered in a suffocating despondency. The fifteen years of her life had been filled with more ups and downs than others, making her feel the pain of love before she could experience its joy. Si Shan opened her mouth, but no words came out.

What comfort could she offer her?

Comfort her that because you have lost everything, you can also gain everything?

To say that would be utterly hypocritical. Yet now, three years later, another girl dressed like a cat came to visit her with Ye Yuhuan. They brought a small cat and a beautiful bouquet of flowers. The loneliness on Ye Yuhuan melted into a gentle, quiet stream whenever she was near this girl.

And so, after narrating everything she knew, Si Shan smiled and comforted her red-eyed listener, “But from now on, Huanhuan should be very happy.”

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