Xiao Mei had worked in the Ning household for so many years that the family considered her part of the family. Hearing she was going home for the New Year to get married naturally made everyone happy for her.
Grandma Ning was old-fashioned. Although nowadays people like Xiao Mei are called housekeepers or domestic helpers and they’re no longer seen the way they were in the past as little sisters or house aunties within the family, Grandma Ning still privately felt responsible for her.
So, she took out two months of her retirement salary and asked Ning Jianguo to help prepare a dowry for Xiao Mei as a token of thanks for all her years of care.
Ning Jianguo knew almost nothing about women’s things, and after thinking it over, he decided to entrust Wang Yihong with the task. She had recently married herself and had researched current trends for dowries, bedding, and related items; making her the perfect choice.
One weekend, Aunt Wang took Xiao Mei on a two-day shopping spree. First, they went to a shop on Nanjing Road to buy a bright red four-piece bedding set. Then they went to a clothing store to buy two outfits: one for the wedding toasts and one for daily wear. After that, they went to the Nanjing Hair Salon across from Qiao’s Courtyard to style Xiao Mei’s bridal updo and do her makeup.
By the time the busy duo returned to Jiande Lane, night had already fallen.
Grandma Ning specifically had Xiao Mei change into the red suit she’d wear for the wedding toasts, and made her turn around twice under the main hall lights. Looking at Xiao Mei, now completely transformed, the old lady kept nodding in approval.
Aunt Wang teased that the old lady was treating this like watching her own daughter get married.
“I’m just an old woman without that kind of blessing… I never had a daughter in this life. I truly treated Xiao Mei like my own daughter…”
Grandma Ning wiped her tears with the back of her hand, and Xiao Mei couldn’t help but feel her nose sting as well.
“Grandma, after I get married, I’ll still come back to Shanghai to take care of you.”
Xiao Mei held Grandma Ning’s hand, her eyes reddening.
“Silly child. Once you’re married, of course you should stay with your husband’s family. What kind of newlyweds live apart right after getting married?”
As she spoke, Grandma Ning glanced at Ning Jianguo, who was standing at the entrance of the main hall.
Ning Jianguo gave an awkward laugh and pulled Zhao Jingwen outside to talk.
“What are we going to do? Once Xiao Mei leaves, who’s going to take care of the old lady?”
Zhao Jingwen scratched the back of his head, looking troubled.
“We’ll have to find another housekeeper sooner or later. But with the New Year coming, there aren’t many people in the labor market. We’ll have to wait until after the Lantern Festival1fifteenth day of the first lunar month, that’s when migrant workers start coming back to Shanghai. There’s no point rushing now.”
Ning Jianguo hadn’t expected Xiao Mei’s marriage to be settled so quickly.
During National Day, she had only taken three days off to go home and visit family. After she came back, she mentioned she had gone to meet a potential match, and after that, she barely kept in touch with her family.
Ning Jianguo knew her relationship with her brother and sister-in-law wasn’t very close. She rarely even made phone calls. So for her to suddenly turn around and say she was going back to get married… no one could have seen that coming.
“What about the old lady then? Move her into the Workers’ New Village? We can’t just leave her living alone in that old house, can we?”
Although Grandma Ning could still get around just fine, she was getting on in years. There was no way Ning Jianguo, such a dutiful son, would feel at ease letting her live by herself.
“Yeah, we’ll move her into the apartment building for now. We’ll figure out the rest after the New Year. Luckily, the school’s on winter break, and the cafeteria’s closed. I’ll be home every day, so I can take care of Mom.”
That was one advantage of working at a school, at least winter and summer breaks were guaranteed. Ning Jianguo felt grateful that he could spend more time with both his mother and his son.
“Then… what about us?”
As Zhao Jingwen spoke, he reached over to hook an arm around Ning Jianguo’s waist.
Once the old lady moved in, finding chances to meet and be affectionate wouldn’t be so easy anymore.
Don’t underestimate her, she might sit quietly in the alley on her rattan chair like a Buddha statue, not saying a word, but those eyes of hers were basically like X-rays and searchlights.
Everything happening in the alley, men and women coming and going, she saw it all.
If some family’s daughter suddenly changed her hairstyle, chances were she’d changed boyfriends too. If a man left home with slicked-back hair and came back with a lipstick stain on his collar, then almost certainly, he’d been fooling around outside. The old lady knew everything clearly, she kept her own mental ledger of it all.
The deception tricks the two of them used might work to fool the kids, but in front of her, they’d probably have nowhere to hide.
“Just endure it. What else can we do?”
Ning Jianguo jumped in fright and quickly brushed his hand away. People were constantly coming and going in the alley, if anyone saw them, even ten mouths wouldn’t be enough to explain it clearly.
“We really need to buy a place…”
Zhao Jingwen muttered as he pulled his hand back. “Then I’ll just buy a smaller place, a one-bedroom. Keep it from everyone. Just the two of us living there.”
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
Ning Jianguo said, half laughing, half exasperated, “What, are you planning to kick Fan Xia out of the house?”
“You don’t know? Your Xiaobei is planning to apply to X University Affiliated High School. That school requires boarding. When the time comes, both of them will be living in the dorms; only coming home on weekends and during winter and summer breaks.”
He had heard all this from Fan Xia.
According to the school system, once the second semester of second year middle school starts, students are streamed. Some prepare for the high school entrance exam, while others get ready to enter the three school paths—technical school, vocational high school, and secondary specialized school.
Counting both lifetimes, Ning Xiaobei had already spent nearly nine years studying at No. 1 High School. By the time he reached his final year of middle school, it would be ten. Even a PhD only takes about eight years from start to finish. Ning Xiaobei had decided it was time for a change of environment and planned to apply to X University Affiliated High School.
At first, Fan Xia had no idea. Naturally, he assumed that since his boss had once loved No. 1 High School so deeply, refusing offers from so many other schools, he would continue there for high school.
No. 1 High School was quite accommodating to its own students. As long as you reached the high school admission score line in the entrance exam, you would basically be accepted. Fan Xia had planned to just follow along and continue drifting through school with him.
After all, with Yan Bingru gone, there wasn’t really anything wrong with No. 1 High School anymore.
Who would’ve thought that a few days ago, Ning Xiaobei privately told him he planned to apply to X University Affiliated High School and even prepare for its interview. That instantly snapped Fan Xia out of his long stretch of laziness. X University Affiliated High School — getting in there was no joke.
His grades were consistently in the top ten of the year, but to get into that school, he’d still need to push himself a bit further.
Fan Xia had long made up his mind. No matter what, he wouldn’t be separated from Ning Xiaobei. Stimulated by this news, even during winter break, he kept a book in his hands all day, studying hard enough to leave Zhao Jingwen completely baffled. Only after asking did he learn the reason.
“I knew about Xiaobei’s plan. But what does that have to do with buying a house?”
Ning Jianguo lowered his voice. “And speaking of houses… I think Jiande Lane is going to be demolished soon.”
When he brought people home earlier, several neighbors came over to chat. They said that in the past few days, strangers had often been seen coming and going in their alley and nearby ones, carrying equipment. The older men went up to ask what was going on, but the people refused to say anything.
In the end, it was Miss Wu who stepped in, the pretty one who worked as a shop assistant at the Friendship Store. After offering cigarettes and drinks, she finally got them to loosen up. They said it had nothing to do with demolition; it was just that the authorities were planning a new subway line, so they were surveying the ground conditions.
Well, didn’t that line up exactly with the earlier rumors?
Old houses like those in Jiande Lane had been around for at least a hundred years. But you couldn’t really call them protected historical buildings, they didn’t meet the criteria. After all, no famous figures had ever lived there, and no major historical events had taken place. They were just ordinary shikumen residences, nothing particularly worth preserving.
Shanghai these days was like one giant construction site. So many places were being torn down; if Jiande Lane were next, it wouldn’t be surprising at all.
But demolition projects involve too many factors—household registration issues, compensation based on floor area, relocation arrangements… it’s a classic case of pulling one hair and the whole body moves. So it was understandable that those people kept tight-lipped. After all, the demolition office hadn’t even officially moved into the neighborhood yet — everything was still up in the air.
Even so, just based on this bit of news, people in the alley had already started making quiet moves behind the scenes.
Take Old Master Song’s family, for example. They already had a huge household, with sons and daughters-in-law, grandsons and their wives, even great-grandchildren. But to get more compensation when the housing was allocated, maybe even snag an extra apartment or two, they were now planning to move the household registrations of his two daughters, who had been married off for over forty years, along with their children and grandchildren, back into the family registry.
Then there was Aunt Yang’s family. They didn’t have many people, just four including her widowed mother-in-law. But somehow she’d heard that demolition compensation wasn’t based only on registered household members and the official floor area, it even counted loft spaces, at least partially. So these past few days, Uncle Yang had been busy building a loft at home.
When Ning Jianguo and the others came in, Uncle Yang was sawing wood in the alley. Seeing Ning Jianguo, he sincerely praised him for being so far-sighted back then, having the foresight to build a loft when Xiaobei was still in elementary school. If he’d known things would turn out like this, he would’ve joined Ning Jianguo back then instead of scrambling at the last minute now.
In short, because of the demolition issue, the whole of Jiande Lane had been thrown into a state of unease. People couldn’t even celebrate the New Year properly.
Grandma Ning must have known about all this, but in front of her son, she didn’t mention a single word.
And what did that mean? How could Ning Jianguo not understand?
His mother simply couldn’t bear to leave this place. She had said it herself, she wanted to die here.
But city development doesn’t care whether you’re willing or not. Being a holdout never ends well. When the time comes, once the water is cut and the electricity pulled, even if you don’t want to leave, you’ll have no choice.
Every time Ning Jianguo thought about it, he felt it was a complete headache. When the time came, he would have to think carefully about how to persuade his mother, how to make her leave this place she had lived in for over fifty years willingly.
………………
On Xiao Mei’s side, she boarded the train back to northern Jiangsu, while at the same time, Grandma Ning was picked up by Ning Jianguo in a taxi and brought to the Workers’ New Village.
To prepare for Grandma Ning’s arrival, Ning Xiaobei vacated his small room. For the time being, he would sleep with Ning Jianguo, while the old lady took the room for herself.
With that, the Nanjing trip they had planned with Ding Zheyang’s parents fell through. After all, the father and son couldn’t just leave the old lady at home alone.
If the Ning family wasn’t going, then the two from the Zhao family naturally wouldn’t go either, and the whole matter was dropped just like that.
After hearing about it, Ding Zheyang even called to check on Grandma Ning. He said that when there was a chance in the future, he would definitely come visit her at the Workers’ New Village, and he wished her a happy New Year in advance.
After hanging up, Grandma Ning kept blinking at her grandson and asked who this Little Ding was. He seemed very polite, but why was he going out of his way to greet her?
“Uh…”
Ning Xiaobei was peeling an apple, but he had no answer to that question either.
“That’s because he’s just a total bootlicker!”
Fan Xia, who had been listening the whole time, angrily punched at the air. He never expected that four-eyes wouldn’t even spare Grandma, he’d actually called the house. At this rate, was he planning to move in next?
“And you, little dark one, why are you always at my house?”
When Grandma Ning opened her eyes that morning, she saw Fan Xia sitting in her son’s living room. Now it was already evening, and the kid was still there. Didn’t he live downstairs?
She didn’t know that the Ning family’s living room was basically a shared hangout space for kids from three nearby households, which was why she asked.
Ning Xiaobei laughed awkwardly.
Fan Xia wasn’t thick-skinned enough to brush it off. Feeling dejected, he waved at Ning Xiaobei and obediently went back downstairs.
In Room 216, Zhao Jingwen was sitting at the table doing accounts, the calculator constantly letting out sharp clear… clear… beeps.
Seeing his nephew come down with his head hanging low, turning on the TV out of boredom with a sulky, punchable look on his face, Zhao Jingwen suddenly found that the messy pile of numbers in front of him seemed a little more lively and pleasing.
Having just moved in, Grandma Ning wasn’t quite used to things. For one, she no longer had her mahjong partners, and for someone used to playing a couple of rounds of low-stakes mahjong every day, it felt very strange.
Residents of the tenement apartments liked to go to the community activity centers around the neighborhood to play mahjong. Grandma Ning went once, only to find it filled with smoke and noise, old men and women crammed together in a chaotic, suffocating atmosphere. She didn’t like it at all and never went again.
And so, nearly half of the winter break had already passed. Every day, the three generations of this family, the old, the middle-aged, and the young, just stayed cooped up at home, staring at each other.
Sometimes even Ning Xiaobei couldn’t stand the stifling atmosphere. He would run downstairs to find Fan Xia to play video games, or go to the nearby small garden to kick a ball and clear his head.
The little men of Rooms 216 and 316 could at least go out and play openly, but it was the old men of the two households who really had it tough.
Clearly one lived upstairs and the other downstairs, separated by nothing more than a ceiling, yet it felt like they were divided by an entire Milky Way. And in this case, the old lady of the Ning family was naturally the Queen Mother of the West2A powerful goddess often associated with authority and control.
“Don’t talk nonsense. If my mom is the Queen Mother of the West, then what are you? Dong Yong?”
After lunch, Ning Jianguo was washing dishes by the sink when Zhao Jingwen suddenly came up from behind and wrapped his arms around his waist, giving him such a fright that water splashed all over his apron.
“You’re the Seventh Fairy, and I’m Dong Yong3Dong Yong and the Seventh Fairy: A poor mortal man marries a heavenly fairy who descends to help him, but their love is ultimately forbidden by the heavens. If you’re the Weaver Girl, then I’m the Cowherd4Cowherd and Weaver Girl: Two lovers separated by the Milky Way are allowed to reunite only once a year on the seventh night of the seventh lunar month. Whatever role you want to play, I’ll cooperate fully.”
With only the two of them left in the house, Zhao Jingwen couldn’t help but sneak in a bit of affection.
Ever since Grandma Ning moved in, he and Fan Xia didn’t dare come over every day to freeload meals anymore, and had gone back to eating wherever they could outside.
Just now, after finishing lunch at a small restaurant near the entrance, he saw Ning Xiaobei helping Grandma Ning out for a walk. He immediately sent Fan Xia home and rushed upstairs, unable to wait to see Ning Jianguo.
“We’re really suffering for this. At our age, even meeting each other feels like doing underground work.”
Zhao Jingwen rested his head on Ning Jianguo’s shoulder. His hair brushed against the skin behind Ning Jianguo’s ear, making him laugh as he tried to dodge.
“Stop messing around…”
“I’m serious. When are you planning to tell Xiaobei about us? We can’t keep this hidden for a lifetime, can we?”
As for Grandma Ning… better not. At her age, it wouldn’t be good to shock her.
But Zhao Jingwen intended to spend his whole life with Ning Jianguo. He had already made up his min. He would never marry in this lifetime, and would raise Fan Xia as his own son. In the future, everything he had built would be entrusted to him.
During this time with Grandma Ning living at home, she hadn’t stopped nagging about Ning Jianguo’s marriage. She had even asked several neighborhood aunties to keep an eye out among relatives or acquaintances for a suitable match, hoping to arrange meetings during the New Year.
Zhao Jingwen saw all of this clearly, and it made him anxious. Whether from stress or pent-up frustration, he’d even started getting mouth blisters.
The old lady had originally set her heart on drinking Wang Yihong’s tea5A tea served by a new bride to elders as part of traditional marriage rituals, but who would’ve thought she’d lose out to Little Zhao from Nanhui who swooped in from the fourth floor? Now that even Xiao Mei had gotten married, the more she looked at Ning Jianguo living all alone, the more worried she became.
“I think the feng shui in this building is terrible. 216, 316— upstairs and downstairs, four men in total. Coming to your place is like stepping into a monk’s temple. No yin energy rising, not even a single female cat. No wonder you’re all still unmarried men. Too much yang energy isn’t a good thing, right, Azi?”
This time, Grandma Ning didn’t come alone, she brought Azi with her.
Although Xiaobei’s asthma hadn’t flared up in a long time, Ning Jianguo still didn’t allow him to cuddle with Azi. Xiaobei could only watch from a distance.
As the only other female in the Ning household, Azi seemed to understand Grandma’s words. “Meow,” she replied, stretching luxuriously, then jumped onto the TV and stared at the mother and son as if watching a drama, her amber eyes wide and attentive.
Ning Jianguo, the devoted son, usually obeyed Grandma Ning in everything, but on this matter, the moment she brought it up, he turned into a dead man—deaf, mute, silent as a stone—ignoring her completely, making her flustered enough to wave her fan furiously in the middle of winter.
“Xiaobei’s still in middle school… how should I put it… maybe wait until after he takes the college entrance exam, right?”
Ning Jianguo said hesitantly.
“That would still be at least four more years,” Zhao Jingwen replied.
He put down the half-washed dishes, turning slightly to study Zhao Jingwen’s displeased expression. “I know it’s hard for you, but I just don’t want to scare the kids…”
“Xiaobei… he doesn’t act like a child.”
Zhao Jingwen rubbed the back of Ning Jianguo’s neck with his nose thoughtfully. “Sometimes, when I look into his eyes, I even get a little nervous…”
“Don’t laugh, it’s true. Sometimes I feel he’s more mature than both of us. He can make decisions on his own and even give advice to others. But when he’s with Fan Xia, goofing around, he’s just a kid again. Jianguo… your son’s a magical spirit”
“What nonsense are you talking? First, you say my mom is Queen Mother of the West, and now you say my son is some kind of spirit.”
Ning Jianguo shrugged, shaking off the man clinging to him, picked up a rag, and went back to the living room to wipe the table.
Honestly, he couldn’t deny it, he felt the same way himself.
His Xiaobei was just… too mature.
The neighbors in the building, the teachers at the textile school—they all had kids around Xiaobei’s age. Even the best-behaved children, like Chang Leyun, would occasionally throw little tantrums or cause minor trouble at school.
No wonder every parent-teacher meeting had repeated reminders: these years were the so-called rebellious adolescence, a crucial and delicate period in a child’s life, and parents needed to pay extra attention.
Ning Jianguo always felt like he was walking on eggshells, worried his son might take a wrong path or fall in with the wrong crowd, just like their classmate Geng Enhua.
Apparently, Geng Enhua had been given a major demerit, moved to a lower track early, and would miss the high school entrance exam entirely the following year.
Nobody would have expected a perfectly fine student ending up like that .
But Xiaobei wasn’t like that at all. Xiaobei was so obedient it almost made his heart ache.
It made Ning Jianguo feel like a completely incompetent father. Other than cooking a bit, occasionally washing clothes (now mostly handled by Zhao Jingwen), he was pretty much useless at home.
Even when Xiaobei got perfect scores, he never asked his father for anything. Any new stationery, clothes, or game consoles Xiaobei had were gifts Ning Jianguo bought on his own after seeing other kids had them.
Xiaobei received each gift politely, thanked him, and used them carefully. Unike Fan Xia, whose father had given him a Little Tyrant learning console, the controller of which had already been broken. The game console now under the Ning family’s coffee table was actually the replacement.
Giving gifts never felt satisfying; Ning Jianguo couldn’t help but laugh and cry at the same time.
So when Xiaobei said he wanted a new mother and made it clear, he hoped Wang Yihong could be his stepmother, Ning Jianguo swallowed his pride and asked her to help.
Xiaobei had never experienced a day of maternal love, even a pretend one, even just a bit of pampering. He wanted to fulfill that wish for his son.
Just thinking about what had happened afterward made Ning Jianguo feel his face heat up. Knowing that even in winter it wasn’t good to seal up completely, he walked over to the window and cracked it open a little.
“By the way, where did your Xiaobei and Grandma go? I saw them standing by the door for a while, it looked like they were waiting for a taxi,” Zhao Jingwen asked as he helped drag the mop across the floor.
“Oh, visiting my mom’s old friend. Her health isn’t great, so this might be the last time she gets to see her.”
That elderly woman hadn’t known that Grandma Ning had moved in with her son. She sent her daughter to find her at Jiande Lane, only to come up empty-handed. It was thanks to the helpful neighbors calling Ning Jianguo’s new home that Grandma Ning hurried over after lunch.
“Your mom’s old friend? Was it a colleague from that big department store on Nanjing Road?”
Zhao Jingwen knew that back in the day, Grandma Ning had been the flower of the lane and the Pen Beauty of Shimai Department Store.
“No, the woman who delivers flowers to my mom every summer, day after day,” Ning Jianguo replied.
Every day, one flower, placed on the milk box. For more than forty years, it had become part of her daily life.
“Oh, the old flower lady,” Zhao Jingwen said, shaking his head with a bit of awe at the tradition.
Ning Jianguo sighed softly. “Looks like next summer, whether Jiande Lane still exists or not, there won’t be the scent of gardenias and magnolias anymore.”
………………
Author’s Note:
Old folks’ love story ⁕facepalm⁕
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