Shen Wangjing froze for a moment.
Several cycles of beeping passed on the monitor before he slowly spoke, his voice deeper than usual, as though rising from the bottom of a deep well.
"She passed away a long time ago."
Just days after giving birth to Shen Yuxing, she had suffered a postpartum hemorrhage. The village clinic had poor facilities, and by the time she reached the County Hospital, it was already too late.
She had been mute, unable to speak, and had relied entirely on gestures and writing to communicate.
But most of the villagers were illiterate and could not read what she wrote, so she would sit alone beneath the jujube tree by the courtyard gate, looking toward the end of the village road for an entire afternoon.
"She had beautiful eyes, but they always looked a little melancholy. Even when she smiled at me occasionally, it was only a faint smile." Shen Wangjing's voice slowed. "Every night, she would sit beside my bed and gently pat my back."
Jiang Xun pulled the quilt up, covering half his face and leaving only a pair of eyes that shone dazzlingly beneath the night-light.
Shen Wangjing raised his hand and rested his palm on Jiang Xun's back.
His movements were a little awkward, the pressure uneven, but he still imitated the mother in his memories, stroking his palm over Jiang Xun's back again and again.
Jiang Xun's back was taut beneath his palm. Shen Wangjing smoothed down the tuft of hair sticking up at the back of his head without speaking.
All those grievances suppressed for seventeen years, all that loneliness of not being wanted, all those repeated cycles of being pushed away and caught again, abandoned and found again-
He could relate to all of it.
In the corner