Song Yunshen sat on the bed, staring blankly at Xia Jinshu in front of him. The scene from his dream kept replaying in his mind. As reality and dream gradually became distinct, the palpitation in his chest gradually faded away.
He came to his senses, his eyes gradually regaining focus, and suddenly realized that his left hand seemed to be tightly gripping something.
Looking down, I realized it was Xia Jinshu's hand.
The two hands were now tightly clasped together, and Song Yunshen was stunned when he saw this.
"Are you alright?" Xia Jinshu asked gently, not minding that Song Yunshen. Instead, she reached out her right hand and gently patted the back of Song Yunshen twice to soothe his emotions.
Song Yunshen opened his mouth, but didn't know where to begin. His eyes swept around, gradually taking in the scene around him.
I am in my bedroom.
He remembered that in the afternoon he first went to the cemetery to pay respects to his mother, but then his uncle took him to the hospital where he saw his father who had just had surgery, which made him very angry.
When I got home, I lay in bed wanting some peace and quiet, but I accidentally fell asleep and had a nightmare.
Song Yunshen rubbed his temples, feeling Xia Jinshu's caress on the back of his hand. He subconsciously wanted to pull his hand back, but was a little reluctant to give up this tenderness, so he could only greedily continue to hold Xia Jinshu's hand tightly.
"How did you get in?" Song Yunshen asked in a low voice.
"I messaged you at 3:30 to ask if you were back, but you didn't reply," Xia Jinshu said softly. "Logically, you should have messaged me whether you were back or not, but I didn't receive a message, so I was a little worried, so..."
They still made it through.
The reason was that Xia Jinshu already knew that today was also Song Yunshen's mother's birthday. She had previously guessed that Song Yunshen came from a divorced family, but she didn't know the relationship between Song Yunshen and his mother.
Xia Jinshu was very worried because she hadn't received any messages from him on WeChat.
When they arrived at Song Yunshen's house, they found his usual shoes lying at the door, so they entered the password and went in.
"After I came in, I couldn't find you in the living room or study, and the bedroom door was closed, so I assumed you were in your room," Xia Jinshu continued to explain. "But when I knocked on the door, you didn't respond, and I was wondering if I had made a mistake, when I heard you suddenly call out from inside the room, so I opened the door and went into your room."
"Yes, I'm fine," Song Yunshen said softly. "I just had a nightmare."
After they finished speaking, they both fell silent, and the room became quiet.
Xia Jinshu had no idea what had happened to Song Yunshen afternoon, nor did she know whether she should presumptuously ask him about the matter between him and his mother.
Song Yunshen's mood darkened again as he thought about how his father had been hiding his illness from him. Coupled with the dream he had just had, he exuded a somber atmosphere.
After several minutes of this stalemate, Xia Jinshu finally said softly, "How about we skip class today? You should get some rest."
"No—" Song Yunshen thought she was going to leave, and subconsciously grabbed Xia Jinshu's hand tightly.
Xia Jinshu felt the pressure from his hand, squatted down by the bed, and looked up at Song Yunshen's face. "It's just that I don't have class. If you're in a bad mood, I'll stay with you until five o'clock before going back."
"Let's go to class, I'm fine." Song Yunshen felt he was being a bit dramatic, and finally let go of Xia Jinshu's hand, making a move to get off the bed.
Seeing this, Xia Jinshu immediately stood up and made way for him, watching him walk out of the bedroom before following him out of the room.
Song Yunshen first went to the bathroom to wash his face with cold water, feeling much more refreshed, before coming to the study and sitting down in his chair.
Xia Jinshu, who was standing to the side, took out today's lesson plan, glanced at Song Yunshen's face, and seeing that he had recovered from the previous nightmare, she felt a little relieved and began today's lesson.
But once class started, Xia Jinshu easily noticed that Song Yunshen was different from usual.
Although she was a private tutor, the two were roughly the same age, so Song Yunshen would often crack jokes during class, making the atmosphere pleasant and relaxed.
But Song Yunshen was much quieter today, simply following her lesson plan step by step to complete the class assignments. The whole class was rather boring.
When class ended at 5 p. m., Xia Jinshu was escorted to the door by Song Yunshen. After changing her shoes and carrying her backpack, she looked at Song Yunshen, who was watching her leave, hesitated for a long time, but ultimately did not ask any more questions. She then entered the elevator, said goodbye, and left.
On her way home, Xia Jinshu thought about Song Yunshen, and a lot of things came to mind.
Both she and Song Yunshen came from divorced families, but their attitudes toward their parents' divorce were clearly quite different.
Everyone in her family, including herself and her two younger sisters, fully supported their mother's decision to divorce.
After all, they hadn't really experienced fatherly love growing up. Although life became much more difficult after moving out of their father's house, they were much happier than when they were children.
But Song Yunshen is clearly not like that.
Xia Jinshu could understand Song Yunshen's emotions, but she didn't know how to comfort him.
After much thought, I decided to avoid disturbing them as much as possible.
Thinking this, Xia Jinshu had already walked all the way home.
At this moment, Xia Kening had already been dragged into her room by Xia Yunuo and was sitting at her desk diligently doing her homework. When Xia Jinshu entered the room and saw this scene, she clapped her hands and said, "Let's tidy up a bit. We'll go out to celebrate her birthday after Mom gets off work."
Upon hearing this, Xia Kening immediately stopped her homework, raised her hands, and cheered enthusiastically. "Wuhu! Birthday! Birthday! Big meal!"
Enjoy a big meal!
Xia Yunuo reached out and took Xia Kening's homework, checked it, and then reminded her, "Summer vacation is more than halfway over, and you still haven't finished more than half of your homework. You're not allowed to be lazy anymore in the coming days."
"Why is there still more than half left?" Xia Jinshu asked in confusion, "Doesn't Ningning go to the library often?"
"Ahem." Xia Kening coughed a couple of times, feeling a little guilty. She quickly grabbed Xia Jinshu's shoulders and pushed her out, not forgetting to turn her head and wink at Xia Yunuo, "Oh, I was just being careful, it's normal to be a little slow."
Xia Yunuo pursed her lips and said nothing more, lest Xia Kening, cornered, turn around and betray her.
The three sisters tidied up at home, and by 5:30, Yan Zhenxia had already finished work and arrived home, taking her three daughters out together.
They left the house and headed towards a nearby small restaurant.
When they were having dinner in the evening, the restaurant brought in a birthday cake, which the three sisters had secretly ordered in advance without their mother's knowledge.
When Yan Zhenxia saw the birthday cake, a smile of surprise and happiness immediately appeared on her face, and her eyes even became a little moist.
The three beautiful daughters sat in a circle, clapping their little hands and singing a birthday song. Yan Zhenxia put her hands together and silently made a wish in her heart.
Looking at the scene before her, Xia Jinshu couldn't help but recall the scene of Song Yunshen celebrating her birthday a while ago, and her thoughts immediately flew to Song Yunshen, wondering how he had managed to have dinner tonight.
At that moment, when Yan Zhenxia opened her eyes after making her wish, Xia Kening immediately took out the birthday gifts that the three of them had prepared and handed them to her mother with a smile.
"Why did you buy me new clothes?" Yan Zhenxia complained that they were wasting money, but she was extremely happy, and she couldn't stop smiling.
After celebrating her birthday and eating the cake, Xia Jinshu repackaged the leftovers, planning to take them home for breakfast the next morning.
The family of four returned home and, unusually, instead of each going about their own business, gathered on the large bed in the living room to play cards and chat.
Yan Zhenxia changed into the new clothes her daughters had bought for her, her face glowing with happiness.
They played like that until after 9 p. m. before they went to take showers and prepare for bed.
On the other side...
After seeing Xia Jinshu off, Song Yunshen didn't have much of an appetite, so he didn't rush to eat dinner. Instead, he went back to his study and started playing video games. He called Xu Zhuoyue, Zhong Long, and Deng Shitao to play PUBG on the computer.
Song Yunshen played until after eight o'clock before he felt hungry. He got up, took out the two lunch boxes from lunch, put the bamboo shoot and braised pork that Xia Yunuo had made into the pot and reheated it. Then he sat down at the table and slowly began to enjoy it.
After finishing his meal, Song Yunshen took out his phone and saw that Song Minggui had sent him WeChat saying that he had arranged for Flash Delivery to send over all of his father's hospital reports.
So he got up and went to the front door. After opening the door, he saw the takeout bag on the ground, bent down to pick it up and brought it inside. He walked back to his bedroom, sat down at his desk, took out the documents inside, and carefully looked through them.
Song Mingyuan's problem mainly stems from his heart. According to the patient's self-report above, as early as the beginning of the year, he frequently experienced intermittent chest tightness and pain, which developed into unstable angina by April or May.
After undergoing examinations at the hospital, it was determined that surgery was needed to insert a coronary stent to stabilize his condition. However, because Song Mingyuan's vascular plaques were unstable and he also had myocarditis, performing the stent procedure directly could trigger a myocardial infarction at any time.
Therefore, before surgery, the patient needs to be admitted to the hospital for continuous conservative treatment until the patient's condition stabilizes before surgery can be performed.
This is also the direct reason why Song Mingyuan lied to him, saying he was going on a two-month trip.
If it were just a minor surgery that could be done in three to five days, there would be no need for such a complicated procedure.
Fortunately, everything went smoothly. The initial conservative treatment went very well, and the heart stent has been successfully implanted. After a period of further hospitalization to monitor the recovery, if there are no problems, the patient can be discharged at the end of the month.
Nothing bad happened.
But Song Yunshen was still angry.
He sat at his desk for a long time, looking at the hospital reports over and over again. Only after confirming that there were no problems did he tidy up the reports and put them aside.
He then took out a new diary, opened the first page, took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled. After organizing his thoughts, he began to write.
On the other side.
After taking a shower, Xia Jinshu returned to her room, glanced at her younger sister who was already lying on the top bunk, walked to her desk, took out the diary from the drawer, and opened it as usual, intending to see if Song Yunshen had written anything in his diary today.
But the next second, she froze.
The diary was completely blank.
It's not that the subsequent content is completely blank, but rather that all the diary entries that Song Yunshen had already written have disappeared!
Xia Jinshu was completely stunned and at a loss for what to do.
She felt empty inside, as if a piece of her chest had been ripped out, leaving her feeling lost and helpless.
What's going on?
Why can't I see it?
It was working fine yesterday, how come it's all gone today!
Xia Jinshu kept recalling the entire process from last night until now, wondering if she had done something that caused Song Yunshen to be unable to see his diary.
But no matter how much she thought about it, she still couldn't figure out what was going on.
After all, she didn't really understand the principle behind suddenly being able to see Song Yunshen's diary, nor did she understand how this ability came about. So when she discovered that her ability to peek at Song Yunshen's diary had disappeared, Xia Jinshu was completely unprepared.
It's like playing a game and using wallhacks all the time. Then one day the cheat is banned. Even if you can still see the screen, it still feels like everything goes black, as if you can't see anything at all.
That's exactly how Xia Jinshu feels right now.
If you're going to take off towards me, then go ahead, but don't let me miss your diary entries!
Xia Jinshu paced back and forth in her bedroom, clutching her diary, her mood extremely agitated.
Xia Yunuo, who was on the upper bunk, noticed that something was wrong with her. She rolled over on the bed, still holding her Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toy, and asked Xia Jinshu below, "Sis, what are you doing?"
Hearing Xia Yunuo's question, Xia Jinshu snapped back to reality, quickly stopped, sat down on the edge of the bed, and replied somewhat guiltily, "No,
"It's nothing, I'm just thinking about my lesson plan for tomorrow."
"Oh." Xia Yunuo didn't believe her nonsense, but seeing that she wouldn't say, she didn't ask any further questions.
Meanwhile, Xia Jinshu was still flipping through the blank diary, hoping to find even the slightest trace of handwriting.
Perhaps her prayers worked, for when she opened the first page of the diary again, there was a completely new entry!
This made her eyes light up instantly, and she quickly looked at the date on it - August 9, 2025.
This is today's diary entry!
She can even see Song Yunshen's diary!
However, all those previous diaries have disappeared for some unknown reason.
For some reason, the moment Xia Jinshu saw tonight's diary entry, she breathed a sigh of relief, and her previously anxious emotions gradually calmed down.
She composed herself, laid the diary out on her lap, and quickly continued reading, as if afraid that the entries would become blank again and be lost forever.
[Saturday, August 9, 2025]
Today is my mother's birthday. At noon, I asked Nuonuo to make me a dish of braised pork with bamboo shoots, which was my mother's favorite dish when she was alive.
Xia Jinshu was completely stunned after reading just the first paragraph.
She opened her mouth, but couldn't speak for a moment. She was enveloped by an inexplicable sadness. Thinking of Song Yunshen's nightmare earlier that day, she couldn't help but purse her lips.
So they weren't divorced after all.
Song Yunshen's mother has already passed away.
I even told him before that it was my mother's birthday today. Is that why he's so upset?
The thought of this possibility filled Xia Jinshu with a constant stream of self-reproach.
After lunch, Nuonuo went next door to give Yingying her lesson, while my uncle and I got into my uncle's car and went to the cemetery to see my mother.
[My mother's tombstone is in the 18th row, first position in section 24 of the west side of the cemetery. This was a spot that my father and I specifically chose.]
[After arriving, I placed the prepared offerings one by one, then squatted in front of the tombstone and spoke my heart to my mother.]
[Every half hour, I burned some silver ingots for my mother, along with a diary I'd kept for over six months, hoping she could receive it from heaven and read it when she was bored to see how her beloved son was doing. [Although it contained quite a few embarrassing things, she's still my mother, so a little embarrassment is fine, there's no need to be ashamed.]
Upon reading this, Xia Jinshu blushed slightly, feeling a little embarrassed for Song Yunshen as she thought about the diaries he usually wrote.
Especially since he previously wrote about his takeoff, how could he show that to his mother?!
You're not ashamed? I am!
Xia Jinshu felt her face getting hot, and felt somewhat embarrassed.
But then she realized something: her diary had suddenly become completely blank. Could it be that Song Yunshen had burned it for his mother?
Xia Jinshu used to not believe in ghosts.
But now that even the superpower of peeking into other people's diaries from afar has appeared, does that mean Song Yunshen's mother in heaven could actually see it after he burned it?
Thinking about this, Xia Jinshu felt even more embarrassed.
After all, Song Yunshen not only wrote about her taking off in his diary, but also often called her "Mama Xia".
Wouldn't the auntie be angry if she saw this?
"Auntie, I'm so sorry, it's not my fault. It was Song Yunshen who insisted on calling me that." Xia Jinshu Shu clasped her hands together and silently apologized to Song Yunshen's mother in her heart. After sincerely explaining, she continued reading.