"Look at you, your whole life’s been tragic enough. Last time I saw you was in the labor camp, and now I see you again, it’s in a mental hospital, ai... What on earth have you been through." Ding Dongqin helped Ye Qing towel her hair dry while muttering, "Your mom actually treats you pretty well. Every time she comes she brings you all kinds of food and daily stuff, tells you stories about your past. Think about it, you’ve been listening to this for so many years now, how come there’s still not the slightest reaction from you."

Ye Qing’s eyes stared blankly into the distance, unfocused, so you couldn’t tell what exactly she was looking at. Ding Dongqin talked, and she didn’t react.

Ding Dongqin was used to it. After drying her hair, she gave it a comb, then didn’t go tend to other patients, but sat right down next to her, followed her line of sight and also looked into the distance. "Actually, the two of us are both unlucky. Look at me: after I got out from inside, I was divorced from my man in just a few years. I raised my girl alone, scraped together enough to get her into a model school. Now she’s married, has her own little family, and her in‑laws don’t really like her coming back to her mother’s place too often, so... ai, we don’t want to put our daughters in a bind between two sides, so I found this kind of job looking after patients, living year‑round in a psych ward. Ai... Being stuck here every day, I don’t even know if I’ve caught mental illness myself. I’ve thought it through: if I live another seven or eight years and can’t move anymore, I’ll just swallow a handful of pills, so I don’t make things hard for myself and my daughter can have peace of mind. Do you think that scheme of mine will work?"

Ye Qing still didn’t answer. Ding Dongqin went on, "These days I’ve got a friend asking if I’d be willing to go to another country. She says the currency over there isn’t worth much; if we take our money and exchange it into theirs, one yuan can be exchanged for several units of theirs. If we had fifty thousand yuan, that would be like ten units of their money. That’d be something, wouldn’t it. Here we’re poor people, but over there we’d be rich. Ai, it’s a pity I don’t have much in savings, and I don’t have any real skill. I’d still end up doing odd jobs over there. Better to stay on one’s own land."

When Ye Qing heard this, her fingers moved ever so slightly, but Ding Dongqin didn’t notice. She just sat there and started talking about the people and things she’d run into recently.

.......

When Qiu Hualan and Du Guangjun came to see Ye Qing, she hadn’t gone out to bask in the sun; she was lying on the bed alone, eyes closed, not asleep though.

Thinking she was asleep, Qiu Hualan quietly pulled the quilt up over her. While Du Guangjun went out to get Ye Qing’s meal, Qiu Hualan sat at the side of Ye Qing’s bed, sighed, and looked at her as she talked to herself: "We didn’t come yesterday because Hua Hua’s grandma fell sick. Yesterday your Uncle Du and I went over to see her. It’s not a good illness, the doctors say it can’t be cured, and it’s going to take a lot of money to treat. Hua Hua’s grandpa wants to use the money you left for Hua Hua; I disagreed. The doctors already said it can’t be cured, to spend that money on treatment now would just be wasting it... Ai, but letting her just hang on like this is also suffering. We’ll do conservative treatment. When I left, I slipped two thousand yuan for her. That’s us doing the decent thing. Right now everything in our family is good, it’s just you... Daughter, what blow did you take, that after all these years you still haven’t figured things out? Hua Hua comes to see you how many times every year, and you don’t feel anything? Look how outstanding he is now: he’s about to go to high school, give it a few more years and he’ll be starting a family. We’re getting older and older; if one of these days we really go, and leave Hua Hua with you like this, what will happen then?"

Ye Qing kept her eyes shut and didn’t make a sound. She just lay there quietly listening.

Qiu Hualan went on, "My little business now is doing pretty well, the money I save up every year I’ve been putting away. Prices keep going up, and getting married and taking a wife takes a lot of bride price, plus you—those savings you put away back then are almost used up too. All this money will be for the two of you to use when the time comes. All your mom hopes for is that you can get better. If you get better, our whole family can really be happy. We’ll just live our own life quietly and peacefully, and we mustn’t compare ourselves with others. We can’t compare. Understand?"

"Everyone has their own way of living. Look at things now, your mom feels this is pretty good already, no worse than Liang Hongmei in any way. As long as we live happily, that’s enough."

Qiu Hualan chattered on, as she did every time she came, talking for the better part of a day. When Du Guangjun came back with the meal, there was still no sign Ye Qing was going to wake up. Qiu Hualan put the food in a thermos container for her. After sitting a while, the two of them left.

When the two of them walked out the door, Ye Qing opened her eyes and looked out the window, just like that, waiting for her mom’s figure to appear, quietly watching her walk away. Only after a long, long time did she take back her gaze, as if she had only just managed to carve her mom’s back view deeply into her heart.

.....

Half a month after this, Ye Qing slipped into Ding Dongqin’s room in the middle of the night when no one was paying attention.

When Ye Qing stood in front of her, she scared Ding Dongqin into letting out an "ah"—she thought Ye Qing had gone crazy.

But then, out of the mouth that hadn’t spoken in so many years, Ye Qing uttered a few words. Her thinking was clear, her expression normal, and what she said left Ding Dongqin utterly astonished.

That night, Ye Qing stayed in Ding Dongqin’s room for more than three hours.

After that, Ding Dongqin went away for a few days. When she came back she didn’t go seek out Ye Qing, but the two of them were in close contact in private.

Time passed day by day, the weather slowly grew hotter, and Hua Hua was on vacation too. Once again, Qiu Hualan brought him to see Ye Qing.

In the two months that had passed, Hua Hua’s grandma on the other side was already done for. In just those few months, she was gone, just like they say: illness comes like a fierce beast, and when a person goes, they just go. She was only buried at the end of last month, and Hua Hua had lost yet another family member.

Hua Hua couldn’t really say what he felt about this grandma. She treated him very well, and he relied on her, but he wasn’t too willing to stay with them, because he’d always felt it was because of them that his mom went crazy. So in these past few years, the place Hua Hua went the most was Qiu Hualan’s home.