Shen Cishu held the business card still warm from Su Li’s touch, her fingertip unconsciously stroking the raised gold foil lettering.
She looked at Su Li, who was staring back at her, and the other woman’s aura and attire, so similar to Mother’s, always made her feel disoriented.
In those moments of confusion, the person standing before her didn’t seem to be Su Li at all, but rather her own mother.
She swallowed hard, her heart filled with hesitation yet tinged with resistance.
Su Li had been honest— when they met yesterday, she had sensed that Shen Cishu was her hidden client.
There was no concealment, but Shen Cishu couldn’t shake the feeling that Su Li was deliberately drawing closer.
She knew herself too well, and she knew Mother too well.
It was as if Su Li was someone intimately familiar with both of them…
Yet deep inside, a yearning still stirred—the regret that had haunted her for years, now within reach.
“I don’t need this.”
She heard her own cold voice, deliberately firm to expose her inner resolve, trying to calm her feelings.
“Mother is irreplaceable. Even though your temperament and attire resemble hers, you are not Mother.”
No sooner had the words left her lips than she felt her heart pounding fiercely.
Her once rigid legs began to tremble slightly.
Her gaze fixed tightly on Su Li, as if afraid she would disappear the next moment.
But as she spoke, her peripheral vision was quietly tracing the waterstained line on Su Li’s shoulder— a dark patch shaped remarkably like the Moss Bamboo Embroidery on her mother’s qipao during childhood.
It seemed that when Su Li had held her just now, the recently washed clothes had left her wet.
Su Li said nothing, only bent down to pick up the scattered business card that Shen Cishu had dropped in her nervousness.
She handed the card back, her face still showing hesitation.
As she moved, a wisp of sandalwood mixed with the scent of rain floated over.
Shen Cishu’s throat tightened; she had smelled this fragrance before in Mother’s Fragrant Wood Jewelry Box on the dressing table.
Outside, thunder cracked again.
Her hand trembled, and the edge of the card creased slightly.
“You don’t have to rush your decision. I’ll always be here.”
Su Li’s voice mingled with the rain, somehow more chilling than the thunder itself.
Shen Cishu felt the first stirrings of compromise within herself.
Her voice was as gentle as Mother’s had been…
But Mother had once said she need not be afraid because she would always be there.
Yet Mother had secretly left her behind.
Shen Cishu’s body shook violently.
She looked at Su Li, struggling to control the panic rising inside her.
Since Mother left, she had faced such weather alone before.
Hadn’t she overcome it all?
She could get through this, too!
She was already a qualified university student, no longer the timid child hiding in Mother’s arms.
This was how Shen Cishu reassured herself, unaware that her clenched nails had dug into her flesh.
At the second crack of thunder, the Sense Lamp at the entrance abruptly went out.
Darkness surged in, and Shen Cishu instinctively stepped closer to the source of warmth.
By the time she reacted, her nose was pressed against the slightly damp fabric of Su Li’s skirt.
She smelled a stronger sandalwood scent, mingled with the distinct mustiness of old books from the library.
That was Mother’s skirt…
Mother’s clothes always carried this scent.
She had always loved that scent on Mother.
“The circuit tripped.”
Warm breath brushed past her ear as Su Li’s gentle voice murmured like a lullaby.
“My phone still has some battery. Do you want me to check…”
“No!”
Shen Cishu’s voice trembled; she swallowed instinctively, her tone pleading and shaky.
She buried her face into Su Li’s embrace as if the person holding her was not Su Li but her mother.
Mother…
It was as if she had returned.
A sourness filled Shen Cishu’s nose, but wrapped in this warm embrace, even the thunder outside seemed less frightening.
Clinging to Su Li greedily yet fearfully, breathing in the scent on her, as if loosening her grip would make Su Li vanish.
The rain suddenly softened.
Shen Cishu heard her own rapid breathing, and the pounding of Su Li’s heartbeat.
Thump thump thump, just like the rhythm of Mother holding her close.
Until lightning cut across the night sky again, Shen Cishu met Su Li’s tender gaze.
Her cheeks flushed as her heart pounded fiercely.
She suddenly stepped back, the cold glow of her phone screen illuminating Su Li’s hand suspended in midair.
Panicking, she quickly lowered her head.
The room’s lights flickered back on.
“I need to think this through.”
She glanced at Su Li once more, still unable to digest everything, then fled back to her room in a hurry, shutting the door tightly to calm herself.
She was a graduate student about to begin her doctorate, soon to be a teacher to many university students.
She was no longer the child who needed to nestle into Mother’s arms.
Even though Su Li reminded her so much of Mother—the scent, the temperament—it was clear Su Li was not much older than herself.
Letting someone younger than her play the role of Mother was something she couldn’t accept.
It didn’t fit her identity as a teacher at all.
She leaned against the closed door, feeling her heart pounding wildly.
…
Su Li sensed Shen Cishu needed time and space to calm down and wisely chose not to follow.
The gentle expression on her face slowly returned to calm.
Her gaze drifted out the window.
Water streaks crawled unevenly down the glass.
Raindrops pounded on the air conditioner’s metal casing with a dull thud.
Across the way, clotheslines in the Resident Building swayed in the wind.
A blue-and-white striped sheet, soaked with rain, hung heavily, drooping downward.
The asphalt road was shrouded in mist.
Electric bikes occasionally splashed through puddles, the water droplets pierced midair by following rain.
Rainwater trickled down the iron bars of the security window, pooling into a small waterfall along the windowsill.
Her phone buzzed incessantly.
Su Li’s expression remained composed.
She had told Xiao Yuyu earlier that she might be busy this evening.
Yet only one person could be this punctual at this hour: Xiao Yuyu.
Su Li took out her phone and looked at the chat screen already flooded with over ninety-nine messages—and still counting.
Just as she expected, it was Xiao Yuyu.
【Cute Yuyu Roll: Logging in!!!】
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【Cute Yuyu Roll: Logging in!!!】