To hide the slight turmoil in her heart, Xu Qian picked up another crawfish from the bowl on the table, shook it, but didn’t start to peel it.
As the two chatted and ate, a pile of crawfish shells began to accumulate on the table.
Xu Qian asked, "Are you really interested in him?"
"..."
Only then did Li Liping realize sothing was off about Xu Qian. She had asked too many questions about Wang Jian. Under normal circumstances, no one would dig so deeply. Instantly, a possibility occurred to Li Liping—Xu Qian had indeed noticed sothing when she visited her house earlier, and it had made her uneasy.
Before, Li Liping had been completely unshaken, even able to half-jokingly tease Xu Qian. But now, realizing what Xu Qian might have sensed, she suddenly panicked.
This panic was strange, and Li Liping herself didn’t know where it ca from. Over the past week, her own audacious behavior had made her feel as though she were fearlessly liberating herself, acting with a reckless abandon. But what was the cause of this inexplicable panic now?
Li Liping fell silent. Xu Qian simply stared at her, a crawfish still in her hand.
In that brief mont, both won understood sothing.
As children, we all had a favorite toy, sothing we cherished with pure affection. But the feeling of having it taken by a relative’s child—once you experience it, you never want to feel it again. So people even co to resent that relative... and their child.
Xu Qian looked at the crawfish in her hand, having lost all desire to peel it. Her thoughts drifted. Sohow, she was reminded of her childhood because, in that instant, she felt exactly as she had back then.
She rembered the item she saw in Wang Jian’s pocket and asked, "When did it start?"
Li Liping looked into Xu Qian’s eyes and saw many things she herself lacked. She put down the half-peeled crawfish and said, "Xiao Qian, you..."
Mid-sentence, Li Liping stopped herself. She couldn’t bring herself to voice the excuses she had prepared because Xu Qian’s gaze seed to peer into the depths of her soul, compelling her to speak the truth. "Actually, I haven’t fallen for Wang Jian."
"Well, since you want to know, I’ll just tell you straight," she sighed.
Losing her playful deanor, Li Liping spoke with resolve, "You probably know that Zhang Li ca back this ti because of an accident at the construction site, right?"
We were talking about Wang Jian, so why is she bringing up Zhang Li?
Xu Qian frowned slightly, waiting for Li Liping to continue.
"It’s all because of Zhang Li." Li Liping sighed. "He has a problem... down there. For years, let alone having children, we haven’t even been able to be intimate."
"But that’s not..." Xu Qian started to say that wasn’t an excuse for infidelity, but Li Liping cut her off.
"I know what you’re thinking. We’ve known each other for a long ti now, you should know what kind of person I am... or at least, you know what I used to be like."
Xu Qian nodded, but Sothing still felt off. After all, considering the current situation, how could she possibly believe her?
"It all started the day Wang Jian returned," Li Liping continued, her voice laced with a helpless resentnt. "For so insane reason, Zhang Li and my father-in-law actually wanted to... sleep with Wang Jian, to carry on the Zhang family line. They’re so desperate for a child they’ve lost their minds. They didn’t even stop to think that even if Wang Jian and I did it, would the baby truly be a Zhang?"
"But no matter what I said, they were dead set on it," Li Liping scoffed, the feeling of powerlessness washing over her as if she were reliving their argunts. "When I first t Zhang Li, he wasn’t like this. When I first joined their family, my father-in-law wasn’t like this either. They’ve treated well all these years, and we were very close. When this happened, I honestly thought about just running away, but in the end, I endured it."
"To be honest, Zhang Li started hinting at it last year. He brought it up indirectly several tis, but you know what the young n in the village are like. I refused, of course, adamantly."
At this point, Xu Qian basically understood the situation.
But Li Liping wasn’t finished. "At first, I refused to even consider it with Wang Jian. But then Zhang Li got on his knees and begged ... I felt like I had no choice. Then... later..."
"Later, I don’t know how, but my whole mindset just flipped. I figured if they were going to force , I might as well try to get so enjoynt out of it." Li Liping paused, revealing the thoughts she’d had at the ti. "That idea was like a poison. Once it took root, it sprouted instantly."
"I... I was like a wild horse that had broken its reins, doing so many things I never would have dared to even imagine before."
At this, Li Liping turned to Xu Qian to reassure her, "But don’t worry, Wang Jian and I haven’t actually done anything. The funny thing is, that kid Wang Jian isn’t interested in at all. No matter how my husband tried to persuade him, he refused. He even said he wanted to help cure Zhang Li."
"Hah..." Li Liping just shook her head and fell silent, having only ever confessed these things to Wang Jian before.
Xu Qian’s mouth hung slightly open, her lips plump and swollen from the spicy crawfish, but not a single word erged.
What could she say? That it was pitiful? She was a woman, too, and her own experiences were no better than Li Liping’s. She knew better than anyone that for this kind of suffering, there were no words of comfort.
Suddenly, Li Liping asked, "If you were , what would you do?"
"I..." Xu Qian faltered, realizing she was doing sothing quite similar herself. She could only manage to force out four words. "I don’t know."
Li Liping’s eyes were red, but she wasn’t crying. She just asked, "What about you? You and Wang Jian..."
The two won abandoned their crawfish and began to confide in one another. Spurred on by Li Liping baring her soul, the sadness in Xu Qian’s heart faded as she beca imrsed in her own mories.
She told Li Liping everything: the village rumors, her husband’s betrayal, his humiliation of her, and how she had cut up their wedding photo in preparation for a divorce. She didn’t say much about what happened between her and Wang Jian, only ntioning the shift in her feelings toward him.
Even that was enough to leave Li Liping stunned. She had thought her own life was miserable, but compared to Xu Qian, she felt almost blessed.
Without a second thought, Li Liping pulled Xu Qian into a tight embrace.
While telling her own story, Li Liping hadn’t shed a single tear. But now, she couldn’t hold back. The mont she hugged Xu Qian, tears stread from her eyes, impossible to stop. Xu Qian was no better. It had been years since anyone had held her like that, and she broke down as well.
They both burst into tears, wailing loudly.
In the living room, Wang Jian was watching the movie *Flowers Blossom*. The volu was up, and it had just reached a funny scene, but the sound of wailing from the dining area startled him.
He dropped his bowl on the coffee table and rushed out.
When he reached the dining area, he saw the two won holding each other tightly. Their hands were covered in the red, oily sauce, which they had sared all over each other’s clothes, completely oblivious to the ss. Most importantly, they were crying like children.
"You two?"
Wang Jian opened his mouth to ask what was wrong but imdiately clamped it shut. Li Liping, who had been resting her head on Xu Qian’s shoulder, looked up at him and yelled, "Get lost, you stupid man!"
Great! Wang Jian stood there, completely dumbfounded. The two won were crying their hearts out.
He had only taken a few steps back when he heard another shout from behind him.
"Hey! Get back here." It was Li Liping’s voice, still trembling with sobs. "I tell you to leave, and you just leave?"
Wang Jian poked his head back through the doorway as Li Liping ordered, "Go reheat the crawfish."
"Okay!"
Not daring to say another word, Wang Jian picked up the bowl and headed for the kitchen.
Reheat the crawfish? There’s a fresh batch still in the pot. What on earth had just happened between those two was a complete mystery to him.
By the ti Wang Jian returned with the crawfish, the won had stopped crying. Their red, swollen eyes proved that the scene had been real. Xu Qian was now dabbing at her eyes, which stung because she had accidentally rubbed them with her spicy hands.
Watching them rinse their eyes, Wang Jian was once again lost in thought.
Although he couldn’t figure out what had transpired, he did notice one very frightening thing. The way both won were looking at him now was completely different from before, and he couldn’t decipher their expressions at all.
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