The Vanishing Beauty - Chapter 4 - 4

Chapter 4 - 4

Before Yushuang went over to her younger brother's place, Yurui brought Yu Qi to meet up with her. Since her younger sister was coming to the big city for the New Year, it was only proper that she proactively go pay her respects. Yet Yurui would rather make Shi Tongguang spend a bit more money than cause Shuang any trouble.

However, upon hearing that Qi was staying at a hotel, Yushuang immediately refused. Slamming her keys onto the table, she laughed and said, "There's a ready-made place to live, why waste that unjust money? My mom is gone, and both of you are my family." Yurui kept saying it would be too much trouble. Yushuang insisted, "Kanglong is coming with me for the New Year, and he doesn't live at my place normally anyway."

Yurui sighed, saying that such a good man must be held onto.

Yu Qi seized the moment to say, "Congratulations, Sister Shuang."

Yurui emphasized, "He's a doctor, a professor."

"An associate professor," Yushuang corrected.

"He'll be a full professor in a few years," Yurui said with a bright smile.

"Oh goodness, heavens," Yushuang sighed in a bind. "Don't talk about that. I feel pressured. I can't give him anything, and I'm afraid of owing people. Anyway, as I've said, we're just making friends. Marriage and all that? I don't want any part of it right now." Neither Yurui nor Yu Qi spoke. Yushuang continued, "Look at people like Tony Leung and Carina Lau, or Sandra Ng and Peter Chan—they've been together for years without getting married and it's still the same. That certificate is just a piece of paper."

Yurui held a different view. On this issue, her perspective was similar to Yujia's, while in practice, she leaned closer to Yumeng's approach. Ending the topic, Yurui said, "All right, stop talking about this in front of my sister. Next thing you know, she'll become a female bachelor."

Yushuang retorted, "That sounds so harsh. I am selectively choosing not to marry; it's completely different from nobody wanting you." Then she asked, "How are things going with that little boss of yours?" Yushuang's choice of words made Yurui feel slightly uncomfortable on the face. In front of her younger sister Yu Qi, she never called Tongguang "little boss." In her view, the term carried a somewhat derogatory tone. But Shuang was simply a person without any filter. Besides, she had just handed over her house keys, so Yurui couldn't make her lose face.

Yurui kept her tone even. "We're just taking it slow and seeing how things go."

Yushuang turned to Yu Qi. "You've met him, right? What did you think? From a family member's perspective?"

"As long as my sister likes him," Yu Qi replied, deflecting the question with effortless ease.

While telling outsiders that they were just taking it slow, internally, Yurui was "tightening the screws." She believed that her romance with Shi Tongguang shouldn't be dragged out for too long.

A long night brings many dreams.

It wasn't that Yurui lacked confidence in herself; rather, she was habitually driven to achieve phased milestones. Once a relationship had begun, it had to keep moving forward; she couldn't stand lingering in limbo. Shi Tongguang rarely introduced her to his friends. Interpreted in a positive light, it meant he was possessive and afraid of losing her; interpreted in a "serious" light, it meant he didn't want to share his resources with her and remained on guard against her.

Yurui did not consider herself a "gold-digger." She believed romance and personal advancement went hand in hand; she invested true emotion into every single relationship. Without feelings or chemistry, she simply couldn't fall in love. Yet she wasn't entirely selfless either. Yurui liked using Maggie Cheung as an example—the pinnacle figure in their acting profession: "If she didn't date, could she have progressed that much? That final film she did, Clean—yes, the one that won the grand awards—her ex-husband was the director."

So right now, with the Spring Festival here, whether Shi Tongguang would take her to meet his parents had become an issue laid squarely on the table. In the past, he could dodge it, but not anymore. To prepare for this meeting, Yurui had made thorough preparations—prompted entirely by her younger sister.

Yu Qi had asked, "Sis, are you really not working anymore?"

"How am I not working? I'm an actress; I act."

Acting was an industry, but in the eyes of middle-aged and elderly folks, it wasn't the sort of job a proper daughter-in-law should have. To dress up her status, Yurui called Yumeng and said she wanted a title. Yumeng was currently abroad with Weng Yue, visiting her son and taking a vacation on the side. Yet the moment Yurui brought it up, Yumeng knew what she meant. Wasn't this identical to what she, Yumeng, had done right after her divorce? You needed a title and a formal facade before you could go out and make your mark on society.

Without exposing her, Yumeng agreed on the spot, making her the assistant to the general manager of a shell company. General manager's assistant—it sounded impressive.

Everything was ready. Next came the question of how to bring it up. Naturally, she couldn't ask directly; that lacked any sophistication, and his mother wasn't Empress Dowager Cixi. There was no need to explicitly state she was begging for an audience.

Yurui believed she could guide him toward it.

Such guidance couldn't come from her own mouth either; it was best if Yu Qi brought it up. Viewed in this light, her younger sister's trip to the big city had come at precisely the right time.

That day, Shi Tongguang and Yurui took Yu Qi to get fitted for glasses. She normally wore contact lenses, but she also needed a backup pair of regular glasses. The day before, she had accidentally sat on her old ones, snapping two of the frame legs, so a replacement was mandatory. Yu Qi walked back and forth wearing the trial optometry frames while the optometrist behind her kept calling out to test them and see if she felt dizzy. Yurui and Tongguang stood nearby watching.

They paid for the rush service, and in no time at all, the new glasses were ready. The three of them went to a small restaurant for a meal. Yu Qi was still fidgeting with her glasses when she smiled and said out of nowhere, "I'm only brave enough to go outside with this pair. Otherwise, if my contacts break, I literally wouldn't even be able to find my way to the train station." She had eight hundred degrees of myopia; once she took off her glasses, the entire world became a blur.

Yurui and Tongguang chuckled warmly.

Yu Qi continued, "Sis, Brother-in-law, don't worry about me for the New Year. I've signed up for a two-day tour. You two go ahead and take care of your own business."

"What kind of two-day tour?" Shi Tongguang chuckled.

Yu Qi pressed on, "You guys are a family. Brother-in-law, there's no way I can tag along with you to go see your parents." Pausing for a moment, she added, "I won't go. You guys go have your family reunion, and I can just explore on my own."

The question had been thrown out on the table. Let's see how Shi Tongguang would catch it.

Shi Tongguang smiled cheerily, turning the conversation aside and talking about something else. There was no follow-up. The proposition Yu Qi raised was like water washing over a sandy beach, leaving no trace behind in an instant. Yu Qi wanted to launch a second offensive, but Yurui shot her a warning glance.

Yu Qi had no choice but to sound the retreat.

He wasn't willing. That in itself was an attitude; pressing any further was meaningless. When encountering resistance on certain matters, you shouldn't force it. Once everyone agreed and became completely willing, things would naturally move fast on their own.

Yurui couldn't help feeling a trace of disappointment. Was he still looking down on her? In pursuing him, she considered herself trading upward—in terms of looks, education, and capability, where was he exceptionally outstanding? Yet he still felt aggrieved?

Changing the subject, Yurui smiled and said, "Xiao Qi, you're right. After the New Year, I really do need to find myself some proper work. Being young and idle is far too wasteful."

This was also meant as a warning dropped for Shi Tongguang to hear.

"You can go act," he said.

Yurui fell silent.

"You can't just go back to a regular 9-to-5 job," he added.

Yurui smiled. "Why ever not? I need to have a career of my own. Who can you truly rely on by depending on others?" Shi Tongguang's face looked a bit strained. In the past, he would have taken total charge of everything. But since he hadn't answered her sister's prompt earlier, and with Xiao Qi right there beside them, he could only be more circumspect.

After checking out of the hotel, Yu Qi moved over to stay at Yushuang's place, and Yurui followed her, settling in for an extended stay without returning. The two sisters lay in the guest bedroom of Shuang's apartment—the very room Mengjie used to stay in, where some of her clothes were still left behind.

Yu Qi probed tentatively, "Sis, I'm not going on that tour anymore. It's boring."

Yurui clicked her tongue. "Go play your own games."

Yu Qi wanted to dig deeper, but seeing her older sister's foul mood, she clamped her mouth shut. On the twenty-ninth day of the lunar month, Shi Tongguang arrived.

While Qi went out to browse the bookstore, Yurui sat alone in Yushuang's apartment wearing pajamas, facing a cold stove and empty pots. She had no intention of cooking for the New Year. Ever since she became an actress, she had always eaten sparingly; beauty came first. She always remembered the senior actor's warning: "If you eat the rice from that bowl in your hands, you can't eat the rice in front of the camera." Yet, as things stood, Yurui was consumed by a deep sense of crisis—she still didn't have a single bowl of secure, stable rice to eat. How ironic; stability—what even was stability? Ever since she was small, Yurui's life had been tossed about in wind and rain.

Shi Tongguang stood there. In the living room of Yushuang's apartment stood a massive cluster of dried tree branches—Kanglong's "masterpiece." He knew a bit about the I Ching and could read fortune-telling pillars, and he had declared that Shuang's destiny lacked the element of wood, so he placed the tree branches in the southeast corner of the living room to counteract it.

"Don't mind me, go do what you need to do," Yurui said softly.

"Still angry." Shi Tongguang was still smiling cheerfully.

Cynical detachment couldn't solve problems every single time.

Yurui was displeased. "What would I be angry about? That makes no sense."

"It's just for a few hours. I'll go have a meal, and as soon as it's done, I'll come right back to keep you company."

"I don't need it. You're the one forcing me to keep you company," Yurui snapped back.

"I know you feel wronged, but it's New Year's Eve—you can't not go back and show your face at least. I'm a filial son." He was still wearing that goofy grin, and his attempts at smoothing things over failed completely.

"Does that have anything to do with me?" Yurui held her breath, the corners of her eyebrows pulling upward.

"You don't know what my parents' tempers are like."

"Are they born in the Year of the Tiger? Do they eat people?"

"They're just stubborn!" Pausing, Shi Tongguang cast a sideways glance at her and continued, "Actually, there are some things I didn't tell you. It wasn't intentional concealment; I just genuinely felt there was no need. My dad insists that I'm a good match for this one woman, saying we grew up together as childhood sweethearts and know everything about each other."

As expected. Yurui had a hunch all along, yet he actually had the nerve to say it out loud.

"But I don't like her! It's completely impossible, and we're still arguing over it, which is why I didn't tell you. First, I was afraid you'd get mad, and second, I figured it's just a phase. What era is this? Trying to force a low-hanging head to bow? Impossible!" Shi Tongguang's mouth kept running. "One step back brings a vast ocean and clear skies. We're the younger generation; my dear, I know you've been wronged, so this living allowance..."

"Don't you dare talk to me about money!"

"No, I mean, once the third day of the New Year passes and the holiday restrictions lift, we'll go on a trip! Wherever you want, a spontaneous getaway!" He still put on a magnanimous act.

Seeing that Shi Tongguang was willing to lower his head, a small fraction of the pent-up anger in Yurui's chest dissipated. Fine, his attitude was at least sincere; she would place him on probation.

"What does that woman look like?" She tightened her face, deliberately teasing him.

"Ugly! She can't hold a candle to you."

"Let me see."

"Oh, honestly, I might not even have it." Shi Tongguang pulled out his phone and flipped through. He actually found a picture—a selfie. Yurui stretched her neck over to take a peek.

She looked roughly like some Korean women before plastic surgery.

"You two match quite well," she said coolly, her expression unreadable.

"Well... about that..." Shi Tongguang rubbed the back of his head.

Having settled her emotions and sat for a short while, Shi Tongguang left. He had his own home; she and he were still not a family.

Ten thousand families were reuniting. Even though she had her younger sister for company, at this very moment, the sense of "home" was magnified by the media and the surrounding atmosphere. Yurui suddenly felt an extraordinary longing for a home of her own—a husband, a child. A scene kept replaying in her mind: a husband holding a child sitting on a lawn, the child giggling away. Because of this, Yurui found it somewhat difficult to understand Yushuang, who insisted on staying single, or Yumeng, who insisted on getting divorced. To live was to endure, and marriage all the more so. On the matter of marriage, she and Yujia stood on the same front; however, Yurui would never look for a husband like Liren. He was far too rigid and far too serious. She only aspired to a passable middle-class life—not as well off as the top, but better off than the bottom.

Near noon, Yu Qi returned, timing it precisely. Fearing her older sister would have no one to keep her company, she had gone out in the morning precisely to avoid her brother-in-law. Yu Qi had bought a traditional almanac—the kind you hang on the door where you tear off one page every day. It felt nostalgic. "Let's go, let's go out to eat," Yu Qi said.

"We'll cook ourselves," Yurui declared.

"Huh?"

"To the supermarket." Yurui gave the order.

If you want to eat, you have to work for it. The sisters went to the supermarket to stock up; Yurui stir-fried the dishes while Yu Qi wrapped the dumplings. By two or three in the afternoon, the meal was finally ready to eat. Yurui smiled and remarked that when you were capable of preparing a table of dishes for a household all by yourself, it meant you had become the leader of that household.

"I forgot to buy wine," Yurui suddenly remembered. She went to rummage through Yushuang's storage cabinet and found two bottles. She felt it necessary to call Yushuang first to give a heads-up, politely offering to pay for them at market price.

When the call went through, Yushuang immediately agreed.

"What's wrong?" Yurui detected something off about the mood on the other end.

"Nothing. Happy New Year," Yushuang forced herself to maintain control.

Kanglong was sitting right beside her, keeping quiet. Yurui's intuition was spot on: Yushuang was angry, and quite furious at that.