SYU 26. I Missed You Too

“Chen Xiucheng!” When Professor Lin was in a good mood, she called her son by his nickname. When she was not, she used his full name. “Why did you leave your suitcase at the lab door? Then you disappeared, didn’t answer your phone, and now your mom had to drag it down for you.”

Her shout at the school gates sent a flock of students scattering. Professor Lin’s voice carried far. She always claimed it came from years of lecturing.

Her car was parked in a space not far from the entrance. Chen Xiucheng heard her voice and immediately ran over to help load the suitcase into the trunk.

“Xiao Wu took care of everything properly before coming down. You just blindly followed him. He did everything right, while you left your luggage upstairs. How can you come down here with such nerve?” Professor Lin opened the door, got into the driver’s seat, started the car, and pulled out onto the road, still scolding him nonstop.

Her loud voice kept vibrating in the cramped space of the car, making Chen Xiucheng’s eardrums ache. He sat quietly in the back seat, the corners of his mouth twitching as he endured her lecture with silent fortitude.

He suddenly realized that the student her mother had been praising so often must have been Wu Jinshan.

A freshman in the veterinary department, with excellent grades, quiet, serious, meticulous in everything he did. That kind of student was exactly the type professors adored. Who else could it be but Wu Jinshan?

Even though Chen Xiucheng was used to being scolded by his mother, in that moment, he could not help but wonder if fate had messed up their reincarnation queues. Maybe Wu Jinshan was the son she had actually placed an order for while pregnant, and somehow he got switched with the wrong one.

But, Mom, are you really so sure about your judgment? Do you know that this very same Xiao Wu you keep praising is the one who fought with your son in the cafeteria and got him punished? Chen Xiucheng grumbled inwardly, but after weighing the consequences, he wisely chose to keep quiet. Saying anything would probably just get him scolded even more.

Fortunately, Professor Lin usually went quiet once she started focusing on driving. Before long, the car pulled into the underground parking lot of a nearby shopping mall. She locked the car and led her son into the supermarket on the first floor.

“Today is my birthday,” Professor Lin said casually as she picked out groceries.

“Your birthday?” Chen Xiucheng froze. He could not remember it being today. “No way. Your birthday is in early spring. We already celebrated. Dad even made you that six-inch, triple-layer Golden Throne cake…”

Seeing his mother’s expression shift, as if she were about to interrupt him, he quickly added more details to show his sincerity. “I remember the cake had twenty steps, symbolizing your twentieth wedding anniversary. And because you said you didn’t want too much cream, most of the decorations were fruit carvings and baked biscuit mosaics.”

Professor Lin nodded. Then she said, “But if I feel like celebrating my birthday again, I will. And I can celebrate as many times as I want. I don’t need your permission.”

“Of course not,” Chen Xiucheng said, pushing the shopping cart beside her with full attention, nodding along eagerly. “You’re absolutely right.”

Professor Lin eventually filled the cart to the brim with fruits, vegetables, desserts, snacks, drinks, household items, and even some boutique trinkets.

After checking out, as Chen Xiucheng loaded everything into the car, he realized he had been foolish to expect any sort of mercy. The reason she brought him home was not a sudden wave of maternal affection, but because she needed a laborer.

“Do you spend a lot of time with Xiao Wu?”

“Uh… not really…” Chen Xiucheng had just finished the heavy lifting and finally managed to sit back in the car to enjoy some air conditioning. He had no idea why his mother had returned to the topic of Wu Jinshan again.

Professor Lin started the car again and suddenly let out a sigh. “Sigh. That kid is outstanding, but he’s a little pitiful.”

Chen Xiucheng, exhausted from hauling all the groceries, nearly lost it. He wiped the sweat off his face and cried out, “Seriously, Mom? He’s pitiful? I’m the one who’s pitiful!”

“I’m not even dead yet, and you’re already pitiful? Wu Jinshan’s mother died the day he was born.”

Chen Xiucheng had hoped for a smooth ride home, that the road would keep his mom too occupied to keep talking. But of course, things never went his way. Thunder cracked overhead, and the rain suddenly began to pour. The roads were jammed, the highway exit backed up, and every light turned red. A trip that should have taken forty minutes stretched to nearly two hours.

It had all happened more than a decade ago, and Professor Lin could not recall the exact details. She only remembered it had been a medical mishap. The baby was too large, and his mother could not deliver naturally. She opted for a C-section, but the medical staff made serious errors. Post-surgery care was mishandled, leading to massive uterine bleeding and a severe infection. She was only twenty-four when she passed.

A few years later, Wu Jinshan’s father remarried and had another child. He built a new family. Even if they never treated Wu Jinshan unfairly, growing up without a mother was already hard enough.

The summer storm had come fast and gone just as quickly. By the time they reached home, the rain had stopped, and sunlight was filtering through the trees out front, casting a warm glow on the freshly washed greenery, which looked especially vibrant.

As Chen Xiucheng got out of the car to unload, the bag holding the watermelon suddenly tore open. The big melon dropped onto the ground and burst open on the front step, drawing a fresh wave of scolding from Professor Lin.

Mr. Chen had just finished cooking and was setting the dishes on the table when he heard the commotion. He stepped outside, saw the shattered melon, and laughed. “It split clean in half. No need to cut it now. Just grab a spoon.” He helped his son clean up the mess on the porch, carried the rest of the watermelon inside, and put it in the fridge.

Seeing Mr. Chen immediately lifted Professor Lin’s mood. The two, both in their fifties, still greeted each other with a hug every time they met.

Even after the rain, the weather remained muggy. Professor Lin decided to take a shower first, and since the food was still piping hot, it could sit and cool in the meantime.

Mr. Chen was an easygoing, cheerful man who rarely got into arguments. Most of the time, if there was a fight, it was just Professor Lin going off on her own. But there had been exceptions. Chen Xiucheng could vaguely recall one particularly nasty argument back when he was in middle school. He no longer remembered what it had been about, only that it had lasted the entire day and into the night. Professor Lin had stormed out in anger and driven to a nightclub looking for a male escort.

Late that night, Mr. Chen realized his wife was missing. In a panic, he rushed out to look for her and eventually found her in a private room at a nightclub, explaining animal anatomy to three handsome young men. The liquor on the table had not been touched, but she had ordered a plate of roast chicken and was cutting it up in front of them. With every key point she explained, she even followed up with a quiz.

When a wife is caught cheating and the husband storms in, most nightclubs will go out of their way to cover for their VIP clients. But when Mr. Chen showed up, the club staff were practically begging him to take that Buddha statue home. They simply could not handle her.

After an hour of torment in the nightclub, Professor Lin finally experienced what it meant to be talking to ducks. As her anger faded and exhaustion set in, she came to the realization that no wild duck could compare to the one raised at home. None of those men were as pleasing to the eye or as knowledgeable as Mr. Chen.

And knowledge was the key.

Professor Lin had married late. She believed in quality over quantity and remained unbothered while others fussed. It was not until the age of thirty-seven that she accidentally fell in love.

Her family had been quite anxious back then, always trying to set her up. But she had turned up her nose at every candidate. The last time she agreed to a blind date just to pacify her relatives, the man had made a reservation at a high-end omakase restaurant.

During the date, Professor Lin was slicing into the freshly prepared beef and casually asked him some basic questions about veterinary science. He could not answer a single one. In the end, the man stormed off in embarrassment. But the chef behind the counter, Mr. Chen, offered answers that met her satisfaction.

His slicing was quick and precise. He had a keen understanding of meat quality and nutritional content. He spoke with confidence and clarity. Professor Lin was immediately impressed. As they got to know each other, Mr. Chen’s hands-on skills in the kitchen earned even more of her praise.

Mr. Chen was actually five years younger than her. When they first started dating, he was clumsy and slow to react. He lacked romance and had no sense of flair. But the important thing was that he was a quick learner. Over time, Professor Lin had trained him well.

After her shower, Professor Lin came out in a set of loungewear and saw her son poking absentmindedly at the dead fish eyes on his plate with his chopsticks. She was about to nag him again.

Chen Xiucheng was eating half-heartedly, thinking to himself that having a mom was not all that great either. He still got nitpicked every day. But what could he do? People always envied what others had and they themselves lacked.

“How do you know all this about Wu Jinshan?” he asked with his mouth full, unable to resist digging for answers.

“You think he said it himself? He’s not the type to talk. His mother used to be one of my students,” Professor Lin replied.

Back then, Professor Lin had returned to teaching shortly after her confinement period and left her son in Mr. Chen’s care and heard about what had happened.

Wu Jinshan’s mother had been one of her best students, among the top of the class. Professor Lin had a vivid impression of her and mourned the tragedy for a long time. She even visited the infant Wu Jinshan in his swaddling clothes.

“She was such a good person, so beautiful, and incredibly caring. Her roasted pork was amazing. That method I use for making strawberry mochi, she’s the one who taught me.” Professor Lin got carried away as she spoke. Once she started reminiscing, she did not want to stop.

“Back in our day, it wasn’t like now, where you can just walk into a supermarket and grab a whole pile of sweets and snacks in any flavor you want. If someone back then knew how to make desserts, everyone around them was lucky. Wu Jinshan’s mother used to bring us little treats she made herself and share them with everyone. Such a shame, what happened afterward.”

Chen Xiucheng realize that although his mom could not cook, she did know how to make strawberry mochi. The desserts she made for him anytime he asked were, to Wu Jinshan, the lifelong absence of a mother’s love.

“At the time, Wu Jinshan’s father and his family were pursuing a lawsuit. It caused quite a stir, but the person was already gone. Aside from compensation, what else could they do? If you’re interested, you can go check the newspaper archives at the city library. You might still find coverage from back then.”

Professor Lin paused, then pointed at her husband and son and gave a warning. “But all this is just us chatting in private. Don’t go around telling other people. It could cause trouble.”

She had barely finished speaking when a chopstick suddenly flew through the air in front of her. All three at the table froze for a few seconds. Then Professor Lin started yelling at her son.

“How old are you? Still dropping your chopsticks during dinner?”

He had been absentmindedly prodding at the fish eye with his chopstick. Maybe it was too slippery or too firm, because the chopstick suddenly slipped from his hand and flew off the table. He scrambled to pick it up and rushed to the kitchen to wash it, all while silently counting how many times he had cursed Wu Jinshan with mom-related insults.

Heaven. Wu Jinshan never even said he didn’t have a mom. But really, who would go around telling people something like that? At that moment, Chen Xiucheng wished he could travel back in time and knock himself out the very first time he saw Wu Jinshan in Dorm 502.

“Do you have any plans for the summer?”

As he returned to the table with clean chopsticks, he heard his mother’s question and felt a sudden jolt in his chest.

Could he really say he had none?

Professor Lin glanced at her son’s guilty expression and immediately picked up her phone. “Let me see which of my colleagues need help. I’ll find you something to do. Either that or go enroll in classes or get a job. Pick one. You’re way too idle.”

“I have plans,” Chen Xiucheng said quickly, grabbing her hand to stop her from calling.

Professor Lin raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Oh?”

—-

Back in his room, Chen Xiucheng called Wu Jinshan.

The first call rang for a long time, just like before, then went to voicemail.

Unwilling to give up, he waited a bit, then tried a second time. Just as he was about to hang up, assuming it would go unanswered again, someone picked up.

A young girl’s voice came through.

“Hello? Who’s calling?”

Chen Xiucheng quickly glanced at the number on his screen, almost thinking he had dialed the wrong person.

“Oh, you’re looking for my brother?” The girl paused, then added, “He went straight to the workshop as soon as he got home. I’ll ask him to call you back once he comes out.”

Chen Xiucheng flopped back onto the bed, bored out of his mind. He had no idea whether the little sister could actually convince Wu Jinshan to call. Just earlier at the dinner table, he had vowed to Professor Lin that he and Wu Jinshan had already made plans to spend the summer working and learning at the Liangshan Ranch.

He waited and waited, eventually dozing off. In the haze of sleep, he seemed to return to the moment he had first met Wu Jinshan. If only the story could start over, could it have gone differently?

After eight o’clock that night, Chen Xiucheng had showered and waited some more, but still hadn’t received a call from Wu Jinshan.

He opened their chat window and skimmed through a month’s worth of unanswered messages. After a brief pause, he picked up his phone, took a picture of the little frog, added some photo effects to make it look like it was crying, and typed out a line: “Did you abandon me?”

The second he hit send, he felt it was too melodramatic and quickly retracted the message.

But then, out of nowhere, Wu Jinshan actually replied: “？”

After sending so many messages that got ignored, Wu Jinshan finally responded because of a deleted picture? He was speechless.

Chen Xiucheng had no idea that the same Wu Jinshan who used to argue circles around him could now be so stingy with words, saying everything he needed to with a single punctuation mark.

“It’s nothing. Sent it by mistake.” He typed out the six dry, empty words and hit send. The moment he did, he regretted it. Wu Jinshan had finally replied, so why did he have to respond like that?

Wu Jinshan: “Who was it meant for? The crying frog photo.”

“You saw it?” Whatever, Chen Xiucheng thought. He had meant to send it to him anyway. “Chengcheng misses you.”

More than ten minutes passed with no reply.

Damn it. Playing dead again…

Chen Xiucheng tossed his phone under the blanket, then reluctantly pulled it back out and shamelessly typed another line: “I miss you too.”

He might have had thick skin, but it was still humiliating as hell…

If it weren’t for the fact that they were talking through screens, he might have gone and bashed his own head against a wall.

He realized he couldn’t keep waiting like this anymore. Now that Wu Jinshan had responded, he had to press the advantage.

So he called him. He wasn’t confident, but relying on his years of gaming experience, he figured that when no walkthrough was available, the only way forward was to explore every possible path. There might still be a chance.

“You said before you’d take me to the ranch for free. Does that still count?”

The other end was quiet. Wu Jinshan replied slowly, “It counts.”

“Then tomorrow…” Chen Xiucheng trailed off. He could sense the reluctance in Wu Jinshan’s voice and wasn’t sure if pushing forward would actually get him anywhere.

There was a brief silence. Neither of them said a word.

Wu Jinshan seemed to hesitate for a long time before finally saying, “I’ll drive over and pick you up tomorrow.”