Chapter 9

“Lin Qiqi.” Jin Lan’s voice grew lower.

He seemed to be leaning against the door as he spoke.

“Let’s talk, okay?”

His tone had softened. I thought he would never use that tone with me again.

I wrinkled my nose, my eyes stinging.

Just as I was about to speak.

Grandma Li’s voice from next door drifted over: “Are you looking for little Lin?

“She doesn’t live here anymore.”

Grandma Li is quite elderly and her eyesight isn’t very good.

Whenever I cooked or went grocery shopping, I’d always bring her a portion, and occasionally I’d help her tidy up.

Her son would pay me for it.

She didn’t use to like strangers, and she didn’t even seem to like her own son, Tuotuo, much at first.

With her wrinkled face and cloudy eyes, she looked quite fierce.

But Tuotuo wasn’t afraid of her at all.

He called her “Grandma” every single day, and over time, even the hardest stone can be warmed.

Sometimes when I went to deliver food to her place, she’d tap a small wooden stool she’d dug out from somewhere with her cane and shout at Tuotuo: “You little monkey, come over here and eat.

“Stop bothering your mother.”

Grandma Li suffers from chronic bronchitis, and it always flares up when the weather gets cold.

She coughed twice, her voice raspy and aged: “Go on now, she’s not here anymore.”