3: Chapter 3 I Met My Dad

Jiangcheng Foreign Language University, Girls' Dormitory 302.

The desk lamp cast a warm yellow glow as Su Nianyao carefully smoothed out two crumpled fifty-yuan banknotes and tucked them into a thick textbook.

This was what she had earned after handing out flyers all afternoon.

Her legs were sore, and her heels were rubbed raw by her cheap canvas shoes, stinging with pain.

But looking at that one hundred yuan, her eyes, which bore a striking resemblance to Su Wanqing's, curved into crescents.

"Nianyao, did you get paid? You look so happy." Her roommate Sun Li leaned over, wearing a face mask. She glanced at the two banknotes with an indifferent expression and said casually, "That little bit of money isn't even enough to buy a lipstick. Are you really that happy about it?"

"One hundred yuan is enough to top up my meal card for half a month."

Su Nianyao didn't mind her roommate's tone. She took out her phone and skillfully dialed the pinned video call contact.

The screen flickered a few times before connecting.

Noisy voices mixed with the sizzling sound of stir-frying chili peppers instantly poured out of the speaker.

On the screen was a smoky night market stall.

The camera shook, revealing a face flushed red from the heat.

Su Wanqing was wearing a faded gray apron, her hair simply tied back, with a few stray strands stuck to her forehead by sweat. Although there were fine lines at the corners of her eyes and her skin was no longer as supple as it had been in her youth, that gentle temperament of hers seemed completely out of place in this greasy night market.

"Yaoyao? Have you eaten?"

Su Wanqing shouted loudly toward the phone propped up on the seasoning rack while flipping a heavy iron wok.

Flames leaped up half a meter high, illuminating her weary face.

Su Nianyao felt a pang of soreness in her nose, quickly adjusted her expression, and held up the two banknotes to wave them in front of the camera.

"Mom, look! I earned one hundred yuan from my part-time job today! With my scholarship, you don't need to transfer my living expenses for next month. Keep it to buy yourself some skincare products."

Su Wanqing's movements paused.

She looked at her daughter's sensible, smiling face on the screen, and her heart felt as if it had been pricked by a needle.

Other girls in college asked for designer bags and cosmetics, but her daughter was running herself ragged for just a few dozen yuan.

"Mom has money; business is going well." Su Wanqing wiped the sweat from her forehead and forced a smile, saying, "Don't skimp on spending at school. Eat whatever you want; you're still growing... By the way, no one is bullying you at school, right?"

The image of the red bmw at the school gate flashed through Su Nianyao's mind, along with that arrogant rich kid, Wang Hao.

She shook her head and smiled brightly, "No, everyone treats me quite well."

The mother and daughter chatted about trivial matters for a while longer.

Several tables of customers arrived at Su Wanqing's stall, and she was clearly getting overwhelmed.

"Mom, don't hang up yet."

Su Nianyao bit her lip, hesitated for a long time, and finally couldn't help but speak up, "I... I ran into a weird person near the school today."

Su Wanqing asked casually while adding vinegar to a bowl, "What kind of weird person?"

"A middle-aged man delivering food. He kept staring at me, and his eyes were so strange; it gave me the creeps."

Su Nianyao recalled the figure standing in the rain and those bloodshot eyes.

"Later, I saw the name tag on his delivery box."

"His name is Chen Fan."

Clang! A sharp sound rang out.

The large iron ladle in Su Wanqing's hand slammed heavily onto the stainless steel counter. Boiling oil splashed out, landing on the back of her hand and blistering it with several red spots.

But she seemed not to feel the pain; she froze, her face turning deathly pale in an instant.

The noise around her seemed to vanish in an instant.

Nineteen years.

This name, like a taboo, had been sealed deep within the darkest corners of her memory.

"You said... what's his name?" Su Wanqing's voice was tight as she stared fixedly at the screen.

"Chen Fan. 'Chen' as in the character with the 'ear' radical, and 'Fan' as in ordinary." Su Nianyao was startled by her mother's reaction, "Mom, what's wrong? Do you know him?"

Su Wanqing took a deep breath, her chest heaving violently.

How could she not know him?

That was the man she had loved for her entire youth and hated for half her life.

"Mom?"

Su Wanqing regained her composure, her eyes turning cold and sharp—a look Su Nianyao had never seen before.

"Yaoyao, listen to me."

Su Wanqing turned off the stove, her tone unprecedentedly serious, "Stay away from this person. If he dares to approach you again, call the police."

"Why?" Su Nianyao asked, confused.

"Because he is that person."

Su Wanqing closed her eyes and let out a painful sigh, "The bastard father who threw you, your brother, and me—when I was pregnant—away like trash for a three-hundred-thousand-yuan check."

Su Nianyao was stunned.

Growing up, her mother had only ever told her that her father was dead.

Later, when she was a little older, her grandmother had let it slip while complaining, saying that the man was a greedy ingrate who had taken the Su family's breakup fee and vanished without a trace.

So, it was that delivery man from today?

The pathetic figure in Su Nianyao's mind instantly overlapped with the label of "heartless man."

An indescribable sense of disgust welled up in her heart.

"So it was him..." Su Nianyao sneered, her eyes full of mockery, "Mom, don't worry. I can see he's living quite miserably now."

Su Wanqing's hand, which was about to reignite the stove, stopped in mid-air.

"Miserable?"

"Yeah." Su Nianyao curled her lips, "He's riding a beat-up electric scooter, his clothes were soaked through, he had stubble everywhere, and he looked older than Grandpa. I guess he spent all that three hundred thousand and is facing karma now."

Su Wanqing stared blankly at the boiling oil in the pot.

The man who was once full of vigor, who had promised to give her the world, and who would share his last steamed bun with her even when he was dirt poor...

Was now a pathetic delivery man?

Older than Grandpa?

An indescribable emotion grew wildly in her heart like weeds. Was it satisfaction? Was it relief?

But why did it feel like her heart was being tightly gripped by a large hand, making it hard to breathe from the pain?

"Is he... really that miserable?" Su Wanqing asked subconsciously.

As soon as the words left her mouth, she was stunned by herself.

Su Nianyao was also taken aback, watching the complicated expression on her mother's face on the screen.

In those eyes, there was clearly a hint of imperceptible heartache.

"Mom, you don't still feel sorry for that bastard, do you?" Su Nianyao raised her voice, her tone filled with frustration at her mother's perceived weakness, "This kind of person deserves his bad luck! When he took the money and left, did he ever think about us?"

Su Wanqing snapped back to reality.

That's right.

He had taken the three hundred thousand and left decisively.

For these nineteen years, while she struggled alone to raise two children, bearing the cold shoulders of relatives and the crushing weight of life, where was he?

He was squandering the money he got from selling out his wife and children!

Su Wanqing's eyes turned cold and hard again.

"Who feels sorry for him?"

She turned the gas stove back on, and the blue flame roared up, "I'm just afraid that he's gone crazy from poverty now and will come to pester us again. Yaoyao, listen to Mom: absolutely do not engage with him, and definitely don't tell your brother. That piece of trash doesn't deserve to be your father."

"Boss lady! Is the spicy hot pot ready yet? I'm starving!"

At the stall, several shirtless customers urged her impatiently.

"Coming, coming! It'll be ready right away!"

Su Wanqing replied and hurriedly said to the phone, "Mom has to go now. Take care of yourself and remember to eat on time."

The screen went black.

Su Nianyao sat on the hard bed in the dorm, clutching the hot phone, and remained motionless for a long time.

She remembered the moment just before the video call ended.

Although her mother had spoken harsh words, when she turned to grab a bowl, her hand was clearly shaking so much that she couldn't even hold the ladle steady.

And that look in her eyes.

Was that hate?

If it was hate, why did her mother's eyes turn red so quickly when she heard he was doing poorly?

Su Nianyao scratched her hair in frustration.

"Chen Fan..."

She murmured the name, thinking of that particularly desolate figure in the rain.

Since he abandoned us for money, why did he appear in Jiangcheng now like a beggar?

Could it really be like in the novels, that he had some hidden hardship?

"Pfft, what kind of hardship could he have?"

Su Nianyao laughed at herself and tossed the one-yuan coin into her piggy bank, which made a crisp clinking sound.

"A person whose conscience can be bought for three hundred thousand doesn't deserve to have any hidden hardships."

Outside the window, the night was deep.

Su Nianyao didn't know that at the very moment she hung up, in the Yunzhou night market thousands of kilometers away, the mother she thought was "cold-hearted" was hiding in the shadows of the stall, biting her hand hard, trembling all over as she wept.