Divorce Application - Chapter 18
Chapter 18: Compromise
Wu Haoxue stayed for a few days and booked a high-speed train ticket half a month before Liu Sinan was scheduled to start filming. “You go shoot your variety show. I’ll take the opportunity to go home, too.”
Liu Sinan thought for a moment, made a list of items, and sent it to her on WeChat. “When you go shopping tomorrow, help me buy these things and bring them to your aunt and uncle.”
“Why am I going shopping tomorrow?” Wu Haoxue opened the chat window, her eyes full of disdain. “And you should buy the gifts for my parents yourself.”
“I advise you not to go home empty-handed tomorrow. Your aunt and uncle probably don’t miss you that much. A dance teacher is coming tomorrow, and I need to practice the dance for the premiere,” Liu Sinan closed WeChat and opened a video, going over the dance she was supposed to perform.
Wu Haoxue frowned in thought for a while. “You must have some dance background, right? I remember you used to wear a puffy dress all the time when you were little, and Auntie would personally stick all sorts of shiny decorations on it. Every time I tried to peel one off, you would hit me.”
“Yeah, the dress was for ballet,” Liu Sinan said, focused on the video. “It’s a different dance style from the modern dance I’m going to perform on stage.”
“Oh, really? They all look the same to me,” Wu Haoxue said.
“Speaking of which, it’s been so long.” Wu Haoxue’s eyes went blank for a while. After she came to her senses, she suddenly put down her phone and leaned in close to Liu Sinan, face to face, offering a random suggestion. “It’s so close to home, only a half-hour high-speed train ride. Do you want to go home with me and take a look?”
Being too close, Liu Sinan pushed her back with her shoulder, a lonely expression on her face. “What’s there to go back to?”
“My parents are gone. The house I grew up in was auctioned off and sold to someone else long ago. What’s the point of going back to a place that will only stir up painful memories?”
Those words were heartbreaking.
Little Liu Sinan, in her gorgeous puffy dress adorned with her mother’s love, stood in the center of the stage, dancing gracefully like a proud little swan, casting a distant glance at her.
In a flash, the scene changed: the family fortune was auctioned off, the puffy dress was thrown into a garbage bin and hauled away, and the entire family lost contact. When she saw Liu Sinan again, she was an orphan and an adult, no longer looking anything like her innocent childhood self.
Wu Haoxue “tsk”ed, lowered her head in silence, and after a moment of quiet, she “tsk”ed again.
“If you make another sound, go to another room,” Liu Sinan pointed outside without raising her head, her tone full of disgust. “You’re annoying.”
“Don’t cry, Nan Nan, let your big sister hug you.” Wu Haoxue pretended to comfort her, only to be kicked off the sofa by Liu Sinan.
Liu Sinan didn’t pull her leg back. She spun it in the air, stretching it.
“Seriously?” Wu Haoxue lay on the floor, staring in astonishment at Liu Sinan’s flexibility, which she estimated to be at least 180 degrees.
Liu Sinan was immersed in the dance. She propped up her phone, went through the movements with the music, and then watched the replay.
“I’m just saying, your wrist isn’t fully healed, is it?” Wu Haoxue’s teeth ached just watching her use one hand to support herself. “Where’s the bandage? The splint? The pain? Your humanity? The doctor?”
“It’ll be mostly healed by the day of the performance,” Liu Sinan said, scrutinizing her own dance for a while before finally being a little satisfied. “I hope it doesn’t affect the performance.”
Wu Haoxue looked at Liu Sinan with half-closed eyes. “Are you sure?”
Liu Sinan nodded perfunctorily. “Of course.”
Of course.
Wu Haoxue gritted her teeth and couldn’t help herself. She opened Lan Qi’s chat, took a photo, and sent it with the caption, “Is this how you take care of my little Sinan?”
Lan Qi’s phone vibrated. A special note popped up on her lock screen: “Miss.”
The studio was in a meeting. Lan Qi quickly wrapped up the last few points and motioned for everyone to take a break.
Opening Wu Haoxue’s WeChat, Lan Qi was a little curious about why this young lady suddenly wanted to contact her.
It was just a single photo and a straightforward question.
Lan Qi pursed her lips, clicked on the photo, zoomed in, adjusted the aspect ratio, took a screenshot, and sent it to her boss, Li Jinping.
Lan Qi: Shh, your little Sinan still thinks I don’t know she’s hurt.
She doesn’t know?! Wu Haoxue sat up with a jolt. Liu Sinan had actually hidden her injury.
In that case, wouldn’t her self-detonation get her a beating?
Wu Haoxue nervously planned, thinking about how to threaten Lan Qi to keep the secret with her.
Lan Qi suppressed a smile and continued her verbal assault calmly.
Lan Qi: She worked so hard to keep it a secret, and you, you fool, exposed her with one sentence.
Wu Haoxue: …
Lan Qi casually turned off her screen, placed it face down on the table, feeling refreshed, and continued the meeting.
Li Jinping’s phone was on silent, and it wasn’t until a while later that she saw Lan Qi’s message.
It was already dark outside. The lights were sparse, and the mountain night was silent.
Li Jinping put down her tablet, saved the wireframe she had just designed, then synchronized Liu Sinan’s photo to her computer, and enlarged it.
In the photo, Liu Sinan’s forehead looked as if it had been washed, glowing with a translucent fairness. There were tiny, shiny damp hairs around her hairline from sweat.
Her lips were pursed as she stared intently at her tablet. Her posture was casual, her figure was slender, and her expression was a mix of seriousness and pure stubbornness.
Her profile was exquisite beyond words. The light grazed her light brown pupils, like the shape of light falling through the dense branches of a forest, enveloping her in a hazy glow.
She was like a newborn fawn, not yet steady on its feet, walking out of a sparse forest with curious, pure eyes.
Behind her, the stars and moon shone, and the trees were full of light.
But that fawn was thin and gaunt, and one of its front hooves was injured, wrapped in a glaring bandage.
Li Jinping curled up in her chair, feeling like a decaying old woman. The scent of twilight was like a stagnant, sweet-smelling pool. She only dared to look from afar, watching how alive and vibrant the fawn was, as if she, too, had become a little younger.
But that was just an illusion.
She had once plucked the moon with her own hands and raised that fawn in her own manor, but the truth proved her wrong, horribly wrong.
Now, she didn’t even dare to look at it for long.
She wearily took off her glasses. There was a knock on the door from outside, and someone came in.
“Ma’am,” Lin Xia came upstairs at the appointed time. Her hands, which had just been soaking in warm water, were soft. The feeling of them on her temples was not unpleasant. She massaged Li Jinping’s temples with a clockwise motion, her pressure just right. “You’ve worked for three hours straight again. You’ve gone over the time limit.”
Li Jinping’s eyes were closed, the corners of her mouth slightly downturned, her expression showing no joy or sorrow, as if she had entered a meditative state, shutting herself off.
After a long time, Lin Xia’s wrist ached, and she stopped the massage.
She used a wet tissue to wipe Li Jinping’s skin, then applied a little essential oil.
After doing all this, she was about to leave when she heard Li Jinping ask a question.
Her words carried a sigh of compromise and a sense of hopelessness, as if she no longer had the strength to resist.
“Do you know what a patient with a bone fracture should eat?”