The Unreturnable Refrigerator - Chapter 18.2
Chapter 18.2
Cheng Siyu and the others had an event in the afternoon and one at night. She wanted Lu Yin to stay, but a leaking house was serious trouble.
She wanted to find someone to accompany Lu Yin back, but Lu Yin quickly thanked her for her kindness, said a quick goodbye, and left.
When she got home, Lu Yin was still a little shaken. She had met too many strangers today. She felt like she had been rolled through a bush full of burrs.
She quickly took a shower and went back to bed. The insomnia from the past two days had messed up her schedule again. She was back to her old routine of not being able to wake up during the day and not being able to sleep at night.
Lu Yin lay in bed, picked up the key on her nightstand, and examined it in her palm.
When she came back, she had already tried the key in the keyhole of Sheng Xiali’s password lock. It wasn’t her key.
She couldn’t figure out where the key was for, but she thought of the past. Sheng Xiali had also given her a key once.
A key with a red string tied around it.
It was the day after her twentieth birthday, and she had treated it as a “late gift.”
Lu Yin’s hometown was a wealthy small village in a wealthy small town below Hengcheng.
The town had many small factories. Lu Yin’s family also had a small hardware factory. After Lu Yin started elementary school, due to a change in policy, Wang Xingteng moved the factory to Licheng.
Lu Huiying wanted to take Lu Yin with her, but Lu Yin didn’t want to go. She wanted to be with her grandmother.
Her grandmother also couldn’t bear to part with Lu Yin. They finally agreed that Lu Yin would go to Licheng for summer vacation.
Lu Yin’s birthday was in the summer, so she usually celebrated it in Licheng.
It wasn’t that it was lonely. Lu Huiying would buy her a cake and book a hotel every year, and Wang Xingteng would invite a group of friends to build relationships.
It was her birthday, but she wasn’t important. Lu Yin didn’t have any special feelings about it.
So when Lu Huiying said that her twentieth birthday was a big one and that they should go back to her hometown to have a banquet, she didn’t have any objections.
It didn’t matter where it was. She was just an important prop for her birthday. All she had to do was greet people and call out to them.
Because Lu Yin had been accepted into a top-tier university, it brought even more glory to Wang Xingteng. He was very enthusiastic about it and sent invitations to all their relatives. His image now was not only that of a successful businessman but also a successful father. This dual honor was something that would make him looked up to in their small village.
Lu Yin just hoped her birthday would go smoothly.
But, as expected, during the birthday banquet, the two families’ relatives started arguing again.
Wang Xingteng had married into the Lu family. The more respectful and polite he was in the beginning, the more arrogant he became after his business grew.
Lu Yin watched as the two families’ historical bickering splattered all over her birthday cake. She watched her mom hold a relative she didn’t even know and cry about how hard her life had been all these years.
“If it weren’t for Yinyin, I would have left him a long time ago. This heartless man. When he married into my family, he said he would always be good to me and be a son to the Lu family! Liar, they’re all liars.”
“I’m not stupid. I know he has someone else outside. Ugh, I won’t let him be happy. That factory belongs to the Lu family. Wang Xingteng and I earned that money little by little. It all has to go to Yinyin in the future. Don’t even think about me making room for someone else!”
Lu Yin sighed. Once, Lu Huiying found a woman’s scarf in Wang Xingteng’s pocket and threatened to kill herself. Lu Yin advised her to get a divorce, and she just held her and cried.
“It’s all for you. If I divorce him, your dad will just take the money and give it to his mistress. What will you have?!”
Lu Yin replied: “You could have a new life, and I could have a new life. You don’t have to do this for me—”
Before she could finish her sentence, Lu Huiying slapped her: “Heartless! I’m doing all this for you, and you’re not even grateful! I shouldn’t have given birth to you. You’re just like your dad, both of you are heartless!”
Lu Yin sighed. She was guilty.
Just like this chaotic birthday banquet, if it weren’t for her, there wouldn’t have been a birthday banquet, and there wouldn’t have been this argument. Maybe it was all her fault.
Before Wang Xingteng left with a group of relatives, he cursed at Lu Yin: “None of you Lu’s are good people. You’re the same. I raised you all these years, and you just watch them badmouth your dad without saying a word. You must have studied for nothing!”
Lu Huiying knew Wang Xingteng was going back to Licheng that night and was going to chase after him in her car. Before she left, she blamed Lu Yin: “Your dad was leaving, why didn’t you stop him? It’s so dangerous to drive at night. What if something happens to him!”
What if? She didn’t know. What should she do? Lu Yin felt that the greatest helplessness a person could experience was not being able to choose their birth.
This matter carried an inexplicable original sin. Before Lu Yin even understood the rules of the world, she had already carried this sin because she was raised by them.
Lu Yin looked at the empty old house. When her grandmother was still alive, she never thought the house was so big or so empty.
Looking at her grandmother’s smiling face on the wall, the tears she had held back all night finally started to fall.
Lu Yin sat back at the table, took a knife, and scraped off the cream on the outside of the cake, revealing the light yellow cake base inside. She pulled off a piece and put it in her mouth.
It was sweet, like the sponge cake her grandmother used to make.
Lu Yin cut a piece and placed it on the cabinet under the photo.
“Grandma, I’m twenty years old. Wish me a happy birthday.”
After cleaning up the house, Lu Yin went to the kitchen. She was probably going to stay in the old house from now on, so she had to see what she had.
The fridge was empty. There was nothing.
The kitchen was empty. There was nothing.
Lu Yin’s heart suddenly panicked. A sense of hunger crept into her heart, and she remembered her childhood.
Her grandmother had just passed away then. Lu Huiying and Wang Xingteng had to leave after the funeral. Lu Yin stayed in her hometown because she had to go to school.
Lu Huiying had wanted to take her with her. She was only in third grade then and only a little taller than the stove, but Lu Yin didn’t want to go. She had friends at school, and her grandmother’s cats and dogs were in her hometown.
In the end, Lu Huiying gave her some money and asked a neighbor to look after her before returning to Licheng.
The next day, Lu Yin took the money and went out, planning to buy some rice and noodles after school. She could cook noodles. She would eat breakfast at the school gate, lunch at school, and she could easily cook some noodles for dinner herself.
But before she could turn the money into food, the money was stolen.
Lu Yin ran home crying and called Lu Huiying.
All she heard on the phone was the beep beep beep sound. That night, Lu Yin didn’t know how many times she had called, maybe a hundred, maybe a thousand. All night, she cried, called, and cried again. No one ever answered the phone. For a long time after that, she always felt like she could hear the beep beep beep sound.
Fortunately, the school had lunch. Lu Yin survived the next day. On the third day, Lu Yin finally got through to Lu Huiying.
It turned out that Wang Xingteng had gotten into a car accident after drinking and was in the hospital.
“You’re just adding to my troubles. You couldn’t even hide the money properly and let someone steal it!”
Lu Huiying was overwhelmed. There were a lot of things to do at the factory, and Wang Xingteng was not out of danger yet. In the end, she called a relative in the village she was still in contact with and asked her to give Lu Yin some money. She would pay them back when she returned.
After Lu Yin got the money, she asked the relative to go to the supermarket with her to exchange the money for food.
No one would ever come into the house to steal food, but money was easily stolen or taken.
From then on, Lu Yin always had the idea that when she had money, she had to stock up on food first.
The feeling of eating only one meal a day was truly unbearable.
Looking at the empty fridge, Lu Yin’s heart felt anxious. She had to fill it up.
Lu Yin put on her bag and left. She looked back at the empty old house. It was so big. How much stuff would she have to buy to “fill it up”?
The empty house seemed to still have Lu Huiying’s crying and Wang Xingteng’s scolding, and also her grandmother’s sighs.
Lu Yin locked the door and walked forward under the dim streetlights, all the way to the road. She got on a crowded bus, and only then did those voices stop.
She rode the bus to the end of the line. When she got off, she heard a shout.
“Hengcheng, Hengcheng, this is the last bus. If you miss it, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow~”
Lu Yin didn’t know why she got on the bus. When she got off, she was in a daze and got on the only other bus waiting at the station.
The wide-open door and the bright lights made the bus feel more welcoming than her home.
She got on the bus and found that it was heading toward the university town where her school was located.
But the bus broke down after it entered the university town.
Her “misfortune” continued. There wasn’t a single taxi in sight in the university town during summer vacation.
Lu Yin let out a bitter laugh and started walking forward. She didn’t know why she was walking forward. She just didn’t want to walk back.
She didn’t have a home to go back to, and she didn’t have anywhere to go. She was just walking.
The quiet summer night was gentle, with the sound of cicadas and frogs, and the stars were out.
Everything was there, and yet nothing was there. She couldn’t hold the wind, and she couldn’t pick the stars.
She had nothing. Lu Yin tilted her head and wiped a tear. All the grievances came out at that moment, and she couldn’t wipe away the tears.
Lu Yin sobbed, crying as she walked toward the bus stop ahead. She couldn’t walk anymore.
Her eyes were blurry with tears. When she got closer, she realized that the bus stop was under construction. The old benches had been removed, and the new ones hadn’t been installed yet. She was truly miserable. There was nowhere for her to sit and cry.
Lu Yin wiped away the tears that were falling even more heavily and squatted in the gap between the bus stop sign and the trash can.
She watched as her tears slowly soaked the ground.
Just as the tears were about to form a puddle, a pair of shoes stepped onto the damp spot.
Lu Yin looked at one of the shoes. Two of the lace eyelets were missing their metal pieces. The shoes weren’t dirty, but they looked very old, and some of the glue was coming undone.
She looked up in a daze.
The night breeze was gentle, the streetlights were swaying, and Sheng Xiali was looking at her intently.
The streetlight flickered, and Sheng Xiali looked at the tears in Lu Yin’s eyes. She sighed and knelt down, handing her a tissue.
Why was she crying so pitifully…
After Sheng Xiali’s tutoring class every night, she would take the last bus back to school. There was usually no one on the bus, but today, as soon as she got on, she saw Lu Yin sitting by the window in the last row, staring blankly outside.
She didn’t notice her, and Sheng Xiali didn’t make a point of greeting her.
Later, the bus broke down halfway. Sheng Xiali got off and hesitated on the side of the road for a while. She hadn’t known where Lu Yin was going, but this bus route, after entering the university town, ended at their school.
Seeing that Lu Yin was also going to the school, and it was so late, it would be safer for both of them to walk together.
She watched Lu Yin get off the bus and saw the clear tear stains on her face under the streetlight. She hesitated for a moment and then walked past her.
Sheng Xiali didn’t know if Lu Yin hadn’t seen her, or if she had seen her and pretended not to.
But there was only one road, and they were going in the same direction, so Sheng Xiali had to follow.
She walked for about half an hour until she finally reached the bus stop at the school.
Ten more minutes of walking would take them to the west dormitory area of the school. Sheng Xiali, who had stayed at the school during the summer, lived in the dorms.
Lu Yin probably hadn’t applied to stay. Sheng Xiali didn’t know why she was at school so late.
Seeing the person ahead stop, Sheng Xiali also stopped. Realizing that it looked like she was intentionally following her, Sheng Xiali thought for a moment and quickened her pace.
It was already very late. If she delayed any longer, the dorms would be locked, and she would have to bother the dorm supervisor to open the door for her.
Sheng Xiali quickened her pace. At this point, the person ahead also moved.
Sheng Xiali watched as Lu Yin stepped onto the bus stop that was still under renovation, squatted by the trash can, and buried her head in her knees…
Muffled sobs came, and Sheng Xiali stopped.
Sheng Xiali didn’t understand how she had picked up Lu Yin until she brought her back to her dorm…
Looking at the person in her dorm, looking at her eyes that were no longer watery but still red, Sheng Xiali let out a heavy sigh. Picking someone up was actually quite troublesome.
“Have a seat. I’m going to get some hot water.”
Lu Yin was a little distracted. When she came to her senses, she only saw a back figure leaving. As soon as Sheng Xiali left, the empty dorm room was left with only her.
She hadn’t expected to run into Sheng Xiali, and she hadn’t expected her to follow her back to the dorm.
Lu Yin looked around the dorm. The west dorms at their school were all four-person rooms, with a bed on top and a desk below. In this dorm, only the desk she was sitting at had things on it, and the bed above it was made. The others were empty.
This was probably the dorm the school had arranged for students who stayed on campus, which were in the same buildings where the new students would live after school started.
Lu Yin quietly breathed a sigh of relief, confirming that Sheng Xiali was the only one living in this dorm.
Her gaze finally fell on Sheng Xiali’s desk. Besides books, there was only a lemon-green mug and an old-looking desk lamp with several spots where the pink paint had peeled off.
She could guess that Sheng Xiali was struggling financially, but looking at this, it seemed a little more difficult than she had thought…
Lu Yin was a little lost in thought. She thought of the two hundred and fifty dollars she had given Sheng Xiali earlier and felt a little regretful. Maybe she should have given her more…
Hearing a noise at the door, Lu Yin came back to her senses and looked up. The door was pushed open from the outside with a creak.
Sheng Xiali walked in, one hand holding a large blue thermos and the other holding a red plastic bucket that reached her knees.
White steam wavered with her movements.
Lu Yin’s eyes widened, and she quickly rushed over to help her with the bucket that looked very heavy.
As expected, it was even heavier than it looked. With both of them lifting it, Lu Yin’s hands still felt like they were being pulled down.
Sheng Xiali had carried this heavy bucket of water back all by herself.
She had to know that all the dorms in their west dorm building were the same. The water room was on the west end of the fourth floor, and Sheng Xiali’s dorm was on the east end of the sixth floor. She had actually carried it all the way up herself.
After Lu Yin put down the bucket, she bent over and stared at Sheng Xiali with wide eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
Sheng Xiali put the thermos she would need tomorrow into a cabinet on the side. Seeing Lu Yin’s expression, she raised an eyebrow. Now that this person wasn’t dazed or daydreaming, why did she look so shocked?
She wiped her face. Was there something on her face?
“You’re amazing. You carried such a heavy bucket of water up here all by yourself!”
So that was it. Sheng Xiali didn’t know what to say.
The person in front of her had certainly never experienced being required to go a kilometer to the river to get water to wash bedsheets in the winter to save on water bills.
“I’m used to it.”
Sheng Xiali didn’t want to say more. She picked up a basin from the shelf on the side and took it into the washroom with the hot water.
She looked at the only towel hanging by the sink and regretted it again. She had brought someone back, and then what?
This place was completely unsuitable for leaving this young lady…
It was truly troublesome.
Lu Yin saw that she had stopped and thought she was going to wash up, so she took two steps back: “Are you going to shower? Then you can close the door.”
Sheng Xiali looked at the two steps between them, which were separated by a door. As long as the door was closed, it would feel like they were in two different spaces, even though they were in the same dorm room.
She put the light blue towel that was hanging there into the basin, turned around, and showed it to Lu Yin: “I only have this one towel. Do you want to use it?”
Lu Yin was about to go back and sit in her chair. Hearing Sheng Xiali’s words, her eyes lit up: “Can I?”
She was a little embarrassed. She actually wanted to wash her face and take a shower, but she didn’t know how to ask. She had already sensed that Sheng Xiali was not very willing to take her in…
Sheng Xiali hadn’t expected Lu Yin to not mind at all. She thought for a moment and then handed her the bath towel from the shelf.
“I washed it yesterday. You can use it if you want to shower.”
She said this and let Lu Yin into the bathroom before going back to her desk to sit down.
Seeing that the desk lamp was on, Sheng Xiali noticed for the first time that the paint on the lamp was peeling in several places. She had picked it up. It was on the lid of a trash can at the same bus stop where she had found Lu Yin today.
She saw that the lamp was fine, so she had picked it up.
“Sheng Xiali, do you have any clothes I can borrow?”
A voice came from the bathroom. Sheng Xiali turned around. She had just been looking at the light, and now, looking at Lu Yin, she felt as if there were some unreal light spots on her face.
She nodded, opened the cabinet next to the desk, and from the three hanging clothes on the bottom shelf, she took out a long T-shirt that she wore as pajamas and handed it to Lu Yin.
A moment later, the sound of water trickling came from the washroom.
Sheng Xiali casually picked up a book from the bookshelf, flipped to a page, and started reading. Looking at the formulas and diagrams on it, she suddenly couldn’t remember how to solve the problem, so she closed the book.
She looked at the desk lamp again. If only picking up a person were as simple as picking up a lamp.
She had picked up Lu Yin on an impulse, and now all that was left was trouble.
Sheng Xiali looked at the empty dorm room. The room had been cleaned out for the new students, so the other three beds were naturally empty.
She looked at the only bed, a single bed in the dorm. Two people could squeeze onto it.
But she and Lu Yin weren’t that close, and she wasn’t used to sharing a bed with someone.
Lu Yin probably felt the same way.
Sheng Xiali thought for a moment and took a bedsheet out of the cabinet.
Her bed was currently covered with a summer mat. Everything came in a package for new students when they checked in, and there was only one of each.
Sheng Xiali wiped the empty bed next to her clean, spread the sheet on it, and folded a bed cover a few times to make a simple pillow.
Just as she was about to climb down from the bed, she heard the bathroom door open with a creak. Sheng Xiali was on the ladder of the upper bunk, looking down at Lu Yin, who was walking out with steam all over her.
To keep her hair from getting wet, Lu Yin had tied her hair, which was an inch below her ears, into a short ponytail at the back of her head. Her bangs that covered her forehead were also held back with a strawberry hair clip.
Her fair, round face was completely exposed under the light, like a peeled lychee that had just been taken out of the fridge on a summer day.
She smiled and asked her: “Where is the laundry detergent? I want to wash my clothes so they can be dry by tomorrow.”
Sheng Xiali’s gaze fell on the basin in her hand. The skirt she had been wearing was casually balled up inside, and a light blue bra strap was showing.
Her gaze unconsciously went up, but the next second, she realized something was wrong. The long white T-shirt she wore as pajamas was quite old and had become very thin from being washed so many times. It was the first time she realized that it would be so transparent under the light…
Sheng Xiali quickly looked away.
The fan was humming. A gust of wind passed Sheng Xiali at that moment, and the loose hair tickled her cheek.
She wiped her face and pointed to the shelf next to Lu Yin: “The soap on that is mine.”
Soap would work too. Lu Yin thanked her and went back into the washroom.
She had left in a hurry and hadn’t brought a change of clothes. She could borrow a shirt, but as for underwear, it was fine to not wear any for the night. She couldn’t borrow Sheng Xiali’s underwear, so she would just have to wear her own for one more night and buy new ones tomorrow.
After Lu Yin had finished tidying up and hanging up her clothes, she saw the bed Sheng Xiali had made.
Sheng Xiali had gone to get another bucket of hot water. When she came in, she saw Lu Yin looking at the new bed she had made and guessed she had misunderstood.
“You can sleep on this one.”
Sheng Xiali pointed to her original bed.
Lu Yin had just tiptoed and hit the bed board, and her hand was still a little sore. Her brows were still furrowed as she looked at Sheng Xiali.
From what Sheng Xiali was saying, she was planning to sleep on the other bed, which was just a wooden board. How could she sleep on something so hard?
“How about we squeeze in together?”
Lu Yin looked at Sheng Xiali, and under her surprised gaze, she smiled and patted her bed.
“This bed should be big enough for both of us.”