Always Home

As the National Day holiday approached, Huang Lu enthusiastically extended an invitation, "Coming with me? I'll show you a great time."

Huan'er shook her head, "I'm going home."

Train tickets were hard to come by during the golden week, but she had managed to secure two—one for herself and one for Jing Qichi.

"Just a few days and you're heading back?" Huang Lu was surprised. "Really? Missing home that much?"

Huan'er smiled. "I’ll be back two days late. I’ve already asked the counselor for leave. Could you cover for me if there’s any roll call in other classes?"

"No problem," Huang Lu agreed, then smirked. "I bet little Jing is coming back late too. You two..."

Huan'er covered her mouth to stop her. "Don’t make wild guesses."

The need to return and the certainty of a late return both stemmed from the same reason.

Unable to get sleeper tickets, Huan'er and Jing Qichi traveled light on their journey home. The hard-seat carriage was packed, nearly half filled with young faces their age. Across from them sat three students from neighboring schools who had teamed up for the trip. After chatting about their respective campus lives, someone suggested playing cards. With four players and one extra, they enthusiastically devised a five-player variant, tweaking the rules as they went, laughing and joking all the while. By noon, the trio disembarked at their stop. Huan'er and Jing Qichi bid them farewell without exchanging contact details, simply saying they’d meet again if fate allowed.

Children, inexperienced in the ways of the world, might cry over a desk mate who transferred away after just half a year, solemnly filling out a page in a friendship book before hugging tightly and declaring, "I’ll never forget you!" But as people grow older, they no longer do such things. An event, a shared task, a drinking session, a journey together—connections between strangers constantly form and dissolve, much like the immune antibodies that develop after illnesses, big or small. With enough experience, it all becomes routine.

As for the turning point of this change, if you think about it, it’s really just a vague, lingering outline.

A family of three took the seats across from them—a baby sound asleep in its swaddling clothes. The surrounding passengers, mindful of the quiet, even lowered their voices. Jing Qichi went to the dining car and brought back boxed meals. The two of them huddled over the tiny tray table, eating quickly. Huan'er told him, "Right now, I really crave Aunt Hao’s braised pork knuckle."

Song Ma was a master cook, and her crowning achievement was that braised pork knuckle. It wasn’t enough to serve it hot—it had to cool before being sliced thin, lightly seasoned with soy sauce, sesame oil, and vinegar, sprinkled with minced garlic, and paired with a bowl of her secret homemade chili oil for dipping. The skin was chewy, the meat perfectly balanced between lean and fatty, the initial taste rich with five-spice braising notes, followed by the harmonious blend of dipping sauces. One bite, and you’d wish the whole pig were nothing but knuckles.

In the past, Song’s place had been the go-to for gatherings. Chen Ba, having honed his drinking skills in the army, would always find time for a couple of rounds with the other dads whenever he was back. Global affairs, hot topics, the Family Compound, the kids—the adults never ran out of things to talk about. Sometimes, differing opinions would lead to heated arguments, only for the mothers to scold them with "What’s the rush?" before they clinked glasses and made up, unanimously praising, "Sister-in-law’s cooking is absolutely unbeatable." The braised pork knuckle was the fathers’ favorite drinking snack, as if its presence alone smoothed all edges at the table. Now, every memory of it grew more vivid and poignant.

Jing Qichi packed the leftover meal boxes into a trash bag and smiled faintly. "My mom wrote down Aunt Hao’s recipe in a notebook, but she still can’t get it right."

"Haha, my mom too," Huan'er laughed. "They just lack the talent."The two of them laughed for a while before falling into silence again. Since the incident with Song Ma, she rarely cooked anymore. The stove was too high, and renovating the old house for gas was a major project. Moreover, the Song father and son worried that her mobility issues would take a toll on her health, so they set up a low table in the dining area with an induction cooker, allowing her to occasionally prepare simple meals there. Song Cong said they did this to prevent their mother from feeling like a burden—she could still contribute, she was still an indispensable part of the family, and she needed this clear affirmation.

But still, the people and the days of the past would never return.

The afternoon sun made everyone drowsy. Full and content, Huan'er unknowingly closed her eyes in this unusually quiet atmosphere.

She distinctly remembered resting her head against the window frame, but when she woke up, dusk had fallen, and she found herself leaning on Jing Qichi's shoulder, his denim jacket draped over her.

Huan'er sat up straight and rubbed her eyes. "Are we not there yet?"

"Soon," the boy replied, raising his hand to massage his shoulder. "About another hour."

"What were you doing?"

He tilted his phone toward her, showing a football match playing on the screen.

Nothing new.

Huan'er looked out the window and sneezed, still groggy from sleep. "We’re almost at Sishui, right?"

"The bus is taking the eastern route," Jing Qichi said, pulling the jacket that had slipped onto his lap and casually draping it back over her. "We’re bypassing Sishui."

After saying this, he suddenly brought up Liao Xinyan. "The class monitor got a boyfriend."

Huan'er was shocked. "So soon!"

It had only been a month since the semester started.

"Same department, apparently." Jing Qichi turned off the video and opened his photo album, handing her the phone. "She sent me the picture this afternoon."

It was a selfie of Liao Xinyan and a boy in a blue team jersey. The boy had his arm around her, both grinning ear to ear, with a football field in the background.

Jing Qichi commented, "Nouveau riche, wearing Chelsea."

Huan'er burst out laughing. Since when did he care about someone else’s team jersey? And was that really the point right now?

She pointed at the photo. "What’s the class monitor’s angle? Making you regret it?"

"No idea, didn’t ask. But..." He took back his phone. "You knew all along, didn’t you? About Liao Xinyan and me."

Huan'er froze, then guiltily nodded.

"So you didn’t tell me and even helped her out a lot?"

Jing Qichi said this with an amused tone, as if Chen Huan'er had committed some monumental blunder. Across from them, a baby in a passenger’s arms started crying, successfully diverting his attention—but he quickly turned back to stare at her. His gaze wasn’t aggressive, but it was clear he wouldn’t let it go without an explanation.

He’d been holding this in since receiving the photo hours ago.

Chen Huan'er had no choice but to confess. "The class monitor told me in confidence. How could I tell anyone else? Besides, I didn’t betray you—I just answered questions about your preferences, where you were during holidays, stuff like that. I told the truth."

"And that doesn’t count as betrayal?"

"Wait." Huan'er finally caught on. "So, when she told you about her new boyfriend, she also laid out her entire emotional history with you?"

Jing Qichi smirked. "Yeah, pretty much."

Xinyan was truly one of a kind. After being rejected, she immediately found someone similar and then recounted every detail to express how fleeting her feelings had been?

Huan'er began to genuinely admire her. The most aggressive approach was also the most transparent expression—not everyone had the courage to lay things out so clearly.For example, she herself wouldn't do.

She glanced at Jing Qichi, who had put his headphones back on and was engrossed in watching the game—he wouldn't do either.

The Song family parents had come to the capital for a holiday trip, so they didn’t see Song Cong until the last day of the Golden Week. The three of them gathered at Huan’er’s home, sharing stories about their schools. Song Cong mentioned that after military training, the group from the capital had gotten together once, organized by Qi Qi. Du Man had switched to contact lenses, and everyone almost didn’t recognize her. Liao Xinyan had also shown up with a tall guy.

“I heard he’s from Beijing Sport University,” Song Cong, unaware of the backstory, shared with his friends. “Our class monitor was hilarious—before coming, she specifically texted us saying ‘the last part of an endeavor is the hardest,’ and warned us not to tease them.”

Huan’er grinned at Jing Qichi, then told Song Cong, “It’s official—Xinyan’s off the market.”

Song Cong was puzzled. “How do you know more about this than I do, all the way out here?”

Huan’er was about to spill everything when she caught Jing Qichi glaring at her. Not daring to push her luck, she swallowed her laughter and hinted cryptically, “Got an insider. Not bad, right?”

Song Cong’s confusion doubled. “An insider?”

Huan’er nearly exhausted herself with all the meaningful looks she was giving him. It was all right there in the open—how could someone so smart be so hopelessly dense about this?

The topic was interrupted by a phone call. Song Ba said the plumber had arrived but couldn’t find their building at the gate. Song Cong immediately stood up. “I’ll go get him. Don’t worry.”

The unexpected turns in life change everyone, in big or small ways, fast or slow—the once carefree person gradually becomes the backbone of household chores, and the already mature boy, tempered by time, has long grown into a true man.

“Go on,” Huan’er waved him off.

With Song Ma unable to move around easily, this was Song Cong’s responsibility.

“I have to leave tomorrow,” Song Cong said apologetically before leaving. “The department asked me to give a speech, and the advisor wouldn’t approve my leave.”

They all remembered—tomorrow was the anniversary of Jing’s Father’s passing.

“It’s fine, you do what you need to. I’m heading out too, going back to eat with my mom,” Jing Qichi said, standing up as well. At the door, he turned to Huan’er. “Send me the train ticket order number. I need to change the time for mine.”

Huan’er waved her hand. “I already booked for the day after tomorrow. I took leave—we’ll leave together in the afternoon.”

With that, she closed the door, oblivious to the surprise in Jing Qichi’s eyes and the complexity in Song Cong’s gaze.

The next evening, when Chen Ma returned from work, the mother and daughter bought some fruit and went to the Jing household together. The memorial rites were a family affair, so they couldn’t attend, but only after the exhausting day had passed did they have a chance to express their condolences.

Jing’s Mother, dressed in black and red-eyed, opened the door and burst into tears again at the sight of her junior sister. The tears rolled down her cheeks like strings of pearls, the grief left behind by that accident as enduring as those tears. Sometimes, it seemed heaven was so presumptuous—it fancied itself fair, assigning everyone something heartbreaking to bear, oblivious to the fact that pain comes in countless forms. Physical pain could be numbed with morphine, the ache of a breakup could be eased by someone new—but what about the loss of a loved one? A husband, a father, a son—how long would it take for those who lost him to emerge from this pain?

The heaven that posed the question wouldn’t provide an answer. In this world, there are no answers.Huan'er heard from her mother that Jing's Mother returned to work less than a week after Jing's Father passed away, and she never shed a single tear at the hospital. Colleagues, supervisors, even the cleaning ladies couldn't help offering words of comfort when they saw her—each consolation like an arrow piercing her heart—yet she never cried. She too possessed a superpower: the ability to remove herself from the narrative, to isolate heart-wrenching pain within a tiny, inviolable space, to quickly stand up, heal, and then single-handedly steer life back on track.

This was a superpower granted by unimaginable strength.

Jing Qichi retreated to the balcony, and Huan'er followed, quietly closing the door behind her.

Behind the glass was a grieving mother and the friend holding her tight. Adults, too, needed their own time.

Jing Qichi said softly, "I used to always blame my mom for being busy, but she's given so much for me and this family, hasn't she?"

He didn’t really need an answer.

"Giving" was an abstract word. Unlike speed, distance, or area, it couldn’t be easily calculated with numbers and units. A bowl of noodles, a word, a glance—these were acts of giving. Tiptoeing into a room at night to quietly pull up a kicked-off blanket was giving. Filling every corner of a suitcase with favorite snacks before leaving home was giving. Arguing one day and still waking up early the next to light the stove in the kitchen was giving. How could these be measured? No—only someone ignorant and cruel would think to measure them.

If parents like these weren’t ordinary, Huan'er thought, then we must have exhausted all our kindness in a past life to deserve them in this one.

Jing Qichi said, "Sometimes I dream of a tree, tall and huge, like a Lego toy city, with a row of red houses beneath it."

Huan'er asked, "No people?"

"They're all inside the houses." He gazed out the window. "See, we never really know about others' joys and sorrows."

In the lit-up rooms across the complex, someone was buried in books, another flipping a wok, while others simply glowed with warm yellow or stark white light.

Huan'er tugged his arm, making him look at her. "I miss him too, you know. Not as often as you do, but Jing Qichi, I really miss him."

The neighborly uncle they always saw, the friend their parents respected and loved, the elder who shared so many good times with them—even after a year, she often grieved how fearlessly, how suddenly, he had left.

Jing Qichi, you're not alone.

You and Aunt Lin—we're here with you.

Jing Qichi stared at her for a long moment before his voice trembled. "Thank you, Huan'er."

He didn’t cry. He had long told himself he wouldn’t shed any more tears.

A few stars appeared in the city’s night sky—a rare sight. Perhaps it was Jing's Father and his colleagues missing those on earth.

The two leaned against the balcony window, watching the night sky, each speaking silently to the stars in their hearts.