CHAPTER 64: CHAPTER 64 EMOTIONAL AWAKENING

That year marked the last winter Zhao Meimei spent cozily together with her Brother Yangyang in the little western-style house.

On the twentieth day of the lunar calendar, Shi Yang’s father brought a few workers to help Shi Yang and his mother move their home to the city. The little western-style house was returned to the factory and turned into a warehouse.

Shi Yang’s father deliberately arranged to invite Zhao Meimei’s family to visit them in the city, genuinely treating them as close friends.

Zhao Dazhuang carried two boxes of drinks, Liu Xiue held a bag of fruits, and Zhao Meimei wore newly bought clothes for the New Year—the three of them visiting, almost like offering an early New Year greeting.

Shi Yang’s new home was a house allocated by his father’s factory.

The house was located in the center of a community, on the third floor, with a layout of two bedrooms and two living rooms. The decoration style was quite similar to the little western-style house, clearly showing the handiwork of Shi Yang’s mother.

Zhao Dazhuang followed Shi Yang’s father and chatted in the living room, Liu Xiue accompanied Shi Yang’s mother to the kitchen to prepare dinner, while Zhao Meimei was taken back to her room by her Brother Yangyang.

Shi Yang’s new room was bright and spacious, with a single bed against the wall, a window opposite the bed, a study desk under the window, and a half-person-high bookshelf in the corner filled with Shi Yang’s books, many of which Zhao Meimei had once browsed.

Zhao Meimei toured around, touching and looking carefully, appreciating until satisfied, before returning to the bedside to sit next to her Brother Yangyang.

Zhao Meimei asked, "Brother, will you not return to the little western-style house in the future?"

Shi Yang nodded, his expression faint: "Yes, the previous house has already been reclaimed by the factory."

Zhao Meimei suddenly felt lost; she always thought Shi Yang and his mother would live there permanently, and if she wanted to see her Brother Yangyang, as long as he returned home during holidays, she could see him every day.

At this moment, Zhao Meimei for the first time realized that she might no longer be able to be as closely together with her Brother Yangyang as before. Nor could she eagerly bring good food made by her mother to deliver to him or see him whenever she wanted.

A rush of unfamiliar and heavy emotion surged within Zhao Meimei, pressing on her till she almost couldn’t breathe.

Zhao Meimei flung herself onto the bed, letting out a heavy sigh.

Shi Yang watched her pretend to act mature, amusingly pinching her face, which used to be chubby, now noticeably slimmer.

Zhao Meimei’s childhood baby fat had unknowingly faded away bit by bit with time.

Shi Yang scrutinized Zhao Meimei, feeling the little girl in his memories was indeed growing up, a realization that oddly comforted him.

Shi Yang asked Zhao Meimei with a smile, "What are you doing?"

Zhao Meimei lay still, tilted her head, with droopy thin eyelids, side-eyeing him: "Brother, I feel this place isn’t as good as home."

Zhao Meimei always called the little western-style house home, saying it was Shi Yang’s house, thus her own too.

Shi Yang’s smile faded gradually.

Since Shi Yang was admitted to college, after Shi Yang’s father organized a grand students’ banquet, the relationship between Shi Yang and his father began to thaw quickly; it had to, as Shi Yang went to college in the provincial city, and his mother stayed here alone, prompting his father to pack her over, and they officially began living as a typical couple.

With his heart unraveled, Shi Yang’s father no longer avoided outsiders like before, and outsiders, due to his status, cooperated and gradually acknowledged their relationship.

Shi Yang harbored deep resentment toward his father; the deep-rooted rift from childhood couldn’t be smoothed over suddenly, but now he was grown, knowing how to suppress and hide his emotions, keeping them from showing on the surface.

From childhood, Zhao Meimei seemed to always have the ability to accurately and effortlessly touch her Brother Yangyang’s heart with a word or a simple action.

Shi Yang’s heart ached fiercely, all the suppressed emotions of reluctance and separation surged out at this moment.

Zhao Meimei’s words, in a certain sense, also served as an emotional awakening for Shi Yang, allowing him to clearly understand one thing: he seemed to genuinely have a particular attachment to the little western-style house.

Shi Yang, from childhood, moved several times with his mother, viewing houses simply as places for shelter and rest.

Previously, wherever he moved with his mother, he felt nothing special, but this time moving out of the little western-style house, he suddenly felt distinctly repressed, unwilling to leave.

Shi Yang didn’t particularly resist living in his father’s house; since childhood, he was aware he ate, used, and spent his father’s money, understanding that he and his yet-dependent mother necessarily relied on his father for subsistence.

So, no matter how good the little western-style house was, in his eyes, it was just a house, a borrowed residence, still requiring monthly rent payments, not genuinely belonging to his mother and him.

Shi Yang couldn’t help asking himself if living there for just a few years could genuinely generate such profound feelings of reluctance.

While Shi Yang pondered, his eyes indistinctly fixed on an empty spot in the air, deep in thought.

Watching her Brother Yangyang’s clenched jaw and deep gaze, Zhao Meimei instinctively learned to recognize his mood suddenly, realizing her Brother Yangyang was desperately suppressing some emotion.

Zhao Meimei, thinking it was her previous words upsetting him, quickly tried to mend things: "I didn’t mean this place is bad; it’s just that now you’ve moved, it’ll be less convenient for me to find you like before. I mean, if I suddenly miss you and want to see you, what should I do? If my mom makes something tasty again, and I want you to try it, how do I bring it to you..."

Zhao Meimei babbled away, her tone thick with reluctance and nostalgia.

Shi Yang silently turned his head, looking at Zhao Meimei’s face as she lay facing upward on the bed, listening to her grumble on, feeling a warm rush through his chest, making his heart soft and tender.

Zhao Meimei at that time was wearing brand new clothes, lying on Shi Yang’s blue-checkered single bed, her head tilted, revealing elongated eyes and brows, her whole personality tucked at the corners of her mouth, lips barely moving while speaking.

Shi Yang half-sat by the bed’s edge, glancing sideways at the poutingly murmuring Zhao Meimei, suddenly understanding what truly tugged at his heart, what he couldn’t let go of.

What firmly chained his heart, making him nostalgic, wasn’t the house he lived in for a few years, but the person who accompanied him through those years, never leaving his side, incessantly tailing him like a little shadow in that house.