Shrine - Chapter 72

Chapter 72

The choking smell of smoke wafted from the living room. The range hood in their old home had been subpar and hadn't been replaced in years, so her mother wasn't used to turning it on. Now, she was coughing as she made a stir-fry for Ruan Ruan—stir-fried dried tofu, her favorite dish when she was at home. Ruan Ruan went over, switched on the range hood for her, and then turned on the dedicated kitchen air conditioner.

"Oh my, what's this?" Zhou Jiafen asked, looking up.

"An air conditioner. It won't be so stuffy when you cook with it on," Ruan Ruan said.

Zhou Jiafen smiled, her eyes stinging. "How novel."

Ruan Ruan went to the living room. After a moment's thought, she spoke softly to Ruan Dongliang, who was playing on his phone. "The bathroom got dirty. Go clean it up."

"I flushed," Ruan Dongliang said.

"Go take a closer look. I've told you about this before," Ruan Ruan's voice was gentle, but she didn't back down. She stood by the sofa, looking down at him. When Zhou Jiafen came out to set the table, Ruan Ruan glanced over and said, "This apartment is rented by my company. Other artists might stay here sometimes. If it gets dirty, I'll have to pay for damages."

Hearing this, Zhou Jiafen immediately urged Ruan Dongliang, "Go! Go wipe it down!"

Ruan Dongliang stood up and walked toward the bathroom.

After dinner, Ruan Ruan worked in her room for a little while. Then, she found a few massagers and other items that brands had sent her, planning to take them to the secondary bedroom for her mother to use. As she approached, she heard Ruan Dongliang standing in a corner, saying in a low voice that he needed to use a computer to submit his homework. His computer was a desktop he had put together when he first started university; he didn't have a portable laptop.

Zhou Jiafen suggested he ask his sister to borrow one she wasn't using, but Ruan Dongliang was too embarrassed.

"I have an old computer," Ruan Ruan said, rummaging one out of the storage room. "It's a bit laggy, but it should be fine for homework. Just don't play games on it."

The computer had been retired for quite some time. All the data had been wiped, and the system had been reinstalled once. She could just give it to him.

"I won't, Sis," Ruan Dongliang said, thanking her with his head down.

Ruan Ruan smiled and told him to go use it. Then she sat on the bed and unboxed the massager for Zhou Jiafen.

Her mother smiled so widely her wrinkles bunched up, holding the device far away to get a good look at it. Ruan Ruan asked her, "Mom, is your eyesight getting bad? Do you want me to get you a pair of reading glasses?"

Zhou Jiafen squeezed her eyes shut forcefully. "I'm not educated, what do I need glasses for?" She stroked the massager and glanced at Ruan Ruan. "Don't spend that unnecessary money. The proper thing to do is save up to buy your brother an apartment. He's about to graduate, you know."

Ruan Ruan tucked her hair behind her ear and gave a soft "mm," not continuing the conversation.

When she came out of the shower, Zhou Jiafen was already asleep. Ruan Dongliang was sitting on the sofa playing on his phone. Ruan Ruan told him to hurry up and wash. He was obedient enough, grabbing his pajamas without dawdling and heading to the bathroom.

Ruan Ruan poured a glass of water, intending to go back to her room, but she noticed the laptop on the dining table was still open. The motherboard on this computer had burned out once from being left on, so thinking that Ruan Dongliang had already submitted his homework, she leaned over and tapped the screen to wake it up, preparing to shut it down for him.

The QQ icon in the bottom right corner was flashing. Just as Ruan Ruan was about to right-click and exit, a message notification suddenly popped up.

"Your sister is so annoying."

Ruan Ruan's heart clenched. She bit her lip, hesitated for a second, and clicked open QQ.

It was a whole evening's worth of conversation, presumably between Ruan Dongliang and a classmate, who, judging by the tone and profile, was also male.

The other person wasn't the point. The point was Ruan Dongliang. The way he talked on QQ was completely different from how he was in real life.

"I feel like she's being kept lolololololololol"

"Her apartment 【Image】, her clothes are all really expensive lolololol, look at her skincare products 【Image】"

"Ask your gf if they're expensive."

Ruan Ruan's hands began to tremble uncontrollably. Blood rushed to her head in an instant, making her dizzy.

The other person said: "Everyone online is flaming your sister, saying she's uncultured and only knows how to generate hype."

Ruan Dongliang: "Junior college student lolololol"

Ruan Dongliang: "If it weren't for my parents, she would've died long ago, and now she's so arrogant, looking down on me. [facepalm.jpg]"

"For real?"

"My uncle said she couldn't even afford to eat back then. Anyway, when they took her in, the people said they didn't want her anymore."

Finally, Ruan Dongliang said: "Don't go spreading this around. [facepalm.jpg]"

The blood that had rushed to her head now flooded back to the soles of her feet, leaving her entire body cold. It was like having an IV drip all night, the kind of cold where you can feel a foreign substance flowing through your veins. Ruan Ruan calmly straightened up and took a sip of water, but for some reason, the water felt scalding, hotter than her own body.

After drinking the water, she returned to her bedroom, locked the door, and hugged Xiao Hei in a daze.

She remembered when she was little and her parents were busy, she was always the one looking after Ruan Dongliang. When she was a bit older, her parents would drive off to buy inventory, and she would watch their stall, placing a small stool next to her for Ruan Dongliang. He was never noisy or fussy, just occasionally calling her "Jiejie" in his milky, childish voice.

She would use the thirty or fifty cents she had saved up to buy him a lollipop. After unwrapping it, she would only take a sniff of the candy's sweet fragrance. She craved it too, but she had heard that kidnappers came to the market to snatch children, and that they would use candy as bait. She was worried that while she was making change or hanging up clothes, her brother would be taken by a kidnapper.

Then he might end up like she had, lost and adrift somewhere.

Ruan Ruan had always been grateful. She never compared her treatment to her brother's because she was old enough to understand when she was adopted. She knew she wasn't their biological child; that her parents were willing to give her a bite to eat was already more than enough. So even when her studies were delayed because she had to take care of her brother, she never held a shred of resentment. Having the chance to go to school was good enough, wasn't it?

Later, to lessen the burden on her family, she chose to attend Chunmei Arts Academy, which had now become the "low starting point" she was ridiculed for online.

Anyone could laugh at her for being uncultured and uneducated, but for her own brother to say, "Junior college student lololol"—that was the final straw.

Even though he had shown up unannounced and even dirtied the bathroom that her precious Shi Ran might use, she hadn't been angry. Thinking he needed to do his homework, she had immediately found a computer for him.

How could two people's thoughts be so different? She had always hoped he would be educated, while he joined others in mocking her for being a junior college student.

She also knew that her mother hadn't brought Ruan Dongliang here without other ideas in mind. She couldn't buy him an apartment, but it wasn't as if she couldn't provide her family with the care they were due. But…

Ruan Ruan lay on the bed, staring at the snow-white ceiling. Even the chandelier had been cleaned spotless. Now that she was grown, money no longer had the smell of banknotes. As a child, the leather pouch for collecting money hung at her waist, and she had only thought it stank. Now, wealth was more of an intangible concept, yet when some people spoke of it, their open mouths reeked of something ranker than the stench of copper coins.

Perhaps life was just this fragmented. The Ruan Dongliang from her childhood was different from the Ruan Dongliang of today.

The pervert online was different from the university student who was too embarrassed to ask for a computer.

And these trivial, dark aspects of life were even more different from the all-encompassing warmth of being with Shi Ran.

The ladder to the clouds that Shi Ran had helped build for her wasn't just about money, fame, or social status; it was a path from hell to the human world. She had thought she could cast certain things into the storage room of her memory, only to discover now that many of them had been there all along.

It was just that for a brief moment, Shi Ran had gently covered her eyes.

A little after twelve, Shi Ran made a video call.

The room was even darker now, but the screen holding Shi Ran was like a lighthouse on the sea.

Ruan Ruan gazed at her more intently than ever before. Her skin was snow-white, her gaze was serene, and her listening expression was sincere and genuine. Even when her face was blank and she seemed unapproachable, you knew she was fragrant, she was soft, and she would never hurt you.

It's so dirty, Ruan Ruan wanted to say. Shi Ran, some people are so dirty.

But she just wiped a speck of dust off her phone screen with her index finger and said nothing.

Shi Ran had just removed her makeup, and a faint mist of water still clung to her face. She couldn't see Ruan Ruan clearly in the darkness, but she keenly sensed it. "Unhappy?"

Ruan Ruan sullenly admitted, "My mom and my brother came suddenly. I'm a little uncomfortable."

Seeing that she didn't want to go into specifics, Shi Ran didn't press. She just tilted her head and asked softly, "Can you handle it?" Whether it was the situation, or her emotions.

"I can." Ruan Ruan pressed her lips together and managed a slight smile.

She didn't like it when Shi Ran said things like "I'll help you" or offered to rush back. Those four words from Shi Ran were not just a comfort, but a sign of trust. Ruan Ruan suddenly felt her chest swell, as if she had found some courage to deal with it all.

Shi Ran smiled too, blinking as she said in a light tone, "I ran into a little something on my end, too."

She paused, then lifted the corner of her lips in a captivating way. "If you hadn't told me just now, I wasn't planning on telling you either."

"What?" Ruan Ruan's breath caught.

"The rough cut of 【Non-Desire】 didn't pass review. They're demanding a re-edit." The truth was, some of the lines were a bit sharp, and the problem was that Zhao Ansheng was very stubborn and refused to change them.

Then…

"I'm waiting for you to ask, 'Can you handle it?'" Shi Ran said.

Ruan Ruan's worry instantly subsided. She said in a soft voice, "Can you handle it?"

"I can," Shi Ran said huskily, slowly letting her lashes meet.

Her eyes were saying, Did you hear that? Little Bread is Shi Ran's comfort, too. So, you must be strong.

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