Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Ji Yunshu froze in place upon hearing the name "Meng Li," nearly dropping the candy box in her hands.

Which 'Meng'? Which 'Li'?

No matter which characters were used, the sound matched the name from her dream exactly.

Meng Li.

The terrifying dream images flooded back into Ji Yunshu's mind—the smug look in that woman's eyes, her father's cold, distant glance before he turned away, He Jianjun shaking her hand away, and the suffocating sensation of being dragged off by young men shouting "Down with the capitalist's daughter!"

That was the name.

Ji Yunshu stood rooted to the spot, watching her mother from a distance, her eyes welling up.

Ji Yunting was the first to react. He glanced back at Ji Yunshu, furrowed his brow, and took half a step toward his sister, as if to block her.

He Qiuxia stood at the door, her expression shifting from bewilderment to something inscrutable. She looked back at Ji Yunshu inside the house, then turned to the young soldier, her voice still steady: "Biological daughter? Comrade, my daughter is right here, safe and sound. What biological daughter are you talking about? Tell her to leave, don't make a fuss here."

The young soldier didn't leave, his face looking troubled: "Auntie, I told her, but she refused to leave. She said she has all the evidence with her, and she said... she said the babies were swapped in Subei back then, that you and Mrs. Meng gave birth at the same time, and the Nationalist army suddenly attacked the Subei Liberated Area... She didn't say much more, just said you and the chief have to see her—one look and you'll know."

He Qiuxia paused for a moment, then said, "Go back and tell her to hold on. I'll call my husband at work."

The young soldier nodded and left.

He Qiuxia gave Ji Yunshu, still frozen in place, a long look, and with her eyes red, she quickly dialed Ji Haiguo's office, keeping her voice low: "Come home right away. Something's happened at home."

Ji Yunshu couldn't make out what was said on the other end. He Qiuxia said "mm-hm" a couple of times and hung up.

He Qiuxia turned around, looking at Ji Yunting and Ji Yunshu. Her lips moved, and after a long pause she managed to say: "Your dad will be back soon."

Ji Yunting looked at his mother's expression, then at Ji Yunshu's pale face, and said, "Mom, I'll go with you to the gate. Xiaoshu, you stay inside. Don't come out."

Ji Yunshu shook her head.

She climbed off the bed, barefoot on the floor, her voice shaking a little: "No, I'm coming too."

"What for?" Ji Yunting frowned. "It's sunny out there. Just stay in bed."

Ji Yunshu ignored him and bent over to find her cloth shoes.

He Qiuxia walked over, reached out and placed her hand on Ji Yunshu's shoulder. Her eyes were red, but her voice was firm: "Yunshu, listen to your mom. Stay home and wait. No matter who shows up at that gate, you're my daughter. That won't change."

Ji Yunshu looked up at He Qiuxia, tears welling up in her eyes, but she held them back. "Mom, I want to go. No matter what happens, I want to see her face."

He Qiuxia looked at her daughter, and felt a sharp, aching pang in her heart. She opened her mouth, then let out a sigh and reached out to smooth Ji Yunshu's hair: "Alright then, put your shoes on. Mom will comb your hair, and we'll go together."

He Qiuxia picked up the wooden comb from the tea table, gently combed Ji Yunshu's long hair from top to bottom, then braided it into a simple braid that hung over her chest.

Ji Yunting watched from the side, wanting to say something, but in the end he said nothing—just gave Ji Yunshu a gentle pat on the head.

The three of them left the yard and headed for the gate.

The July sun was blazing, and Ji Yunshu couldn't help but squint. She walked beside He Qiuxia, who held her hand tightly, her expression grim.

As they neared the gate, Ji Yunshu saw a girl standing at the entrance in the distance.

The girl wore a floral dress, two simple braids, standing straight and proper, a canvas bag hanging from her shoulder. The sunlight fell on her face, making her features hard to see clearly, but from her clothes and demeanor, she didn't look like a girl who'd had a hard life.

The girl was wearing a dress made of dacron—and dacron wasn't easy to come by. Ji Yunshu had only ever seen one in her whole life, and that was when He Jianjun's sister next door had spent a fortune to buy one for her wedding. Ji Yunshu remembered that in her dream, the Meng family were well-off capitalists, and her already sinking heart sank further.

As they drew closer, the girl heard their footsteps and looked up.

The moment she saw that face, Ji Yunshu stiffened.

Arched eyebrows, a straight nose, thin lips that curved up at the corners when she smiled. Her features weren't particularly striking individually, but together they were quite pleasant to look at. The key thing was that the shape of her eyes and the curve of her chin were practically carved from the same mold as Ji Haiguo's—even the small red mole between her brows matched the one in the dream exactly.

Ji Yunshu's breath caught. It took her a long moment to pull herself together.

She remembered how, as a child, people always said she looked like neither He Qiuxia nor Ji Haiguo. He Qiuxia would always laugh and say, "My girl takes after the skipped generation—she looks like her late grandmother." She'd never thought much of it before, but now, seeing this face, she suddenly understood—it wasn't that she didn't resemble her father; it was that her father's features were written on someone else's face.

The girl saw them, her eyes lighting up, and walked over quickly. Her gaze moved from He Qiuxia to Ji Yunshu, paused for a moment, then she gave a gentle smile.

The smile was natural—so natural it seemed practiced many times over.

"Mom, big brother." She called out twice, her voice soft and delicate, exactly like in the dream. After a moment, she spoke again slowly, "Is this... older sister?"

Ji Yunshu didn't respond right away. She felt something odd about Meng Li's tone. Instinctively, she edged closer to He Qiuxia, her hand unconsciously gripping the hem of He Qiuxia's clothes.

Ji Yunting, hearing this, also frowned. He stepped forward, positioning himself in front of Ji Yunshu, and said in a tone that wasn't harsh but wasn't warm either: "Comrade, the relationship hasn't been established yet, so please don't use those terms for now. Let's talk inside—the gate isn't the place for this."

Meng Li looked at him, and seeing that He Qiuxia hadn't refused, nodded: "Alright."

Ji Yunshu followed close behind He Qiuxia, her mind full of the fear of identity-swap from her dream.

Despite the scorching, dry heat, Ji Yunshu felt a chill seeping through her fingertips.

Just then, He Qiuxia reached out and gripped Ji Yunshu's hand again, giving her a reassuring look, and didn't let go after that. Ji Yunting walked at the back, glancing now and then at Meng Li, then at Ji Yunshu.

Ji Yunshu kept her head down, staring at the path beneath her feet, the sunlight stinging her eyes.

Once inside, He Qiuxia had Meng Li sit in the main room, then poured a glass of water and placed it in front of her. Ji Yunting pulled up a chair and sat across from Meng Li, gesturing with his eyes for Ji Yunshu to sit. Ji Yunshu didn't respond, just stood beside He Qiuxia. None of the three spoke.

Meng Li, however, wasn't shy. She set her canvas bag on her lap, pulled out a stack of papers, and laid them neatly on the table.

"Auntie," she said, looking at He Qiuxia with a serious expression, "I know this is sudden, but I really am your daughter. These are the evidence I've gathered over the years. Take a look and you'll understand."

He Qiuxia didn't immediately take the papers. She looked at Meng Li, sizing her up for a long moment, before speaking: "You say you're my biological daughter—what evidence do you have?"

Meng Li pulled out one of the papers and said, "This is a certificate from my adoptive parents' side. I grew up in Su City. My adoptive father is Meng Guangze, a capitalist in Su City who used to run a textile mill. They never knew I wasn't their biological child until two years ago, when my adoptive mother got sick and needed a blood transfusion. That's when we found out the blood types didn't match—I'm type AB, but my adoptive mother is type O."

Hospitals in this era could already test for basic blood types. In Ji Yunshu's dream, that was also how she'd learned she wasn't Ji Haiguo and He Qiuxia's biological daughter.

Ji Haiguo was type AB, He Qiuxia was type A—there was no way they could have a daughter with type O blood. Ji Yunshu didn't understand why now, but in her dream, that was exactly how He Jianjun had slapped the test report in her face!

He Qiuxia didn't move, but Ji Yunshu stared at that thin, handwritten hospital report, and her heart sank halfway.

When He Qiuxia remained silent, Meng Li continued: "Auntie, before I came, I also went to Subei to find the comrades at the nursery and asked about what happened back then. My sister and I were both born at the Subei nursery—my adoptive mother and you were in the same room. The war broke out suddenly, the nursery was shelled, and the earthen house next to it was blown open. It was you who shielded my adoptive mother—otherwise she'd have been buried in the rubble. But that was also when my sister and I got switched. The nursery used blue swaddling cloths, and she instinctively grabbed the baby closest to her, which was me. So later, my sister was the one you took away. After that, refugees from the Lunan and Subei liberated areas fled over, and the two families were completely separated..."

He Qiuxia still said nothing. She closed her eyes, as if recalling the sudden disaster from over a decade ago. No one had expected the Nationalist army to suddenly attack the Subei Liberated Area. She had just given birth a week earlier and was still weak, but her first instinct upon hearing the shelling was to protect the woman beside her who had also just given birth—a woman who seemed utterly helpless.

He Qiuxia knew this was almost too selfless, but she felt she was tough and sturdy—she wasn't afraid. But that woman was clearly someone who'd been sheltered her whole life, had been separated from her family, and had even suffered a difficult labor on the day she arrived at the nursery. It was a miracle she'd survived at all. He Qiuxia couldn't bear it. Her man was off fighting at the front; she had to protect the other women on the home front.

So she naturally assumed the baby in that woman's arms was the woman's own flesh and blood. After brushing the dirt off herself, He Qiuxia picked up the other baby, the one left neglected in its swaddling. She hadn't even had a chance to check before the other comrades at the nursery pulled her along to rush to the air-raid shelter, and that was how she lost track of the woman.

It had been so chaotic back then that she truly hadn't given much thought to whether the child was hers. Over the years, as Ji Yunshu grew up but remained frail, He Qiuxia had felt deeply guilty, thinking she'd neglected her daughter back then and that was why Ji Yunshu had lingering health problems.

It wasn't until after liberation, when Ji Yunshu fell seriously ill and needed surgery with a blood transfusion, but neither her blood nor Ji Haiguo's matched, that He Qiuxia finally realized Ji Yunshu wasn't her biological daughter.

But at that time, Ji Yunshu was already fourteen. Having raised her for fourteen years, even if she wasn't her biological daughter, she was already as dear to her as her own son Ji Yunting. In fact, even after that, she still treated Ji Yunshu better than Ji Yunting.

Now that her real daughter had come to find them, He Qiuxia could tell just by looking at her face that this person must be her biological daughter, yet she still couldn't help but wonder—what was going to happen to Ji Yunshu?

Ji Yunshu didn't know what she should do either. Watching the struggle and pain on He Qiuxia's face, she realized that perhaps everything Meng Li had said was true.

That face was too much like her dad's—she couldn't fool herself into thinking it was a lie.

He Qiuxia finally picked up the reports and handwritten certificates, stared at them for a while, and went quiet for a long time.

The room was very quiet, with just the ticking of the wall clock.

After a moment, He Qiuxia spoke, her voice soft but shaking badly: "I've already called Old Ji. We'll wait till he gets back to talk about this. Did you tell your parents... your adoptive parents about coming to find us? This isn't something we can sort out all at once. Didn't they come with you? Are they in the capital? Should I have Old Ji write them a letter of introduction? This is a big deal for both families. If they're in the capital too, please invite them over—this is a major matter for both families."

Having a daughter who had been switched at birth for nearly twenty years suddenly appear before her—even He Qiuxia, a woman who'd been through gunfire and brushed with death more than once, was totally thrown off. When she was nervous, her speech would speed up, and she barely had time to think straight. All she could think was: why wasn't Ji Haiguo back yet?

"..." Meng Li hesitated, seemed reluctant to bring up her adoptive parents, and didn't budge. She looked at He Qiuxia, her eyes slowly reddening: "Auntie, I know this is hard for you to accept all at once. But I've been waiting for this day for a long time. I'm not here to take anything away—I just want to reconnect with my real parents."

As she spoke, her voice got more choked up, and tears started welling in her eyes. "The train ride from Su City to here is very long. I only got the chance to come look for you because I fell seriously ill and had to come to the capital for treatment..."

Meng Li took out a handkerchief and gently dabbed at her tears. Without waiting for anyone else to respond, she went on and on about how hard things had been for her in Su City.

In this era, children of capitalists were indeed looked down upon, and Ji Yunshu knew that well.

He Qiuxia looked at Meng Li, her lips moved like she wanted to say something but couldn't get the words out. Yet it was clear she was growing even more anxious.

Ji Yunting stood nearby watching the scene, feeling uneasy. He turned to look at Ji Yunshu and noticed that her face was frighteningly pale, her eyes fixed straight on Meng Li, her lips pressed tightly together.

He walked over and gently touched Ji Yunshu's arm: "Xiaoshu, why don't you go over to Pei Yufeng's place for a while? Didn't you say you needed to go get something from him?"

Ji Yunshu turned her head blankly to look at him, her gaze somewhat dazed.

"Go on." Ji Yunting lowered his voice. "Sitting here is just a waste of time. Go out for a walk—by the time Dad comes back, maybe this will all be settled."

"No matter what the outcome is, you'll always be my sister," Ji Yunting said finally.

Author's note:

None