Chapter 5

“Heh, it’s okay.” Dad gave a silly grin.

“Why is it okay?”

“Because that author was accused of plagiarism half a year ago and taken offline. There won’t be any wishes coming true now.” Dad shrugged, a trace of regret in his eyes.

Though, if you looked closely, there might also have been a little relief.

Me: …

That’s life for you. Sometimes it’s even more absurd than a novel.

When it came to choosing my college major, Mom and Dad had another little argument.

“Nowadays all the heroines seem to study journalism. Seriously, eight out of ten do. They go to fancy parties every day and meet their destined financial tycoon.” Mom gestured as she spoke.

I nearly spit out my cola.

“Computer science is better. You can just hack a CEO’s computer and make the international news. Saves you a few years of detours,” Dad objected.

I waved my hands quickly. “It’s fine. Whatever I study, I’ll probably end up as a salaried worker. Marrying into a wealthy family is incredibly unlikely. I’d rather choose something that lets me support myself.”

So I slung on my backpack and kept studying engineering.

It wasn’t some particularly lofty field, but it held a little of my childhood dream—

Aerospace.

This time, I went to school hundreds of kilometers from home. Every day, I studied my major until my hairline seemed ready to recede. Meanwhile, Mom and Dad had a much more leisurely life.

But maybe because they had too much free time, they finally broke their seal.

A new side quest unlocked: matchmaking!

10

Dad was still bearable. Mom, on the other hand, faithfully sent me an old-school melodramatic romance novel every night—each one several million words long.

She’d attach a sixty-second voice message, too.

“Sweetie, I cried so much reading this one. You have to give it a try when you have time. If you meet a male lead like this at school, stay away immediately. No playboy heirs! And this vicious female rival, too. Read enough of these and you’ll see right through her fake sweetness.”

“And the second male lead…”

By the time I got back to my dorm, it was usually nine or ten at night. I still had piles of homework, so all I could do was turn her down.

“Mom, I’m really busy.”

“Hasn’t any boy tried to pursue you?” she asked cautiously.

“No. They’re probably all afraid I’ll take their jobs someday.”

That was just what the relationships between men and women in engineering were like: perfectly platonic. No one was the adored center of the universe. We were all each other’s competition.

“Those blind fools!” Mom cried angrily. “It’s okay, sweetie. Visit other departments and schools more often. Go to more mixers. Maybe you’ll meet your destined young master from a wealthy family!”

“Mom, it’s a modern society. Princes went extinct ages ago.”

I was so sleepy that I fell asleep as soon as I lay down.

After nothing seemed to come of it for a long time, Mom really did quiet down for a while.

But I don’t know whether Dad had said something to her. One night, in the wee hours of the morning, she quietly sent me an artsy romance novel with two female leads…

“Sweetie, don’t feel pressured. I’ve been learning about some new things lately. Society is much more open now. We should accept every kind of relationship.”

“I didn’t think it through before, and I might have made you uncomfortable. Honestly, if you insist on bringing home a young lady from a wealthy family, I could accept that.”

“Did I use the right words? I don’t mean a princess—I mean a young heiress. Hehe.”

What on earth was she talking about?!

I was about to lose it.

Finally, in my third year of college, I started dating a senior who was a fourth-year student.

Looking back, I suppose some part of me was trying to prove a point out of spite.

That summer, I brought him home to meet my parents.

They were so moved they nearly cried.

A real Beijinger! A local! Rich! A second-generation heir!

Mom and Dad brought out their signature soup dumplings to treat him. When my senior thanked them and reached out his hand, they were even more astonished.

They’d spotted the smooth, round prayer beads around his wrist. (Actually, I’d bought them from a street vendor for just a few yuan.)

So he was a “Buddhist devotee from high society,” too!

That night, my parents excitedly posted on Douyin:

【After waiting so long, we finally got our princely son-in-law! Our daughter has done us proud. May everyone become the leading lady of her own life!】

The comments were all sarcastic:

【Did the food-matching app poison you two? What prince?】

【Your urgent priority is uninstalling Tomato Novel.】

【A marriage without matching status won’t work, you know. (Snickering)】

Mom and Dad deleted the comments one by one.

“They’re all NPCs who envy us!”

But that happiness didn’t last long.

During the summer I stayed in Beijing for graduate school, my senior cheated on me.

11

Actually, there had been signs that our relationship was falling apart for a while.

We hadn’t fallen in love at first sight, nor had our affection grown over time.

It was simply hormones stirring during some dull years. He happened to meet me, and I happened to meet him.

One day, we went to see a movie together. Halfway through, he went to the restroom and forgot his phone.

A message came in from another woman. That was when I accidentally saw their chat history.

【He wanted you to marry him as soon as you graduated, but you insisted on applying to graduate school—and actually got in. You really don’t care about him at all.

【You’re so stubborn, spoiled rotten by your family, and no fun at all. Apart from your face, there’s nothing worth mentioning.

【You even study taekwondo. You have such a strong grip. I really don’t understand why girls learn things like that. Wouldn’t it be better to study ballet, like me?

【And your parents? Ha. They’re so poor and provincial it’s embarrassing. They invited me to eat homemade dumplings when we met. Who wants that?】

…

When he came back from the hallway, he looked a little flustered.

I fought down my disgust and tossed his phone to him.

“Let’s break up.”

“Aitu, let me explain—”

I violently knocked his hand away, my sleeve swiping across his face.

Maybe I could have negotiated about other things, but insulting my parents was unforgivable.

Even though it didn’t cost me much in practical terms, the breakup left me devastated for a long time.

I buried myself in the library, studying until I forgot to eat or sleep, with no sense of day or night. When I looked in the mirror, bleary with exhaustion, I thought that maybe I just wasn’t the sort of person people liked.

A “magnificent heroine,” a “Phoenix Proud Heaven”—those were only the imaginary filters my parents had put over me.

The real me was introverted and slow to warm up, bad at socializing. I’d had few friends growing up and had never met a soulmate.

At school, some kids who disliked me called me “violent girl” and “bookworm.”

But it was only when I bowed my head to study and work that I could feel I had any worth.

I couldn’t live up to all my parents’ expectations.

I never had been able to.

My parents found out two months later.

I hid the cheating and only told them we’d broken up because our personalities didn’t match. I didn’t want them getting worked up and going after him.

But that only made them feel worse. They cried and blamed themselves.

“Sweetie, did we do something wrong? Did we make him unhappy? Or… or did his family look down on us and not want to be connected to us?”

“You’re so wonderful. Did we hold you back?”

I took out tissues and, just like when I was little, gently wiped their tears away one by one.

“No. I’ve never thought they were better than us, and I’ve never thought you weren’t good enough. Some people are just too arrogant. We weren’t meant for one another.”

“Before, we always hoped something wonderful would fall from the sky for you, so you wouldn’t have to spend half your life working as hard as we did. But life isn’t as easy as it is in novels. Maybe becoming your parents has already used up a lot of our good fortune.”

I took their hands again and spoke seriously.

“But I’ve figured it out. People don’t have to get married. I can marry my work.”

“Please bless me and our country’s aerospace industry, Mom and Dad.”

They were touched and at a loss for words. They looked at each other for a long time, then finally laughed through their tears.

“Sweetie… you’re not planning to shut yourself off from love forever, are you?”

“Will we disappoint you if we can’t find you a rich son-in-law?”

The next second, they clasped my hands tightly.

I saw two kind, sincere faces.

“No! Being happily single is great, too!”

“That’s fashionable now, isn’t it, Lin Tao?”

12

My parents came home believing I might stay happily single for the rest of my life. They stopped sending me romance novels and girls’ love stories.

Mom switched to reading boys’ love, saying that way she wouldn’t suddenly imagine me having an office romance and get all worked up again.

My life returned to peace. After graduating, I joined a design institute and became an overworked little wage slave.

The feeling of burning through my life for a career I loved often intoxicated me.

Then, in my third year, I met someone else who was burning through his life alongside me—no, a teammate.

When I asked, it turned out he’d been my classmate in high school.

He remembered me, but my memories of him were vague. I had to stare at our graduation photo for a long time before I recognized him.

We were assigned to the same project team. We often sat together brainstorming, and our personalities turned out to mesh surprisingly well.

Most importantly, we came from the same hometown, so we liked the same food.

At company dinners, he and I were usually the ones who tackled the spiciest dishes.

At New Year’s, I rode home with him. Mom caught on and kept shaking my hand.

I was dizzy by the end.

“Yes, we’ve only known each other for a month. Don’t scare him, Mom.”

“That’s not the point!” Mom said sternly. “You said he’s a high-school classmate. Is he that boy who used to harass you? He’s not allowed! Even if he has the whole ‘rekindled love, chasing his wife through a crematorium’ plot, he’s still not allowed! I hate his mother. I wouldn’t marry into her family if she were the last woman alive!”

“He’s from high school, Mom. High school.” I helplessly explained. “We were in the same class for all three years, but he was a bookworm too, so I didn’t really notice him.”

Mom lit up.

“Did you go to that private school? And he’s in Beijing now? Not bad. It’s a secret-crush-turned-real-love plot, too! Lin Tao, I ship them!”

Me: …

Fine. If she said it was a secret crush, then I guess it was.

Hehe.

A few years later, after countless rounds of testing, the new aircraft model we’d developed finally entered space, making a new contribution to our country’s aerospace industry.

Zhou Henran and I also brought our ordinary, steady relationship to its next stage.

We got married.

His parents were both teachers, modest and friendly people who couldn’t stop praising our family’s soup dumplings.

It was a marriage both families were very happy with.

On the wedding day, Mom had a glittering new manicure in every color. Dad wore a paper firecracker garland. Together, they gave an emotional speech, like a duet.

“Distinguished guests, friends and family, hello. I’m the bride’s father, Lin Tao.”

“I’m the bride’s mother, Su Meiha.”

“Actually, ever since our daughter was very little, we’ve always believed she was the heroine of this world. Just the heroine of a tragic story, because she was beautiful but in poor health, and our family was poor.”

“I’ve always loved reading all kinds of novels and imagining myself as the main character. I thought tragic stories and feel-good power fantasies each had their own appeal. But when I realized my daughter might be the heroine of a tragic story, I panicked. I didn’t want her to suffer. I only wanted her to be happy all her life.”

“So her mother and I discussed it. We couldn’t let things go on like that. We had to help her become a true Phoenix Proud Heaven.”

“Unfortunately, we weren’t well educated and didn’t have any special skills. For all these years, all we could do was run a little breakfast shop. We couldn’t give her a more impressive life.”

“But along the way, we discovered that dignity doesn’t have to come from a prestigious status. Her mother and I have worked hard for more than half our lives and had plenty of people look down on us, yet we’re still happy and content.”

“Our sweetie taught us that as long as you keep striving to be self-reliant and do your work with a clear conscience, whatever path you take can be the best path in your life.”

“Finally, we want to say: our daughter, Lin Aitu, is the most deserving heroine of all! Please applaud her excellence and resilience! Let’s cheer for her career and love. Thank you, everyone!”

The guests were a little baffled by the speech, but they all politely applauded.

Zhou Henran clapped the loudest.

He even nudged me with his elbow.

“Sweetie, I had no idea you were so incredible.”

“Don’t pick up my parents’ way of talking!”

Epilogue

Zhou Henran and I were both workaholics, but we still planned to have a child.

Mom had had a difficult delivery when she gave birth to me, so I was a little worried at first.

Fortunately, our baby arrived with a strong, healthy cry. She was a sturdy little girl.

We gave her the nickname Little Fortune.

We didn’t ask for wealth or glory in this life. We only hoped she’d have good fortune and few worries.

Over the past few years, urban redevelopment had shifted the center of our hometown. Business at the breakfast shop suffered and grew quiet.

My parents simply closed it. In their fifties, they began pursuing their passions.

Dad bought an electric guitar and started playing rock. Mom became a Douyin creator beloved by middle-aged viewers.

They came to Beijing for a while to help care for Little Fortune.

When Zhou Henran placed the tiny pink bundle in their arms, Mom suddenly sighed.

“Too bad. A girl.”

Zhou Henran and I startled, but then Mom looked up and slowly finished her thought.

“She can’t have a few tall, handsome, domineering older brothers to spoil her rotten.”

Dad pinched the baby’s little cheek and smiled.

“So our Little Fortune can just be a happy only-child princess!”

(The End)

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