A Peach Wood Comb

After leaving that day, Lai Hui called Xu Ya, apologizing: “I’m sorry, when you’re not living with Jiayi anymore, let’s hang out.” Xu Ya remained silent for a long time, and just as Lai Hui was about to hang up, she softly said: “Lai Hui, when you’re too tired to go on, it’s not just Jiayi, there’s me too!” Lai Hui didn’t ask, ‘How do you know I’m very tired?’ but upon hearing these words, her tense shoulders relaxed, the sorrow stuffed in her chest for years seemed to pour out. Looking at herself in the mirror, she saw herself shedding tears of relief; she happily thought, perhaps, in this indifferent city, she finally had a friend. But she couldn’t, not when there was no family or friend around, use Xu Ya as a life raft. Xu Ya liked her, she knew that. From elementary school, initially bullying her, then protecting her, his way of showing affection was clumsy. In middle school, he would put oranges in her desk, small red knots, piled on her geometry book, sometimes kiwis too, with the fuzz rubbed off, soft when squeezed, the skin easily peeled to reveal the green flesh with black seeds, crisp when chewed. He thought she didn’t know, but on her way home every evening, she would see a figure that looked like him following far behind in the twilight, almost indistinguishable, but she always knew, just pretending not to. She liked his cousin, she had told him that, and he just laughed: “At least we’re family.” Family often sticks together, so when she and Jiayi were in love, he was there too, accompanying her when Jiayi was unavailable. Xu Ya had once jokingly said, “Apart from being a bit better looking, how does my cousin compare to me? In terms of family background, his parents are workers, while mine are well-known in the city; in terms of personality, I’m gentle, kind, and generous, while he’s got a bad temper and is petty; when it comes to academics, if I weren’t slightly mischievous to give him a chance, when would he ever get ahead? But he stuck by his less impressive cousin, becoming a dispensable shadow just to be able to accompany her openly. In reality, at that time, Lai Hui had little regard for him, always feeling that a man trailing after another was both pitiful and lacking ambition. It was only after experiencing the warmth and coldness of human relationships that she realized how precious Xu Ya’s selfless love was back then. Therefore, she would not treat Xu Ya as a lifeline; if she were vulnerable in front of him, if she showed a need for him, it would be no different than seducing him. Xu Ya’s feelings for her were too pure, too persistent; such emotions could only be cherished, not exploited, not destroyed. Lai Hui made up her mind to delete Xu Ya’s phone number from her mobile, knowing that this path would be lonely and tiring, but she had grown numb to it. When Zhou Yuqian returned to the Nanling Villa, it was already autumn, a season that in City A was split between spring and summer, with autumn taking half from each. Li Yueqin’s comeback and her new romance had successfully shifted the media’s focus, allowing Zhou Yuqian to escape in this autumn that felt like the end of summer, back to Nanling. That evening, after dinner, Lai Hui sat on the sofa knitting a sweater, two slender bamboo needles resting against her thumb, with a book titled “Knitting Patterns” spread out on her lap. She would look at the pattern, knit a stitch, and then pull the yarn through. Zhou Yuqian noticed her biting her lower lip, her expression very serious, as if she were not just knitting a sweater but attempting to conquer Normandy with unwavering determination. He found it amusing and sat opposite her, saying, “Sweaters are sold all over the streets, do you really need to knit one yourself? And with your knitting skills, who would dare to wear it?” Lai Hui seemed not to hear his words, bending over to study the patterns in the book carefully. After a while, she spoke as if responding to Zhou Yuqian’s comment, yet also muttering to herself, “The weather’s getting colder, a hand-knitted sweater is a token of affection. If you’re worried about embarrassment, just don’t wear it outside.” Zhou Yuqian paused, thinking if she really knitted an ugly sweater, he wouldn’t wear it even inside the house, so he suggested, “Don’t waste your time, if you’re not good at it, don’t force it!” Lai Hui, now a bit more familiar with the process, replied after a few stitches, “Who starts out knowing how? When my mom knitted her first sweater when I was little, one sleeve was wider than the other, and she still made me wear it to school. Later on, her knitting became much nicer!” Zhou Yuqian imagined her wearing that ridiculous sweater and couldn’t help but laugh. He said dismissively, “By the time you knit something decent, the person wearing it would have lost face all the way to Siberia!” Lai Hui, knitting a few more stitches, murmured, “I used to wear sweaters my mom knitted by hand; now, if I knit one for her, no matter how ugly it is, she’ll be happy, right?” Perhaps even she didn’t believe she could really knit a sweater, so she looked up at Zhou Yuqian with wide eyes, seemingly in need of his encouragement. However, when she said those words, Zhou Yuqian’s mood to tease her vanished. After all, the sweater was for her mother, and he glanced at the blue yarn, which was clearly meant for men. He replied unhappily, “Once you knit it and she wears it, you’ll know if she’s happy or not. That’s assuming you can actually knit it!” Lai Hui, feeling discouraged by his words, tossed the few rows she had just knitted aside, stood up, and said, “I was also thinking, should I pay someone to knit one and trick my mom into thinking I did it, just to make her happy? — Oh, never mind, I’ll go make some tea for you first!” Zhou Yuqian also stood, walked to the fireplace for a moment, then returned, picking up the bamboo needles from the sofa and tapping them irritably on the glass top of the coffee table, staring at the still-unrecognizable pattern of the blue edge, and muttered, “It’s really ugly.” Thankfully, it wasn’t for him; otherwise, he wouldn’t wear such a rustic sweater even if his life depended on it. With this comforting thought, he tapped the needles even harder, causing the knit edge to slip off. Zhou Yuqian realized he had messed up; Lai Hui had spent the whole afternoon knitting that, and he had undone it in a few taps. Now, if she couldn’t knit it, she’d surely blame him, thinking he did it on purpose. What’s that called? A guilty conscience! Although he hadn’t intended it, he couldn’t guarantee his subconscious hadn’t harbored that thought. Seeing Lai Hui still in the kitchen making tea, he grabbed the knitting, trying to restore it with his own ingenuity. While he was a genius at making money, he wasn’t omnipotent. At first, he meticulously fed the stitches back onto the needles, congratulating himself on his cleverness, but in his moment of pride, he accidentally pulled a thread, unraveling several stitches. When Lai Hui brought in the tea, she was surprised to see Zhou Yuqian holding the unfinished knitting, frowning, and studying the unraveled edge. “Are you learning to knit?” she asked uncertainly. Zhou Yuqian suddenly met Lai Hui’s curious gaze, feeling his face heat up with embarrassment, his heart screaming with shame. He tossed the knitting back to her as if it were a venomous snake. “No, I’ve never seen it before, so I wanted to look.” He picked up his tea cup, took a sip, actually wanting to retreat to the study, but unwilling to shirk responsibility, and he firmly believed he hadn’t done it on purpose. If he were truly confident, he wouldn’t feel so uncomfortable. Although only a few stitches had been undone, with Lai Hui’s skill level, she couldn’t fix it. Now it was her turn to study it, trying for a long time to reconnect the stitches, and after a while, she looked at the only suspect in the living room with a scrutinizing gaze. “Did you do this?” Zhou Yuqian calmly sipped his tea. “I accidentally knocked off a few stitches, just a few, you can fix it, right?” “I don’t even know how to fix stitches!” Lai Hui rubbed her forehead in frustration. “This is going to kill me; now I have to unravel it all and start over!” Zhou Yuqian pretended not to hear, seemingly intent on dismantling the knitting, yet he felt a twinge of guilt. However, his emotions were too complex at the moment; the guilt quickly turned into sarcasm: “If you can’t knit, why bother? Just go buy one from the store. Look at what you’ve made, it’s hideous!” Lai Fen, already in a bad mood, knew better than to talk back to an elder, so she chose to ignore him, treating him like he was invisible. Her indifference made Zhou Yuqian feel as if his dignity had been trampled upon. An apology was out of the question, so he opted for consolation instead: “To be honest, what you’ve knitted really isn’t pretty!” He paused, reminding himself to offer comfort. “Hmm… think about it, you’ve spent so long on it, you wouldn’t want to undo it, even if it’s not pretty!” Lai Fen, engrossed in winding her yarn, completely ignored him. “I’ll help you unravel it now, and you can start over. It’ll definitely turn out better than the first attempt!” Lai Fen couldn’t take it anymore and shot him a glare. “At the end of the day, I still believe in you. Next year, you’ll surely knit a sweater!” The sound of flipping pages, as the flower pattern design was tossed aside, and Lai Fen turned to the basics, starting with the simplest knit stitch. Zhou Yuqian knew he should have stopped talking, but Lai Fen’s silence made him uncomfortable. After some thought, he spoke again, “Even if you can’t knit, it’s no big deal. After all, knitting an ugly sweater is unfortunate for the wearer!” Zhou Yuqian wasn’t joking or intentionally mocking; he was strangely certain — Lai Fen’s sweater would be ugly. Perhaps he wished for it to be ugly, so ugly that it couldn’t be worn, so ugly that he could mock her. In any case, he absolutely did not want her to knit something beautiful! Just as he was about to continue with his theme of “ugly,” Lai Fen finally spoke: “I was actually thinking of knitting one for my mom first to practice, and if it turned out nice, I’d make one for you too, but now… sigh!” She sighed deeply. “Forget it, I’ll just go buy one for my mom!” “Well… it’s not that ugly, actually! … With some effort, you can still make it work!”