“Get yourself together. On Qingming, we’re going back to our hometown to pay respects. Don’t embarrass me.”
On the morning of April 1st, my mother—who usually left early for work—sat in the living room waiting for me, only to abruptly throw out this sentence before grabbing her bag and leaving without looking back, leaving me sulking and out of sorts.
I never liked going back to my hometown. My impressions of my grandparents and maternal grandparents were never good. Even as a child, clueless about most things, I could sense just how snobbish they were and how they would torment my mother for their own gain.
When my parents first divorced, my mother went back to her hometown and stayed there for a while. But Grandpa never once showed a hint of concern for his daughter. Instead, he kept urging my mother to marry off to some nouveau riche from the area he’d set his eyes on, and planned to sell me to a widow from the next village who had no children of her own.
Driven to desperation, my mother took me—still sleeping soundly—onto a bumpy train and rushed us overnight to this remote seaside town.
Maybe it was out of gratitude for raising her all these years, but every two or three years, my mother would return home alone for a visit, never bringing me along.
Yet, every visit was always short—just getting there and back took nearly two hours, but my mother never stayed away for even four hours before she returned, a clear sign of how much she disliked her relatives there.
I only went back to my hometown once, during the summer break after graduating elementary school. Back then, my grandparents tried to say something to me, but my mother quickly stopped them and told me to go wander around the fields for a while and not come back yet.
As soon as I stepped over the stone threshold outside our house, I ran straight into my paternal grandparents, who had rushed over after hearing my mother brought me back. The grandmother, who always wore a sour expression before, immediately broke into a ‘kindly’ smile the moment she saw me, crouched down, and pulled me in, trying to take me away.
Fortunately, by then I’d been taught a few lessons by Gu Fan: when in danger, call for help, don’t just grit your teeth and put up with it or try to run away. So I called out loudly, without hesitation.
My mother rushed out just in time and snatched me back, cursing at them: “The four of you old wretches, have you no shame? Just because some man gave you a few tens of thousands, you think you can steal away the daughter I’ve raised with my own hands? Dream on!”
After that, my mother never took me back to our hometown again, afraid that if she slipped up for even a second, I’d vanish without a trace.
As a kid, I didn’t really understand why my grandparents wanted to take me away. As I grew older, I began to realize that my father was behind all of it.
And after that day, I started getting texts from someone calling herself ‘Father’s Secretary’.
She kept persuading me to visit Huacheng—the city that held nothing but painful memories for me and my mother—to “travel and relax,” and “drop by Father’s company for tea and a chat.” She always added, “Your father misses you very much.”
Once, after finishing my junior high school graduation exams, Father even sent a courier package. Inside was a seven-day resort voucher for a mountain retreat and a simple, dark-brown letter.
Unable to figure out what Father was thinking, I handed both the letter and the voucher to my mother. Her reaction was beyond anything I expected.
She didn’t even look at them—just folded the letter and the expensive-looking voucher together, tore them up, tossed them into the trash, and warned me, “Don’t get any funny ideas about going back to see your father. He’s not that kind.”
As the saying goes, curiosity killed the cat girl… After nearly ten years without any care from Father’s side, suddenly receiving such a letter set my heart crawling with ants.
And since my mother hadn’t shredded the letter to bits, I waited until she stormed out to make a phone call, then secretly fished the torn pieces from the trash and pieced the letter together well enough to read it.
To this day… I still regret my stupid urge to look at that letter. It completely destroyed any good memories I had of my father…
Sitting on the sofa, lost in these memories, I stared blankly at the pale ceiling. I didn’t even notice I was late for school, missing morning reading, still trapped in my tangled thoughts and painful memories, growing more and more numb to the outside world.
Suddenly, the phone on my lap chimed crisply, the sound of wind chimes I’d set as a special ringtone—one only Gu Fan, my “dearest person,” could trigger.
The moment I heard it, I snapped back to reality, glancing at the wall clock to see it was already nine.
Annoyed, I thumped my cotton ball, hoping to punish myself for letting my mind wander and forgetting all about the important things, my head filled with worries, real and imagined.
But the cotton ball was too soft. No matter how hard I hit, it only felt like scratching an itch through a boot, never able to calm my restless heart.
Giving up, I picked up my phone and unlocked the screen. On the contact interface, I saw Gu Fan’s message: “What’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell or just in a bad mood today? Are you in the auditorium or the biology garden? I’ll come find you.”
For a moment, I thought about replying with something silly I’d picked up online: “Haha, did I trick you? Today’s April Fool’s! Gu Fan, you big dummy, such a noob, such a noob!”
But after thinking it over, I worried that might come off as too frivolous—just like my father, who never respected me. I didn’t want to be that way. Gu Fan clearly liked honest girls better, right?
So I replied, “Sorry, I forgot to set my alarm, so I overslept. I’ll join you for lunch at noon, okay?”
Not long after I sent the message, the wind chime ringtone sounded again. Gu Fan replied so quickly—he must be secretly checking his phone in class. That was rare.
Did my priority in Gu Fan’s heart go up again?
I giggled quietly. In the past, when I messaged Gu Fan during class to urge him out for a walk with me around the school or town, he’d only reply after class.
Now, I understood what those girls online meant about the sense of security and satisfaction when your boyfriend replies instantly.
I could feel clearly that someone cared about me. Gu Fan was willing to spare a bit of attention, even during class, just to comfort this troublemaking, useless cat girl—and that alone made me super happy.
My tail perked up behind me. Hugging my phone to my chest, I sprawled on the sofa, rolling around and grinning, “Hehe.”
Truly, the one who gives me the most warmth and love is still my childhood friend~
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