Chapter 47: This Miss Fan Certainly Has an Illness
“Is this the place?” Qi Lian asked.
“It seems like we passed it. We need to circle back from the rear,” Jiang Xiaoyuan glanced at the GPS and added, “Forget it, your car won’t make it—how about you just stop at the intersection, and I’ll walk in.”
Qi Lian stopped the car at the intersection as instructed, and in front of them was a dusty, dull-looking villa district.
Many people, once they have money, like to buy a villa in the suburbs, becoming neighbors with a bunch of unreliable wealthy folks. The rich come in all sorts of strange flavors—some with refined tastes, others more vulgar. After a while, everyone realizes that labels like “Tuscan town” or “Provence-style” are just nonsense. Once the homeowners move in, the aesthetic of the neighborhood shifts dramatically—neighbors put up bright red couplets, line their windows with paper-cut decorations, add a rustic, crude pickle jar by the floral curtains on the second floor, and in the small courtyard, cucumbers and tomatoes grow vibrantly, separated into neat rows. All of this creates a striking contrast with the European-style interiors, forming a unique mishmash characteristic of suburban areas.
The address Jiang Bo gave her was in the “World Park” that combines Chinese pastoral and European architecture.
Jiang Xiaoyuan grabbed her toolbox, pushed open the car door, and prepared to get out.
Qi Lian: “Wait, are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”
Jiang Xiaoyuan waved her hand. “No need to trouble yourself, you should head back. I’ll grab a taxi later.”
Qi Lian: “After everything I told you, you’re not scared at all?”
Jiang Xiaoyuan shaded her eyes from the glaring sun and gestured toward the villa cluster brimming with domestic life in front of them. “People live here. If the neighbors just crane their necks, they can see whether the pickles next door are radishes or cucumbers. Even if she wanted to harm me, she wouldn’t choose here. Also, you don’t know Jiang Bo. If that woman says something unpleasant, it’d be embarrassing for him to have a stranger there.”
Qi Lian looked at her but said nothing.
Jiang Xiaoyuan: “What?”
Qi Lian shook his head. He suddenly remembered the first time he saw Jiang Xiaoyuan, when she was down and out. She didn’t even know where her next meal or place to sleep was coming from, yet she still lent out the last few hundred yuan she had, despite being faint with hunger at the entrance of a McDonald’s.
Qi Lian: “I initially thought you had a bad temper, but you’re actually very considerate of others.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan wasn’t prepared for such a direct compliment, and it caught her off guard. She choked up slightly. “That’s not the case…not really.”
She paused, a little embarrassed, and added, “Before I came to this place, I had a big fight with someone. My temper’s not that great.”
When she worked at the hair salon, she made enemies everywhere, and when she went to school, she would argue constantly with Teacher Jiang. Sometimes, Jiang Xiaoyuan reflected on herself and felt that her temper was like a torn and tattered rag, fraying at the slightest touch.
“It’s just that, after being here for so long, doing so many things and going through so much hardship, I suddenly realized everyone is someone’s child, with their own joys and sorrows. Last winter, I was handing out flyers on the roadside, and people would just coldly walk past me. Some probably found me annoying for blocking their way. I felt a little sad, but I could understand. Standing there on the street, to others, I was probably no different from the flower bed nearby, just another obstacle in their path. I used to think the same way, but I never understood it until I experienced it myself.”
When she was well-off, she only knew how to pamper herself. It was only when she hit rock bottom that she learned to see others as human beings.
Jiang Xiaoyuan finished in one breath, feeling like she had said too much, like she was lecturing Qi Lian. She suddenly felt embarrassed. For some reason, the car’s air conditioning wasn’t working, and Jiang Xiaoyuan felt a wave of heat creeping up her neck to her ears. She didn’t dare look at Qi Lian’s expression, wishing she could swallow back everything she had just said. Quickly, she grabbed her toolbox and hurriedly ran off without looking back.
It wasn’t until she found the house matching the address in the text message that Jiang Xiaoyuan finally exhaled. She peered into the semi-underground garage and saw the familiar pink compact car, confirming her suspicion—it was most likely Jiang Bo’s crazy foster mother who sent the text.
Jiang Xiaoyuan took out a small mirror from her toolbox, tidied up her appearance, made sure she was ready for battle, and then knocked on the door.
A somewhat stiff female voice came from inside: “Who is it?”
Jiang Xiaoyuan glanced at the camera and spoke into the intercom, “Teacher Jiang asked me to provide styling services for a high-end client.”
The voice inside: “Wait a moment.”
The voice sounded as though she were dismissing a beggar. Jiang Xiaoyuan kept her composure, her smile never faltering.
A moment later, the door opened, revealing an elderly woman dressed as a maid. The way she opened the door was peculiar—she only opened it halfway, as if she was cautiously peering through the crack to examine Jiang Xiaoyuan at the door. Her eyes were filled with cold vigilance, and then she forced a zombie-like smile, saying, “You’re here? Come in.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan didn’t bother asking if she needed to change shoes. She took a pair of shoe covers from the side pocket of her toolbox, slipped them on, and walked in. In the living room, she saw a woman sitting upright on the sofa.
“What’s this weirdo’s name again?” Jiang Xiaoyuan thought with a smile on her face. “Was it Fan Xiaoxiao or Fan Dada[mfn]This is a play on words on her name. In Chinese, her name is 范筱筱 (Fàn Xiǎoxiǎo) but 小小 (xiǎo xiǎo), which has the same pronunciation, means small. 大(dà) means big.[/mfn]?”
Fan, whether little or big, gave her a venomous smile, her gaze filled with something treacherous and calculating. From the master of the house to the maid, their smiles were remarkably similar, as if they were both afraid of people and wanted to harm them. There was a deep, mysterious cunning in Miss Fan’s eyes, and being scrutinized by such a gaze made one feel as if there were needles in their back.
Normally, if Jiang Xiaoyuan ran into such a person on the street, she would avoid them at all costs. But as she stood on the glossy floor of the mansion, she felt strangely calm.
She thought that, regardless of whether they were doing good or bad, people in the world could be broadly categorized into two types: those who, when faced with a problem, would step up, find solutions, and take risks and responsibilities; and those who would follow the first group, providing whatever help they could, or simply being utterly dependent on them and contributing nothing.
Jiang Xiaoyuan had always been the second kind.
She used to listen to Boss Chen when she was at the barbershop. Now she’s completely under Boss Jiang’s command.
She was accustomed to first asking others what they thought when she felt lost, then observing how they acted. At the beginning, she learned from Chen Fangzhou, absorbing his distinctive slickness and way of navigating life, though she grasped it only half-understandingly. Later, she began imitating Jiang Bo, always adjusting her demeanor to appear poised and effortless like him. She learned his fashionable, confident style. Jiang Bo taught her that even the cheapest things should have flair, and she treated his words as gospel, meticulously adhering to them to this day.
It seemed that by doing this, she could avoid making mistakes or being ridiculed, making her appear more adaptable to her surroundings.
But one day, she realized that if she constantly focused on others, always following in their footsteps as if marching in formation, she would never surpass the plane they occupied.
One day, she discovered that the people she had used to align and adjust her life’s course were also just ordinary mortals, burdened with more than she had imagined, even more powerless than she thought.
Having lost her guide, she had no choice but to straighten her back and become the kind of person who leads.
Jiang Xiaoyuan tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and greeted Miss Fan politely, but without subservience. “Hello, may I ask if you are the client for today?”
“Sit,” Miss Fan said kindly, pointing to the small sofa across from her. “Young lady, sit there.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan could feel Miss Fan’s gaze scanning her up and down, but she ignored it and gracefully took a seat on the small sofa. She retrieved a leather notebook from the top layer of her toolbox and asked: “Could you tell me your preferences?”
Miss Fan did not respond to her question but instead gave Jiang Xiaoyuan a meaningful look and asked, “What’s your relationship with Jiang Bo?”
Jiang Xiaoyuan remained composed as she replied, “I used to be his assistant.”
Miss Fan pressed further: “You used to be his assistant. And now?”
Jiang Xiaoyuan: “I haven’t found a new job yet, so I’m taking some freelance gigs through him. If you must put it a certain way, I guess you could call me his former assistant.”
Miss Fan covered her mouth with her hand and chuckled softly. “Former assistant? What a term.”
“Indeed,” Jiang Xiaoyuan responded. “I probably won’t pass the Weibo verification process. I have an ID but no real identity. So, what kind of styling service do you require?”
Miss Fan gave her a deep look, then pulled out a check from her pocket.
For some reason, Jiang Xiaoyuan felt a bit excited. She subtly straightened her back, anticipating the classic “stay away from my son” scenario.
“I have an evening gathering with some friends,” Miss Fan said, maintaining her upright posture as she scribbled on the check. She tore it off and handed it to Jiang Xiaoyuan. “I heard Jiang Bo charges about this much for a daily gig. What do you think? Is this acceptable?”
This was nonsense. Without a personal connection, Jiang Bo’s rates were far beyond what most could afford, and no one would pay that much for simple daily makeup. Moreover, Jiang Bo wouldn’t take on such low-end jobs, so he had no listed rate.
Jiang Xiaoyuan took a close look, and the excitement in her subtly straightened back quietly deflated—written on the check was the amount of one thousand yuan.
Now, she believed it. This Miss Fan certainly had some kind of issue.
Miss Fan asked, “What, is it not enough?”
Jiang Xiaoyuan sincerely replied, “It’s enough, but if you could pay in cash, that’d be even better.”
Miss Fan glanced back at the second floor. Jiang Xiaoyuan followed her gaze and saw that from the high-ceilinged living room, one could see into the second-floor bedroom. One door was tightly closed—too tightly, almost as if it was meant to cover something up.
Jiang Xiaoyuan sighed inwardly, completely perplexed. No matter how weak Jiang Bo seemed, he was still a man close to 1.8 meters tall, certainly capable of carrying a bucket of water up five flights of stairs. How could he be confined to a “tower with lettuce” by a lady like Miss Fan?
At that moment, Miss Fan spoke again: “How about doing my nails first? Do you know how to do a manicure?”
Without a word, Jiang Xiaoyuan pulled out her nail tools and quietly took Miss Fan’s pampered hands, focusing intently on her work, sensing that the main act was about to begin.
And sure enough—
“Let’s speak frankly,” Miss Fan said, sitting up straight. Her gaze, looking down at Jiang Xiaoyuan, was filled with a kind of sacred compassion, as though bathed in holy light, coupled with her unique expression. She looked like a deity created by some strange cult. “I know you’re currently working for Jiang Bo. I’m his mother. It was actually me who arranged for you to come today.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan thought that if she acted surprised now, it would seem too fake. She didn’t bother playing along and continued to quietly perform the basic care for Miss Fan.
Miss Fan continued, “I heard you two are preparing to open some kind of studio? Is that true?”
Jiang Xiaoyuan smiled slightly. “You already know, don’t you?”
Miss Fan let out a sigh so tragic it could make listeners weep. She sighed dramatically and, seeing Jiang Xiaoyuan’s calm reaction, intensified her tone and sighed again.
Her movements and speech all displayed an excellent talent for theatrical performance. Every gesture seemed as if she were delivering a line in a play, and it gave Jiang Xiaoyuan goosebumps. Jiang Xiaoyuan finally looked up to cooperate, asking: “What’s wrong?”
Miss Fan’s gaze burned into her. “Child, I understand young people’s desire to accomplish something. I, too, want my son to integrate into society like a normal person, to have a normal life, his own interests and career. But… ah, I can’t bear to see all your hard work and effort go to waste.”
Her empty hand opened and grasped her own knee, her old, gnarled fingers floating over her bones, like someone who had mastered the “Nine Yin White Bone Claw[mfn]The “Nine Yin White Bone Claw” is a powerful martial arts technique from the Chinese wuxia genre. It’s known for its viciousness and destructive force, capable of inflicting severe injuries with its claw-like attacks.[/mfn].”
“He’s not normal,” Miss Fan said, mixing seven parts alarm, two parts feigned sorrow, and one part barely suppressed smile, “When he was a child, he suffered from a mental illness. I had no choice but to send him to a psychiatric hospital. People thought I was cruel, but how could I be? I had no other choice; I just wanted him to be cured… But illnesses like this, you know, can never be fully cured. Even though he’s out now, he could relapse at any time. The doctor said he has mild violent tendencies and cannot handle any stress. Young lady, you must have a very good temperament. Many people who have worked with him said he was difficult to communicate with—stubborn and neurotic. That you’ve stayed with him this long, as a mother, I’m truly grateful to you.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan looked at the woman before her, amazed at how she could deliver such a heartfelt speech so vividly.
“But I truly can’t bear to watch you pour your heart into something in vain. Here’s his medical diagnosis,” Miss Fan said, taking a document from a cabinet. “Even though he seems normal, it’s not safe for him to be out in public for too long. He can’t go without his medication, and he can’t be away from me… I’m so sorry to only tell you now. For the financial losses you’ve suffered so far, just give me a bill, and I’ll make it up to you. He really can’t do it.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan looked at her. The living room was deathly quiet for a moment, and the only sound was the soft, shallow breathing of the two women.
From behind the tightly closed door on the second floor came the sound of porcelain shattering. Miss Fan’s lips twitched slightly, but she restrained herself from reacting.
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