Three Years and Three Years

Chapter 69: Thirty Years Ago

Jin Yang seems calm sitting at home, eating and drinking, watching movies. But Zhou Mushi could clearly feel that he was somewhat uneasy. He really wanted to go to the appointment, but he felt a bit afraid in his heart. However, if he didn’t go, he might regret it for the rest of his life.

At three-thirty in the afternoon, Zhou Mushi found an appropriate outfit for Jin Yang from the wardrobe and handed it to him, who was sitting on the sofa staring blankly at the TV screen.

“Change your clothes and go out.”

Jin Yang stiffly turned his neck and uncomfortably said, “Huh?”

Zhou Mushi knew that he should give him a way out at this time, so he said, “Out of politeness, no matter what the other person’s identity is, you shouldn’t let them wait in the coffee shop all day, right?”

Jin Yang nodded, feeling that the reason seemed reasonable. After hesitating for a moment, he picked up the clothes that Mushi had prepared for him.

He got up to go to the room to change, but then turned his head back and walked over to grab Zhou Mushi’s hand, saying, “Mushi, will you come with me?”

Zhou Mushi was slightly surprised. If this had happened when he and Jin Yang were young and reckless, he wouldn’t have thought anything of it. But now, after experiencing so much, he had matured a lot and truly understood where everyone’s boundaries lay, what was touchable, and what was untouchable.

He understood how much Jin Yang cared about his own background, which was a corner of his heart that he absolutely could not easily touch. Even if he shared even a little about his family with you, it was in a state of extreme tolerance and extreme trust.

Now, Jin Yang was actually inviting him to face his own abandoned past together. Did that mean that in Jin Yang’s heart, his position was very important?

Zhou Mushi smiled gently and said, “Of course.”

Compared to a girl who had to put on elaborate makeup before going out, a man could get ready much faster. After putting on his clothes and grabbing his phone, they were ready to leave.

The Champs-Élysées Café was very close to their company, and their place was also close to the company. From their home to the cafe, it was only a fifteen-minute walk.

The lady with the pearl earrings sat in a window seat, probably so that Jin Yang could spot her at first glance when he arrived.

She was wearing a light pink knitted dress today, with a short milk-white cotton and linen shirt on top. Her black and shiny hair was pinned up at the back of her head with a black wooden hairpin.

As Zhou Mushi had said, she looked very young, perhaps in her thirties, and had the elegance of a classical chinese beauty.

When they arrived, she was flipping through magazines that the café had provided for customers who might get bored.

When the woman saw Jin Yang, she was stunned at first, and even more surprised to see Zhou Mushi with him. She hadn’t expected the polite young man she had met yesterday to have any intimate connection with Jin Yang.

She was the type of woman that Jin Yang liked, not because of any romantic interest, but simply because he felt comfortable around her.

In the face of such a lightly made-up, fresh and gentle oval face, it always made people’s emotions feel soothed.

When she saw them come in, she stood up and nodded at them. Jin Yang and Zhou Mushi walked in together and sat across from her.

“Waiter, two cups of coffee.”

The lady called the waiter over after they had all taken their seats.

“Hello, may I ask which type of coffee you would like?” the waiter asked.

Jin Yang: “Americano, thank you.”

Zhou Mushi: “Same for me.”

“Okay, please wait a moment.”

The lady across from them heard that Jin Yang liked to drink Americano, and couldn’t help feeling a little regretful.

Americano is too bitter, it would be better to drink a sweet coffee like a cappuccino.

Zhou Mushi tried his best to pretend to be a non-existent little transparent person, but it was completely impossible to ignore him being such a big person sitting here.

Jin Yang’s smile was generous and appropriate, and he tried to be a polite gentleman, saying with three points of courtesy, “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting for so long. I was busy with something in the morning.”

“It’s okay, I’m already happy that you could come.”

“Then where would you like to start? I’m all ears.” Jin Yang said with a modest smile.

The woman opposite smiled apologetically, her gaze falling on Jin Yang’s face, trying to find someone’s shadow on that face. She then lowered her head slightly and said, “I guess you were too young at the time and probably don’t remember what happened.”

Jin Yang neither affirmed nor denied, and the woman continued, “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you and Xiao Yuan.”

Jin Yang still smiled amiably, “How should I understand what you’re saying? I don’t know what our relationship is.”

She took a sip of the coffee in front of her and said quietly, “Perhaps you have time today to listen to a very long story.”

Jin Yang replied, “Of course.”

“When the incident happened, it was about thirty years ago. There was a girl who went to visit her relatives alone. She was very young, but adolescent girls are always rebellious, thinking that they have grown up and can do everything on their own.

But that was not the case. She was only fifteen years old and still a child. When she was traveling alone by train, she was abducted. Even though the train was only two hours away from her uncle’s house, when she woke up, she was already in a remote mountain area thousands of miles away.”

Jin Yang’s eyebrows furrowed, and so did Zhou Mushi’s. This kind of human trafficking was not uncommon, especially in remote mountain villages. Although they lived in the city, they had also heard of such incidents.

“The girl was smart and wasn’t locked up in a dark and hopeless cellar like in the movies. Although she was occasionally beaten, she could still get by because she was young and obedient.

After being forced to have a child with a man in the village who wasn’t even her husband, she gained a little freedom. But she was still restricted until the year the two children were already five years old. They said they wanted to go to the photo studio in the city to take pictures with their children.

Perhaps because she had always been too obedient and had never attempted to escape, they brought her along.

That was a great opportunity, the only one that she didn’t know when there would be a second chance.

While the photo studio was crowded with people, she begged the old lady who collected garbage in the backyard to hide her and her children in the garbage truck, and ran to the train station.

She had planned to take the train with her children to her own home, but she had no ID card, nor the household registration books of her two children.”