No Crossing Over Qicheng

As the ornate gates of the Qicheng villa slammed shut in the rainy night, Wen Zhao held her seven-month-old daughter, Xiaotang, and listened to her mother-in-law sneer, “Girls are a burden to begin with. It’s not my job to be your nanny.” At last, she understood: the love she had poured into five years of marriage had long since been forged into a blade by her husband, Zhou Yan, and her “best friend,” Ruan Qing. Zhou Yan always said, “I’ll spend time with you once the company goes public,” yet when Xiaotang woke with a fever in the middle of the night, he brushed her off with, “I can’t get away from this merger deal.” His mother moved the crib into the guest room and sighed to anyone who would listen, “My son had everything he wanted growing up, and then he ended up with someone who takes so much work.” During three years of keeping her head down, Wen Zhao attended night classes in accounting while living in a rental in the urban village and making rice porridge, then took over a nearly bankrupt tailor shop in the old market. With every stitch, she wove herself a new suit of armor. When Xiaotang, who used to do nothing but cry for her mother, toddled into her arms and said, “Mommy smells so nice,” and when Wen Zhao took her independently designed traditional-style children’s clothing to Fashion Week, the man who had once said, “You’ll never survive without the Zhou family,” was on his knees before a floor-to-ceiling window, clutching the business plan for her new company. By her side stood Lu Chengyan, the one who could hold space for every feeling she had.