Inside the cinema.

Tao Zhixiang sat in the last row, her gaze quietly and gracefully fixed on the big screen. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

What’s playing is the movie "Two Kids," a very old movie.

In fact, Tao Zhixiang came here not to watch the movie, but just to dispel the loneliness and desolation in her heart.

This year, she has a home, but she cannot return.

Her mother has been discharged from the hospital, her brother brought her home to recuperate, and her health is slowly recovering.

As for her sister-in-law, she also returned home, on the condition that her brother went to his sister-in-law’s parents’ house, spoke many good words, and humbly... eventually, the sister-in-law followed her brother back home.

It’s often said that couples are like birds in the same forest that fly separately when disaster strikes.

If not for the child, if not for the unwillingness to let the child become pitiful, what woman would want to follow a husband burdened with debt and suffer?

Unless, deeply loved.

Tao Zhixiang is also a woman, she understands that under such circumstances, her sister-in-law still manages to stay in this home, care for her sick mother-in-law, and live with her brother; it is already quite difficult.

This year, she only bought some New Year goods and sent them to her mother, but on New Year’s Eve, she did not have dinner at home.

Tao Zhixiang invited her to stay for dinner, to spend the night at home, but her sister-in-law said nothing, so Tao Zhixiang smiled slightly and said she had plans with friends that night.

Really, on New Year’s Eve, what important matters could there be?

In the end, Tao Zhixiang still left home.

But once outside, she was in tears.

In the past, people always said that a married daughter is like spilled water, yet she hasn’t married, and already feels like a person without a home!

Marriage, really?

Thinking of that moment when happy lovers walk toward the marriage hall in gowns and wedding dresses, Tao Zhixiang’s heart fills with sorrow.

In the end, for her, those are just fantasies!

On New Year’s Eve, she stayed alone in that apartment, watched the lights outside, listened to the sound of firecrackers, but inside, her heart was parched.

Because she couldn’t see the future.

That night, she came down with a fever, a high fever of thirty-nine degrees, lying under the covers, she still felt cold.

She finally woke up the next afternoon, dragging her weary and weakened body to the pharmacy to buy medicine, went back, boiled water to drink, just like that fell into a dizzy sleep.

For a moment, Tao Zhixiang thought, if she died here, probably... no one would know!

Yet thinking of that, Tao Zhixiang mocked herself with a laugh, if not for Chu Mucheng providing her with such a place to live, her days would surely be worse.

So, she ought to thank Chu Mucheng, doesn’t she?

However, once thinking about Chu Mucheng, Tao Zhixiang remembered that huge surgery fee.

She thought, she said she’ll pay him back, she must deliver on her promise.

Two days later, she finally felt better.

That evening, she even cooked porridge, stir-fried a dish, silently had dinner alone.

She still has many things to do, she’ll need to repay Chu Mucheng eventually, so how can she let herself fall?

But after spending three days lethargically at home, she wanted to go out for a walk.

No other place to go, Tao Zhixiang went to the cinema.

One movie, at least an hour and a half, and watching a film while surrounded by other people, in that situation, it’s relatively... not lonely.