The Fisherwoman - Chapter 1

After the college entrance exam results came out, I took a few days off so I could go with Ling Xuan when he filled out his university applications.

He rejected me without mercy.

“I can go by myself,” he said coolly. “No need to trouble you.”

The handsome, aloof boy was like a pedigreed cat that could never be tamed. No matter how long we lived together, I remained an outsider in his eyes. He didn’t want to inconvenience me, much less let me into his life.

I had no wish to force him. But city people took the college entrance exam very seriously, and all the other students would have their parents with them. I worried he might feel lonely going by himself.

“How am I suddenly unnecessary?”

I put another fried egg in his bowl. “I’m your temporary guardian now. That makes me your parent, so of course I’m responsible for you.”

I was only stating a fact.

Ling Xuan’s face darkened at once.

“What kind of parent are you?” He set down his chopsticks, looking furious. “Xie Yingning, you’re only a few years older than me. Can you stop talking like you’re my elder?”

I counted on my fingers for him. “I’m already twenty-three. The people my age who married young back home have children old enough to run errands.”

After being called Auntie by so many village children, I considered myself quite experienced at being an elder.

But Ling Xuan seemed allergic to the truth that day. While I was still explaining our proper seniority, he stood up with a stony face and slammed the door behind him, leaving his fried egg untouched.

I stared for two seconds, then picked the egg out of his bowl and finished it in a few bites.

“He’s almost an adult,” I sighed as I ate. “Why is his temper still so awful? One disagreement and he storms off.”

Then I remembered that barely a year had passed since disaster struck the Ling family. His moodiness was understandable.

I knocked myself on the head. “So what if he doesn’t want to see me as an elder? Why argue with a child? You came here to repay a debt. What will you do if you drive him away?”

Ling Xuan and I lived under the same roof, but we weren’t related by blood.

I had grown up in the countryside. My fishing village lived by the sea, and every generation made its living from the water. Whoever could catch the most fish earned the most respect.

I was born unusually strong and always hauled in more fish than anyone else. That made me extremely popular in the village—second only to the village chief, you might say.

My original plan had been simple: save enough for a fishing boat, then ask the chief’s husband to introduce me to a steady, domestically minded older man. We would settle down and keep each other warm at night.

Then, a year ago, the village chief came to me with an important favor.

The Ling family, who had built our village primary school, had fallen on hard times. Their company went bankrupt, both parents died, and they left behind an underage child who needed care.

Our village owed the Lings a debt. It had to be repaid.

There weren’t many young people left in the village, and those who remained all had families. I was the only unattached person free to leave for the city at a moment’s notice.

So the task fell to me. I didn’t refuse. That very day, I tucked away the two thousand yuan everyone had pooled for my travel expenses and rode a fishing boat out to repay our benefactors.

The chief hadn’t explained things very clearly. She only said the poor Ling child had been left all alone, so before meeting him, I assumed Ling Xuan was a little boy.

To win him over, I even bought an enormous snack hamper meant for children.

When we finally met, I was dumbfounded.

I looked at the tall, long-legged university student in front of me, with his fair skin and beautiful face, then down at the children’s snacks in my hands.

“Are you really Ling Xuan?” I had to ask again.

He didn’t even look at me. He walked around me with a blank expression.

“No. You’ve got the wrong person.”

If his school badge hadn’t displayed his name, I might have believed him.

I hurried after him. “I’m from the fishing village. I came to repay your family’s kindness. You’re still underage, aren’t you? I can take you in and keep paying for your schooling.”

Without turning around, Ling Xuan tossed back a cold reply.

“I don’t need you. Stay away from me.”

The sudden upheaval in his family had dragged a sheltered young master through hardship and shown him how quickly human warmth could turn cold. No wonder he rejected a stranger who appeared out of nowhere. Resistance and disgust showed in every line of his body.

I had cared for stray cats back in the village. I knew better than to provoke one when it was frightened, so I stopped appearing in front of him.

I planned to watch from a distance for a while. If I confirmed he could take care of himself, I would leave him the money and go home instead of staying where I wasn’t wanted.

But the day before my intended departure, several thugs cornered Ling Xuan.

After the bankruptcy, the family home had been seized. Homeless and left with only a few hundred yuan, Ling Xuan could afford nothing but a room in the cheap, chaotic old quarter.

Disorder bred crime. A striking young master living there alone was bound to attract attention.

These thugs made the first move. Seeing an underage student with no adult to protect him, they decided to extort money from him.

Ling Xuan had none to give.

He also had a fierce temper and a spine of iron, and prized his dignity above everything. Even knowing he was outnumbered, he refused to explain himself or flatter them until they left him alone.

Instead, he picked the ugliest insults he could find and hurled them like a man bent on his own destruction.

Provoked in front of his followers, the gang leader decided he had lost face and whipped a folding knife from his pocket. Twirling it, he ordered the others to pin Ling Xuan’s arms and legs.

“I hate pretty boys like you most. A schoolkid still wet behind the ears, and you dare act tough with me?”

“Let’s see whether you beg after I carve up that slutty face of yours.”