I originally thought that after that incident, Mom and Dad would divorce.

But they didn't.

The ability of adults to endure is truly frightening.

That night, Mom took me back to Camphor Tree Street by car, staring into space the whole way.

Dad got drunk as a skunk and stayed in his hometown that night.

But the next morning when I woke up, he was already downstairs doing the accounts.

He greeted me with a smile, but I ignored him.

A few days later at the dinner table, Dad brought up divorces and remarriages happening on the street, with second marriages also ending in divorce, causing chaos among uncles and aunts.

He sighed, "At our age, if we were to remarry, what kind of feelings could there be? Without shared children, it's all about money, the little we earn through hard work..."

Perhaps he said this specifically for my benefit, and I just rolled my eyes silently.

The year my brother was in his final year of high school, our family bought a house, a small property house in town, priced at fifteen thousand in total, with three floors.

The ground floor was for business, while people lived upstairs, a very comfortable house.

My brother and I each had our own rooms; my brother loved reading, so we had a wall full of bookshelves for him.

Despite such a nice room, my brother didn't stay there much.

Whenever I missed him, I would sneak into his room and pick up a book from the shelf to read.

I used to be a restless girl, never influenced by my brother's calmness and diligence; I was carefree and could fall asleep in ten minutes even while reading a horror novel.

It was only after he left home that I turned into a melancholic literary girl.

After my brother left, Mom started neglecting the housework, and Dad grumbled discontentedly, but Mom acted as if she didn't hear.

Winter came, but my brother didn't come back for the New Year.

On New Year's Eve, Mom reheated the leftover buns from lunch and cooked a pot of porridge with leftover rice.

Dad protested, "It's New Year's, and you can't even make a proper dinner!"

Mom, with a cold expression, took the last bun, took a fierce bite, stood at the door looking at the street, leaving Dad stunned, alone with a bowl of watery soup.