She changed out of her school clothes first.
Wang Guihua had said to. And it was just the routine anyway — had been for long enough that she didn't think about it anymore. School clothes off. Hung properly. Everyday clothes on.
Then she sat at her desk.
The desk was the one part of the room that was actually hers. Everything else — bed, wardrobe, the shelf on the wall — had come with the house, assigned along with everything else when her parents were posted here. The desk she had taken over gradually over the years until it looked the way it looked now. Mathematics textbooks stacked to the left, school ones at the bottom and the ones she'd worked through on her own above those. Her Russian primer next to them — the spine had given up a long time ago. Notebooks in the center, a mix of school notes and things she'd been working through herself. A pencil she kept meaning to sharpen. A pen she used instead.
She put the envelope on the desk and opened it.
Three pages. Two of them front and back. The third only halfway written on — which meant her father had added something at the end. He never used more space than he needed.
She started reading.
"Yushu,
Three weeks. I know. We both know. I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
We are well — your father and I are both fine, so don't worry about that. I hope you are too. Wang Guihua sent a note through the courier last month saying you were eating and keeping up with your studies. Good. Keep doing both.
I'm writing because there are things I need to tell you and a letter through the courier is the only way I can do that right now.
We are going into a critical phase with our work. I can't tell you the details — you know how that goes — but what I can tell you is that it's going to be a long one. Six months at least. Maybe eight. We won't be coming out during that time. Not for visits. Not even briefly. This phase needs everything we have and we are going to give it that.
I know that's not easy to hear. I also know you — and I know you won't make a fuss about it. You never do. Sometimes I think that makes things easier for us than it probably should."
She stopped.
Read that last part again.
Her mother didn't write things like that. Shen Ruolan moved through what needed to be said and she said it and she moved on. She didn't stop to look at what things cost other people — not because she didn't know but because the work had never left much room for that kind of stopping.
But there it was. Right there in the middle of the second page in her mother's precise even handwriting.
"Sometimes I think that makes things easier for us than it probably should."
Yushu sat with it for a moment. Then kept reading.
"Your school year is almost over. Write back and tell me how you're finding the end of it. The internal courier post point is in the residential sector — you know where it is.
Now the practical part.
You're finishing school and the question of what comes next isn't going to sort itself out. You know the situation — the directives about young people your age and countryside assignments. The compound gives you some cover but I wouldn't count on that lasting. These things have a way of moving faster than people expect and I'd rather you were ahead of it.
Your father and I have talked about this. Write to your brother. Your elder brother will know what can be done — he always does when it comes to practical things. Write to him soon. Don't wait on this.
I mean that. Don't wait.
Take care of yourself. Eat properly. Wang Guihua will tell me if you don't.
Your mother"
She turned to the third page.
Her father's handwriting was different from her mother's — not less precise but differently so. Considered. Like each character had been thought about slightly longer before it was written down. He didn't write often. When he did it meant something.
"Yushu.
Three weeks is too long. We know that.
Listen to your mother about your brother. She is right.
One more thing — keep going with your languages. Russian especially. And whatever you have been working through on your own with the technical materials — don't stop. I don't know what your path looks like from here but I know those things will matter on it.
Take care of yourself.
Your father"
She sat with the three pages after she finished.
Outside the window the courtyard had gone into that early evening in between — day mostly done, compound lamps not yet on, the elm tree still just visible against the gray. From downstairs the smell of braised pork had made it all the way up here now. Wang Guihua had been at that stove for a while.
Six months. Maybe eight.
She'd always known — in the way you know things that have been true your entire life — that the work came first. It wasn't new information. It was just the same information written down plainly in her mother's handwriting on a Tuesday in April.
"Sometimes I think that makes things easier for us than it probably should."
She folded the letter and set it on the desk.
Write to her brother. Her mother had said it. Her father had said listen to your mother. That was about as close to a unified position as her family ever arrived at.
Her elder brother would know what to do. He always did — not because he was the oldest or because of his rank but because he was simply the kind of person who looked at a problem and found its shape before most people had finished describing it. She had relied on that quality of his for as long as she could remember even when she hadn't wanted to admit she was relying on it.
She would write to him. Not tonight. Tonight she needed to think first — about what she actually wanted, what she was actually asking for, how to say it in a way that didn't sound like she was asking for help even though that was more or less what she was doing.
Yushu had never been good at asking for help.
She was aware of this about herself.
She sat with it a few minutes more. Then Wang Guihua's voice came from the bottom of the stairs.
"Yushu. It's ready."
She went down.
The table was set the way it always was. Rice in the center. Braised pork in its pot. Greens alongside. Wang Guihua served her — rice first, then the pork, then greens — and then went back to the kitchen to have her own dinner there the way she always did.
The house was quiet. The compound's evening broadcast was still going somewhere outside — distant enough that it was more texture than sound. Yushu ate. The pork was good. Properly done. She finished everything without having to remind herself it was there which was not always guaranteed on days when her mind was elsewhere.
She helped clear the table afterward. Routine. Then went back upstairs.
Sat at her desk. Opened the Russian primer where she'd left off. Read for a while — translating sentences quietly, correcting herself, making a note of the ones that had given her trouble. The lamp on her desk made a small warm circle of light. Outside the compound had gone properly dark.
At some point she closed the primer and pulled a fresh sheet of paper toward her.
She thought about what to say. How to start. Her elder brother wasn't someone who needed a lot of preamble — he never had been. He read the situation and he responded to the situation. You didn't need to dress things up for him.
She picked up her pen.
"Elder brother,
I got a letter from Mum today. She and Dad are both well.
There's something I need to talk to you about."
She looked at that last line. It was true but it was also the kind of thing that would make him worry before he'd finished reading the first page. She crossed it out.
"There's something I'd like your thoughts on."
Better. More like herself. Less like someone who needed rescuing.
She kept writing.