Divorced at fifty, I embarked on my path to success.

Mei Yusheng and Qin Chu had a pleasant lunch. For the past thirty years since they got married, she had always cooked for others. Today was the first time she had eaten a meal cooked for her by someone else.

Qin Chu took the bowls and chopsticks to the kitchen, and Mei Yusheng rushed to wash the dishes: "I've had such a good meal for nothing. If I don't do anything, I won't be able to digest it."

Qin Chu stood behind her with a smile, watching her busy figure, and asked, "Sister, have you made up your mind? Are you planning to rent my house?"

The gentle and affectionate address of "sister" stirred up complex emotions in Mei Yusheng. For some reason, the address felt strangely familiar, unlike the one Mei Zichen used, as if it were a call hidden in the long river of time.

She turned back to look at him in surprise, her gaze tracing his deep and strong facial features, and that inexplicable sense of intimacy resurfaced.

"Sigh," Qin Chu sighed softly, and came up to wash the dishes with Mei Yusheng.

He brewed a pot of green tea and invited Mei Yusheng to sit on the sofa in the living room, gazing at her with deep eyes.

Mei Yusheng felt a little flustered by his gaze and became restless, wanting to take her leave immediately.

“Sister,” he seemed to see through her thoughts, and said those two words in a deep voice. Mei Yusheng’s heart trembled for no reason.

"It seems you'll never remember me if I don't tell you." Qin Chu's tone was filled with disappointment and grievance. "Sister, another day, please make me some three-delicacy pork buns. They're the best buns I've ever eaten in my life."

The sound of the plum rain seemed to pluck a string in my mind, and distant memories, as if from a past life, suddenly flooded in.

“You, you are that…” Mei Yusheng pointed at him in surprise, her face full of disbelief.

Qin Chu smiled with relief and nodded happily: "Yes, I am the boy who stole the money, Little Stone!"

"Is it really you?" Mei Yusheng stood up, walked around the coffee table, and sat down next to Qin Chu. She looked him up and down, her eyes sparkling with surprise. "You've grown so much, and you're so handsome! You don't look like you did when you were little at all!"

Then she shook her head: "No, you still have the look of when you were a child. Your eyes are big and bright. No wonder I felt a strange sense of familiarity when I first saw you."

Qin Chu deliberately pouted, looking aggrieved: "But you still didn't recognize me. I had to remind you several times before you remembered."

Mei Yusheng couldn't help but laugh, a genuine, heartfelt joy that dispelled the gloom of the past few days: "Little Stone, I really didn't expect to run into you again, you've changed so much!"

She took his hand naturally, just like she would when she was a little boy, completely unaware that he was now a mature man.

She spoke much more casually and freely: "Little Stone, why did you suddenly disappear back then? That day I even took some freshly cooked cabbage dumplings to look for you, but you never showed up. In the end, the dumplings got cold, so I had no choice but to go back. After that, I looked for you for many days in a row, but I couldn't find you. It made me worry for a long time."

Mei Yusheng recalled that skinny little boy who looked like a bean sprout, with a long, thin neck supporting a large head, and bright, dark eyes that blinked rapidly. He was wearing a worn-out tracksuit.

They first met in a small supermarket. She had just bought vegetables for lunch and was walking out of the store when a little boy rushed out and bumped into her.

Several eggs broke on the ground, and the yolks spilled into the plastic bag and stuck to the vegetable leaves.

"Stop the thief! Catch him!" A middle-aged man shouted as he ran out, grabbed the little boy by the collar, and was about to punch the child with his huge fist.

Mei Yusheng instinctively grabbed him: "Let's talk this out, don't resort to violence!"

She just thought that the boy looked so weak and frail that if she threw a punch, he would be half-dead.

The little boy was holding a piece of bread in his hand, and a corner of a ten-yuan bill was sticking out of the pocket of his tracksuit.

"Mind your own business! I'm beating a thief!" the middle-aged man roared at Mei Yusheng, snatching the bread from the boy's hand and pulling out the banknote, waving it in front of Mei Yusheng's eyes. "Look, this is what he stole! Such a young age and already so bad. Today I'm going to teach him a lesson on behalf of his parents!"

As he raised his fist to strike again, Mei Yusheng quickly stepped in front of the boy and shouted at the middle-aged man, "I've returned everything to you, why are you still hitting him? He's so young, he made a mistake, just say a few words to him, why are you actually hitting him?"

A crowd of onlookers quickly gathered around, pointing and whispering among themselves. Some said the middle-aged man had gone too far, others said the boy deserved to be hit, and so on.

"He didn't return it; I took it back! If I hadn't discovered it and run fast enough to catch up with him, would he have been able to return it?" The middle-aged man shouted, drowning out Mei Yusheng's voice.

Mei Yusheng knew she was in the wrong, but she couldn't just stand by and watch this strong, burly man beat up a skinny little boy. After a moment's thought, she looked up at the middle-aged man and said, "How about this, I'll make him apologize to you and compensate you on his behalf, what do you say?"

The middle-aged man's eyes flickered, and he waved his hand dismissively: "Forget it! Get lost! Don't ever come to my shop again, or I'll beat him up every time I see him!"

Mei Yusheng breathed a sigh of relief, as if she had survived a disaster, and turned around to look at the little boy. He didn't seem to be hurt anywhere.

She patted the dirt off the boy, picked up her plastic bag that had fallen to the ground, grabbed the boy, and ran.

The onlookers dispersed immediately.

The boy remained silent the entire time, his lips tightly pressed together, staring intently at Mei Yusheng.

Away from people's sight, she took the boy into a nearby noodle shop and ordered two bowls of noodles with soybean paste.

"Eat up, you must be starving," Mei Yusheng said softly to the boy.

The boy's big eyes quickly welled up with tears. He stubbornly lowered his eyes, picked up his chopsticks without any hesitation, and began to slurp down his noodles.

The two bowls of noodles were quickly emptied, and the boy's mouth was covered in oil from eating.

Mei Yusheng wiped his face clean with a tissue, looking at his little face with pity.

Upon seeing the bread in the boy's hand, Mei Yusheng realized that the child was not a real thief; he was just hungry.

Even if he stole ten yuan on a whim, he probably intended to keep it for himself to buy food.

She thought he was a child who had run away from the orphanage and planned to send him back after finishing her meal.

"I'm not an orphan!" the little boy said only after hearing Mei Yusheng say that she was going to send him to an orphanage. "I have a father!"

Mei Yusheng was startled and tentatively asked, "Then why aren't you getting enough to eat? Doesn't your father care about you? Where's your mother?"

The little boy pursed his lips, hesitated for a moment, and said, "My parents are divorced. My dad found a stepmother, but she always beats me behind my dad's back and doesn't give me food..."

Mei Yusheng's nose stung, and her eyes welled up with tears: "Why didn't you tell your dad?"

The boy hesitated for a moment: "Dad doesn't believe me. He believes what my stepmother said, that I stole money from home. Dad has locked me in the storage room for two days now, but I managed to escape..."

Mei Yusheng never imagined there could be such a father in the world!

Her father was kind and gentle, and he doted on her and her brother even more than on her mother.

The boy looks to be only about ten years old. What kind of person could be so cruel as to treat him like this?

"What's your name?" Mei Yusheng asked tenderly, her voice gentle.

The little boy gazed at her for a long time, then whispered the words "little stone".

Mei Yusheng didn't care whether the name was real or fake; she was only worried about what to do with the child.

She knew that even if she called the police, at most they would only give his father a few words of reprimand and warning, and the child would still have to live in that house in the end.

"It's okay, I'm full, I'll go back right away, they won't find out." Little Stone seemed to see Mei Yusheng's predicament, and sensibly stood up to leave.

Mei Yusheng reached out and grabbed his arm.

"Hiss—" Little Stone suddenly pulled his hand back, a pained expression appearing on his face.

Mei Yusheng was startled and quickly rolled up his sleeves.

She was stunned, unable to believe what she was seeing. Little Stone's arm was covered in bruises and welts from being pinched.