Having seen off her elder brother, Manman returned upstairs and sat in silence for a while, staring at the wall clock. It wasn't until she felt that his plane must have taken off that she stood up and started to do her chores.
As she tidied up the room, she was a bit absent-minded.
She should have immediately thrown herself into the restaurant work, but for some reason, she had oddly given herself a half-day off.
At night, when her husband, Jiang Yan, returned, he asked her, "Has big brother left?"
"Mhm."
The unexpected quietness of his wife piqued Jiang Yan's curiosity. He moved closer to examine her profile for a while, noting the absence of the excitement she'd previously shown on her face, and with a sly smile slowly spread across his eyes, he teased, "What, do you miss him already just because he's gone?"
"Nonsense." It wasn't him she missed; there was an inescapable cloud of gloom troubling her heart.
Whether it was an excuse, even she didn't know.
