My Youth Began With Him

“Mian… All my jewelry’s gone…” Yang Meirong looked like she was about to cry.

“Jewelry?”

Huo Mian froze for a second; she seemed to remember her mother’s jewelry box, inside was some gold jewelry pieces that she had had for years.

Later, Huo Mian bought her some rings and necklaces, but they didn’t add up to worth a lot.

Her mother wasn’t into luxurious jewelry, so all she owned were accessories she would usually wear when she went out. The rest of the time, the jewelry was placed inside a drawer…

“I thought all your jewelry was in your drawer,” Huo Mian said.

“Yeah, but when Auntie Wu called this morning and asked me to go strolling around the park, I noticed that everything was gone when I came back. The box is still there, but the jewelry isn’t.”

“Mom… how much is in there?” Qin Chu asked, and Yang Meirong thought about it before answering slowly, “Not that much, just some I had from before and ones Mian bought me recently. There’s only two necklaces, three rings, two pairs of earrings, and a bracelet in there.”

Then, she added, “They probably only cost twenty or thirty-thousand yuan. It’s not a lot but I can’t believe they would disappear into the thin air… It’s making me really uncomfortable.”

Yang Meirong sat on the couch, extremely dispirited.

Huo Mian walked up and sat down next to her mother. “Mom, are you sure you lost them this morning? Did you see them yesterday?”

“I’m not completely sure since I haven’t worn them in a while and don’t usually open up the box to check. I last wore them two weeks ago while shopping with some new friends I met in the neighborhood, so it’s been a while. I didn’t even think about them until today, but they all disappeared.”

“Mom, don’t worry, Mian and I will replace everything in there,” Qin Chu consoled their mother, but Yang Meirong shook her head. “I know you guys are trying to help, but money’s not the problem right now, and you guys replacing everything won’t help. How can these things just disappear all of a sudden? Did a thief come into our house? It doesn’t seem right, though, this is a pretty safe neighbor, Zhixin said there are surveillance cameras outside every building and even 24-hour security guards. They shouldn’t have disappeared…”

After some thought, Huo Mian asked, “I don’t think it was a thief, because a thief wouldn’t just steal jewelry and nothing else. Mom, you didn’t lose money, right?”

“Yeah, it’s really weird. The twenty thousand yuan in my wallet is still in there, but my jewelry isn’t. It’s so weird.”

Huo Mian added, “Do you think you might’ve misplaced them? This place is huge, maybe we’ll find it if we look around some more.”

Yang Meirong shook her head. “That’s impossible, I would never place my jewelry elsewhere. I put them in the drawer, so I won’t forget where they are.”

Huo Mian didn’t say anything else upon seeing how certain her mother was. She glanced around the living room. “Mom, where’s Xiuping?”

“She’s showering upstairs, she got her dress dirty, and she said she was going to change into something else.”

As soon as Yang Meirong finished her sentence, Yang Xiuping came downstairs…

There were only two rooms upstairs, a master and a second bedroom. Yang Xiuping had been living in the second bedroom ever since she arrived, whereas Zhixin used to live in the master.

There were also a master and a second room downstairs; Yang Meirong lived in the master while Huo Mian sometimes slept over in the second room.

Yang Xiuping had on a fresh set of clothes and to Huo Mian’s surprise, her dressing style had changed drastically, even though she hadn’t been living in the city for very long…

She traded old-fashioned shirts, long pants, and flower-print dresses for a ruffle-sleeved dress.

The dress was short enough to reveal the side of her thighs, and her hair was no longer in braids. She wore her straight, long black hair loose and even had makeup on; it was obvious that she had dressed up on purpose.

“Cousin, Brother-in-Law, you guys are here?” Yang Xiuping smiled, and Huo Mian nodded back at her, also with a smile on her face. “Yeah, your Auntie lost some jewelry and is in a bad mood. She asked us to come home and take a look.”

Upon finishing her sentence, Huo Mian observed Yang Xiuping’s face closely, waiting to see her reaction…