I met my whole family through Baidu Tieba.

"Feed? Feed?... "

Hearing that there was no more movement from the other end, Zhou Man called out a few times.

Finally, there was some movement coming from the other side of the curtain.

"Oh, yes. I just received a text message, I checked it."

Along with this sound, some other noises came from behind the curtain.

It appears to be pulling out a chair.

It seems he's sitting up straight now.

This was a high-level game.

……

This was a high-level game.

Behind the curtain, Li Ziming pulled out his chair, sat up straight, and thought to himself.

He even took out a notebook and a pen, uncapped it, and wrote down the words that had just shocked him, sorting out his thoughts.

Finally, a line was drawn under the word "adopted daughter".

"Ms. Wang, you just said that your friend prefers her adopted daughter?"

"Um."

"I think she must be very beautiful."

"Hehe, yes, but she's not just pretty, she's also a very special child..."

When talking about "his friend's adopted daughter".

On the other side of the curtain, Zhou Man unconsciously curled the corners of her mouth slightly.

The image of He Qiuzhu also appeared in my mind:

She sat alone, quietly on the sofa in the living room of her home in Shenlan Waterfront, watching television.

I made her bed in her school dormitory, and she looked up at me with her big, bright eyes, as if I were her superhero.

She timidly hoped for that heartbreakingly broken embrace.

And then there's the quirky, mischievous side she shows from time to time...

She was quiet, reserved, and not good at expressing herself.

Zhou Man's voice softened and became gentler, as if she were afraid of waking a child who was taking a nap.

"When my friend went to visit her at school once, she was standing at the entrance of the dormitory management office waiting for her. The sun was quite strong, and she was the only one standing in the sun. My friend asked her why she didn't wait inside the dormitory management office, and she said she was afraid she wouldn't be able to find it. Actually, the dormitory management office and the dormitory management office are pretty much the same, who wouldn't be able to find it?"

"Later, my friend received a phone call and walked a little away for about ten minutes. When she came back, she was still standing there, motionless, except her face was a little redder than before. My friend asked her what was wrong, and she said that a male classmate had come up to her and talked to her, and she didn't know how to respond, so she kept her head down. Later, the boy left. My friend said, 'Next time something like this happens, just walk away.' She thought for a moment and said, 'I can't walk away, if I do, you won't be able to find me when you come back.'"

"My friend has met many people in her life—people who are eloquent, capable, confrontational, and scheming—she can handle them all. But she doesn't know how to deal with a child like this. She doesn't want anything, doesn't ask for anything, she just stands there quietly waiting for you to notice her. By the time you notice her, she's been standing there for a long time..."

Zhou Man said a lot in one breath, and finally said, "So you see, my friend likes her so much, how could he look at her with such a 'judging' mind? He even thought, 'Is she a good match for my friend's adopted son?' That's why I said, this is not normal."

The person behind the curtain didn't refute her, but simply said, "Okay. So, back then, I mean, when your friend saw that her adopted daughter and adopted son might be dating, what were her thoughts about her adopted son?"

Zhou Man thought for a moment, then paused, taken aback.

After a brief silence, he slowly shook his head. "I don't know, my friend didn't tell me."

……

The other side of the curtain

Li Ziming was scribbling in his notebook when he heard this. He subconsciously looked up and gazed at the other side of the iron bars—of course, with the curtain blocking his view, he couldn't see anything.

"You don't know?" — It seems the customer has finally realized it himself.

Thinking this, Li Ziming casually jotted down another note in his notebook.

Afterwards, he started "chatting" with Ms. Wang behind the railing, jotting things down in his notebook as they talked.

As he continued writing, Li Ziming's expression grew increasingly excited, and his notebook was filled with countless words.

This is a good case; it's very unique.

For now, let's refer to "Ms. Wang's friend" and "Ms. Wang's friend's adopted son" and "adopted daughter" as "Ms. Wang," "son," and "daughter," respectively.

Ms. Wang's emotions are very complex, and currently, they can be divided into two layers.

The first layer is her perspective as a "mother of a son".

Ms. Wang's feelings for her son evolved from a "contractual relationship," carrying a special possessiveness—when she first met her son, he was a calm, mature "ally" who could help her solve problems.

Later, she gradually came to regard him as her son, but she always retained a feeling that this son was someone she "discovered," someone she actively chose, and someone who belonged to her.

She allows her son to do many things independently, and even appreciates him making decisions beyond her control, but that's because she implicitly acknowledges that "he is still mine."

When she discovers that her son is in a relationship with "another woman," she will realize that her son's attention has shifted and is no longer focused on the family, but on "another woman."

The sense of loss that comes over you first is that "my son suddenly has his own world."

She also felt a vague unease, stemming from another level of consideration: she felt that her role as "mother" in this family was essentially a contractual identity with a time limit, and the warmth she received might expire at any time.

The relationship between the son and "another daughter" is outside the framework of this contract, independent, and does not require her approval.

This made her realize for the first time that there were some things in this family that she couldn't control.

In addition, she may also fall into a kind of self-examination: if "the other woman" is her son's girlfriend, then are her usual "motherly" behaviors, words and deeds in front of her son overstepping the boundaries?

When her son gets a girlfriend, the mother's presence should be appropriately diminished—this is a "rule" she learned from childhood.

She began to care about the frequency and manner in which she appeared between her son and "another woman".

She would intentionally or unintentionally create some distance, but she didn't want to be seen as deliberately backing away.

She wouldn't say "When did you two start dating?" but she might casually ask her son at the dinner table, "You two seem to be getting quite close lately?"—This question doesn't sound like an interrogation, but rather like a probe.

She wanted to know her place in the family, whether these two people had rearranged her order of importance.

This is the first layer.

The second layer of Ms. Wang's complex emotions comes from the perspective of "a mother of a daughter".

For Ms. Wang, her daughter represents a different kind of emotion—more like a child who needs to be protected.

The daughter is quiet, reserved, and has poor social skills. In front of Ms. Wang, she is someone she can let her guard down and who can be taken care of.

Ms. Wang's feelings for her daughter are full of protectiveness, even more so than for her son—because her daughter never shows her strong side in front of her.

Upon discovering that her daughter was in a relationship with "another man," Ms. Wang's first reaction would be, "My daughter is in love." She would then begin to scrutinize "the other man"—is he good enough for her? Is he kind enough to her? Will he take advantage of her personality flaws in the relationship?

This scrutiny carries a maternal vigilance: if my daughter is with a boy, I want her to be happy, but I also want to know if that boy will make her suffer.

She would silently observe the details of how "the other man" treated her daughter—whether he helped her carry things, whether he slowed down his speech, and whether her daughter was relaxed or stressed in front of her.

On a deeper level, she will start to worry about her daughter's position: Will she withdraw from the family because she is with "another man"?

Her daughter is the quietest and most heartbreaking of her two children. She always thought she was slowly "healing" her, but if her daughter's sense of belonging is directed entirely to "another man" rather than to the "family" as a whole, then has her role as a mother been neglected?

She wasn't sure if her daughter would still call her "Mom," even though that title only appeared on a few occasions.

The above is the second layer.

From either perspective, it's quite common; many families experience this situation.

It's quite normal to have both perspectives at the same time—many mothers have both sons and daughters and will have both perspectives simultaneously.

However, when "the other woman" is the daughter and "the other man" is the son, the two perspectives merge, which is very rare.

This led to a wonderful chemical reaction between the two perspectives.

From the first perspective, Ms. Wang has gone from "exclusively possessing" to being "without identity."

In an ordinary family, Ms. Wang could legitimately "examine" the girl. While maintaining her role as a mother, she could allow herself to have a certain degree of "hostility" or "criticism" towards that woman.

The emotional bond between mother and son is strong, and she stands firmly on that bond. This kind of examination is a posture of "looking outward from one's own territory".

However, in Ms. Wang's actual family, there is no "that woman".

That woman is her daughter.

Therefore, the object of her scrutiny is invalid.

When Ms. Wang saw her daughter and son together, she couldn't feel the same "you stole my son" emotion towards her daughter as an ordinary mother, because in her heart, her daughter's identity was "a daughter who needs to be protected."

She cannot harbor hostility towards her daughter; that "judging lever" has no fulcrum.

She could only swallow that sense of loss whole, with nowhere to put it. It went from "My son has his own world" to "My daughter and my son have their own world, and I don't know what I am in this world."

At the same time, the emotional bond between her and her son lost its "legitimacy".

In ordinary families, the relationship between a mother and son remains intact and stable after the son starts dating; it's just that there's an additional person involved. But in Ms. Wang's case, the fact that her son and daughter are together makes all her previous actions of "treating her adopted son as her own" seem questionable.

Those behaviors are normal in the context of "the son has a girlfriend," but if the girlfriend is also a daughter, she is essentially in a three-person structure, continuously asserting "I am your mother" to one of the couples who have already become a pair.

She was unsure whether she should stop, and even less about how she should stop.

This is the change in angle of the first layer due to a wonderful chemical reaction.

The second layer of change in perspective is that it shifts Ms. Wang's focus from "protection" to "being sidelined".

In an ordinary family, when a mother discovers her daughter is in a relationship, her mindset is: she worries, she needs to scrutinize the boy, and she wants to ensure her daughter isn't hurt. Her worries have a clear direction, and her concern follows a clear path—"I need to confirm that the boy is good enough for my daughter."

But for Ms. Wang, "that man" is her son.

She couldn't examine her son like a normal mother because her feelings for him weren't "examination," but rather "dependence" and "appreciation."

She cannot question whether the person she depends on is worthy of her daughter—because in her mind, her son is someone she considers "reliable, mature, and more stable than many adults." If she starts to examine him, the first thing she would be negating is her own judgment and dependence.

Therefore, she couldn't stand on the side of "protecting her daughter," nor could she stand on the side of "examining her son's girlfriend." She slid back and forth between the two positions, unable to stand firmly on either one, and ultimately could only return to an observational position that even she herself felt uneasy about.

What were the results of merging the two layers?

"All characters are disabled."

When these two perspectives were combined, Ms. Wang found that she could not find a foothold on either emotional line:

As the "mother of her son," she cannot find a "daughter-in-law" to examine, because the daughter-in-law is also a daughter.

As the "mother of her daughter," she cannot find a "son-in-law" to examine, because the son-in-law is also a son.

As a "mother," she cannot say "I support you" or "I oppose you" like an ordinary mother—she cannot find a clean and decisive stance.

As a "collaborator," she couldn't find a boundary for her behavior that she wouldn't overstep—because a "collaborator" wouldn't care who her daughter was with, but she already did.

Thus, this complex "chemical reaction" ultimately created an emotional tug-of-war for Ms. Wang herself.

Pulling and tugging: Ms. Wang wants to close the distance, but she is not sure how to pull.

She wants to stay in her son and daughter's world, but if she continues to appear as a "mother," she might be seen as a distraction by them; if she retreats, she will be excluded from the structure they have already formed.

Every move she makes faces the dual threat of "crossing the line" or "disappearing".

The second tug-of-war: Ms. Wang wanted to take control, but the control itself had already collapsed.

She could have controlled the direction of the family—as the "origin of the partnership," she had the right to decide who stayed and in what capacity. But now that the relationship between her son and daughter was completely independent of her, that control had completely failed.

She found herself in that house where all the usable tools had been taken away, leaving only her own existence.

Third tug-of-war: Ms. Wang doesn't want to be excluded, but her existence may have already been redefined.

The core question she faces is: if those two people are already with each other, what role can she play in this family?

She didn't know the answer.

All she knew was that she didn't want to leave—but she also knew that if she stayed but couldn't find her place, that feeling might be even worse than leaving.

Final conclusion: At this moment, Ms. Wang is not thinking about "whether they should be together" or "how I view their relationship".

The question she was really thinking about was, "If they're already together, where do I stand?"

All her complex emotions, all her anxieties, all her silences ultimately pointed to this one question.

……

"What a brilliant sample of human analysis."

Looking at what he had recorded in his notebook, Li Ziming couldn't help but feel a deep sense of emotion.

I made the right choice in this high-level game.

With proper organization, they can all be published as academic papers.