My mother is a very strange person.
For most of my life, I thought I understood the shape of her strangeness.
She was practical to the point of coldness, careful with money, careful with words, and careful with favours.
She never cried in front of me.
She never praised me loudly either.
If I did well in an exam, she would say, “That’s fine. Keep going.”
If I came home exhausted, she would put the kettle on and slide a mug towards me without asking what was wrong.
That was how she loved people.
Quietly.
Almost secretly.
So when she began sending me to my uncle’s flat every week during my fourth year at university, I did not think too deeply about it at first.
“Your uncle lives alone,” she said the first time. “His place is a mess. Go and help him tidy up a bit.”
I was revising for final papers then, and my desk was covered with books, pens, printed notes and half-finished tea.
I remember looking up at her and asking, “Why me?”
“Because you’re young,” she said. “And because I asked you.”
That was the end of the discussion.
My uncle’s name was Lu Zhengqing.
He lived in an old block of flats in the older part of town, the kind of building where the stairwell always smelt faintly of dust, boiled vegetables and damp umbrellas.
His flat had three bedrooms, one sitting room, a narrow hallway and a balcony crowded with plants.
The walls had gone a tired cream colour with age.
The wooden furniture was heavy and dark, with worn corners polished by years of hands brushing past.
In the sitting room, an old LCD television sat on a low cabinet, the sort of television nobody would bother stealing.
If you saw him from the doorway, you would never think he was important.
He dressed plainly.
He spoke slowly.
He looked like an ordinary retired official with too many books and not enough visitors.
Every time I went over, he was doing one of two things.
He was either sitting in the study reading, or standing on the balcony watering his flowers.
He owned more books than anyone I knew.
They covered the shelves, the desk, the windowsill and sometimes even the floor.
Some were old and yellowed at the edges.
Some had slips of paper tucked between the pages.
Some were stacked in such careful piles that I was afraid to move them.
The first few weeks, I only swept, wiped surfaces and took rubbish out.
Then Mum began reminding me to clean more thoroughly.
“Don’t just do the sitting room,” she said. “Dust the study as well.”
“The study takes ages,” I complained.
She gave me a look over the washing-up bowl.
“He is your uncle.”
So I went.
Week after week.
I dusted his shelves.
I cleaned the old desk.
I rinsed mugs in the kitchen sink, under taps that never seemed to give the right temperature at the same time.
I wiped the kettle.
I shook out the tea towel.
I swept soil from the balcony tiles after he repotted his plants.
Sometimes, while I cleaned, he would speak to me from behind a book.
“What are you reading lately?” he asked once.
I told him.
He asked what I thought of it.
I gave a student’s answer, careful and a little too eager to sound clever.
He smiled but did not laugh.
Another time, he asked what I thought about a public issue in the news.
I answered casually, thinking he was only making conversation.
He listened as if every word mattered.
It made me uneasy at first.
Most older relatives asked whether I was eating enough or whether I had found a boyfriend.
My uncle asked what I thought power was for.
Once, after I had spent almost half the afternoon cleaning the study, I stood with a cloth in one hand and said, “Uncle, you have too many books. It takes me half a day just to dust them.”
He looked up from the page.
“Read a little more,” he said. “It never hurts.”
His voice was so mild that I could not tell whether it was advice or a warning.
I cleaned his flat for two years.
During those two years, I noticed visitors.
Not neighbours.
Not casual friends.
Visitors.
Some came in uniform.
Some came in dark suits.
Some arrived in cars that looked too expensive for that old block.
Some carried neat paper bags of tea, fruit boxes, sealed envelopes or books wrapped in brown paper.
They never treated my uncle like a lonely old man.
They stood straight when he opened the door.
They softened their voices when they stepped inside.
They sat on the sofa as if waiting to be examined.
At first, I thought it was funny.
Then I realised my mother did not find it funny at all.
On days when someone was expected, she would call me before I went.
“Work quietly,” she would say. “Don’t interrupt. Don’t talk too much.”
“I know.”
“And don’t ask who they are.”
That last part made me look up.
“Why would I ask?”
“Good,” she said. “Don’t.”
So I did not.
I became very good at being useful and invisible.
I would carry tea into the sitting room, place it down, and leave.
I would hear fragments through half-closed doors.
A calm voice.
A careful reply.
The scrape of a chair.
The low clink of a cup against a saucer.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing that sounded like a secret.
Still, there was a weight in that flat I could never name.
When I later prepared for the civil service exam, Mum was more involved than I expected.
She did not hover.
She did not comfort.
She simply made sure I had eaten, slept and revised.
She left cut fruit beside my books.
She told relatives not to bother me.
She put my phone away when she thought I had been scrolling too long.
When I passed the written exam and the results were announced, I ranked third in the city.
I was stunned.
Mum was not.
She looked at the printed result, nodded once, and said, “Prepare for the interview properly. Don’t be nervous.”
That was all.
I wanted her to be excited.
I wanted her to hug me.
Instead, she put the kettle on.
The night before the interview, I barely slept.
I kept going over possible questions in my head.
Policy judgement.
Emergency handling.
Public service ethics.
Communication.
Organisation.
Each time I closed my eyes, I saw a panel of blank faces waiting for me to fail.
In the morning, I wore a plain navy suit.
I tied my hair back tightly.
I checked my documents twice.
Mum stood by the doorway watching me put on my shoes.
“You have cleaned rooms for two years,” she said suddenly.
I looked up.
“What?”
She adjusted the collar of my suit as if I were still a child.
“Remember that. A person who can do small things properly will not be frightened by large rooms.”
At the time, I thought it was just another of her odd remarks.
The interview waiting room was full when I arrived.
More than twenty candidates sat there, each pretending not to measure the others.
Some held notes.
Some stared at the floor.
Some whispered into phones.
The room smelt of paper, nervous breath and over-warm heating.
I sat down beside a girl with perfect make-up and a watch that flashed whenever she moved.
She introduced herself as Zhao Wanru.
Her coat looked expensive in that quiet way expensive things often do.
Nothing loud.
Nothing vulgar.
Just better fabric, better cut, better confidence.
She glanced at my suit, then at my folder.
“You’re applying for this post as well?”
“Yes.”
“What was your written ranking?”
“Third.”
Her lips lifted.
“I came first.”
There was nothing to say to that, so I gave a small smile.
She turned slightly towards another candidate and lowered her voice.
Not low enough.
“I heard the head of the interview panel is Deputy Director Zhou from the bureau,” she said. “My father once had dinner with him.”
The other candidate’s face changed at once.
“So you’ve made arrangements?”
Zhao Wanru gave a soft laugh.
“Interviews are not only about ability. Connections are important too.”
Then she looked at me again.
It was not a long look.
It did not need to be.
It said she had already decided what sort of person I was.
Ordinary suit.
Ordinary folder.
No sparkling watch.
No father dining with Deputy Director Zhou.
I looked down at my hands and breathed slowly.
There is no dignity in arguing with someone who has already placed you beneath them.
When my number was called, I stood.
My legs felt steady, which surprised me.
I smoothed my sleeves, held my folder close, and walked towards the interview room.
The corridor felt too bright.
The handle was cold under my palm.
I opened the door.
Five examiners sat behind a long table.
For one moment, the world became very quiet.
In the centre sat Zhou Desheng.
Deputy Director Zhou.
I knew his face because he came to my uncle’s flat at least twice a month.
He always brought two pounds of Longjing tea.
He always handed it over with both hands.
He always sat on the old sofa and waited until my uncle spoke first.
To his left sat Li Changhe, Department Head Li.
Only last month, he had eaten dinner at my uncle’s flat.
I had personally poured tea for him from the white pot with the chipped lid.
Second from the right sat Gu Yanshen.
He was younger than the others and more familiar to me than I wanted him to be.
He came most often.
Every time he walked into my uncle’s flat, he called my uncle “Teacher”.
The three of them recognised me at almost the same moment.
It was tiny.
Anyone else might have missed it.
Zhou Desheng’s throat moved before he cleared it.
Li Changhe lifted his glass and took a sip though he had not been speaking.
Gu Yanshen looked at me for two seconds, then calmly looked down at his papers.
My fingers tightened around my folder.
All at once, two years of cleaning returned to me.
The study.
The books.
The visitors.
My mother’s warnings.
The tea.
The silence.
I stood in the answering area and thought, with a chill so sharp it almost steadied me, that perhaps I had never been sent there just to clean.
“Please answer the first question,” Zhou Desheng said.
His voice was formal.
Not warm.
Not familiar.
Not the voice of a man who had accepted tea from my hands.
That helped.
It drew a line through the room.
Whatever I had seen, whatever they had seen, this was still an interview.
I took one breath.
Then another.
And I answered.
I did not look at Zhou Desheng.
I did not look at Li Changhe.
I did not look at Gu Yanshen.
I looked at the space between them and spoke as clearly as I could.
The questions were difficult, but not cruel.
One asked about balancing rules and human feeling.
One asked about a conflict between departments.
One asked how I would respond if the public blamed an office for a delay caused by several hidden factors.
The last one was about responsibility.
That word landed differently that day.
Responsibility.
I answered with everything I had learnt from books, from practice questions, and perhaps from those quiet afternoons in my uncle’s flat where important people came to drink tea and choose every word carefully.
When it was over, I bowed slightly and left.
Only after the door closed did I realise my palms were damp.
Zhao Wanru was leaning against the corridor wall when I came out.
She looked almost bored.
“How was it?” she asked.
“Alright.”
“Alright?”
She smiled.
“In this sort of interview, no matter how well you answer, it’s useless if you don’t know the right people.”
I looked at her then.
Before I could reply, someone posted the results on the door.
The corridor shifted.
People moved at once, all pretending not to push.
I stood back for half a second, then walked forward.
The paper was white.
The black characters were clear.
First place in the interview: Su Nian — 92.6 points.
Second place: Zhao Wanru — 87.3 points.
A difference of five points.
I read my name twice before I believed it.
Behind me, Zhao Wanru went still.
Then she moved closer.
“Impossible,” she whispered.
She stared at the result for more than ten seconds.
Her face had lost all its careful ease.
When she turned to me, her eyes were sharp.
“You know someone inside, don’t you?”
“No.”
The answer came out before I could think.
Perhaps because it was true in the only way that mattered.
I knew their faces.
I did not know what that meant.
She gave a short laugh without humour.
“92.6 and you think that’s normal?”
“I think it’s very normal.”
That was the first time all day I sounded like my mother.
Calm enough to be unkind.
Zhao Wanru bit her lip and said nothing more.
On the way home, the sky had turned grey and low.
Rain gathered on the bus window in long crooked lines.
I held my phone for several minutes before calling Mum.
She answered on the third ring.
“I’ve finished the interview,” I said.
“What was the result?”
“First place.”
There was no gasp.
No cry.
No delighted laugh.
Only a pause so brief I might have imagined it.
“Good,” she said. “Come home for dinner.”
I looked at my reflection in the dark bus window.
My suit looked neat.
My face looked pale.
For the first time, I wondered how much of my life Mum had arranged without ever telling me.
When I got home, the hallway smelt of rice and hot oil.
My shoes squeaked faintly on the floor because the pavement outside was wet.
Mum was in the kitchen, setting bowls on the table.
There were two mugs near the kettle.
One had gone cold.
She did not ask whether I was happy.
She did not ask whether I had been frightened.
She simply pushed a bowl towards my seat.
“Eat,” she said.
I sat down, but I could not pick up my chopsticks.
“Mum.”
“Yes?”
“What exactly does Uncle do?”
Her hand stopped over the dish.
It was not dramatic.
She did not drop anything.
She did not look guilty.
But I knew my mother.
That tiny pause was as loud as a slammed door.
“He is still your uncle,” she said. “A retired official.”
“Then why were there three people in the interview room today that I’ve seen at his flat?”
Mum put her chopsticks down.
Slowly.
She looked at me for a long moment.
Then she said, “Eat your rice.”
“Mum.”
“Why ask so many questions?”
Her voice had sharpened, but not because she was angry.
Because she was afraid of what the answer might do.
“You took the exam with your own ability,” she said. “You answered the questions yourself. Did anyone speak for you?”
“No.”
“Did anyone give you the questions?”
“No.”
“Then what does it have to do with your uncle?”
Her logic was clean.
Too clean.
That was the problem.
A person can tell the truth and still hide the room around it.
I looked at the bowl in front of me.
The rice had stopped steaming.
“I know I answered myself,” I said. “But why did you insist I apply?”
She looked away.
Only then did I remember something.
In my final year, I had once told her I might not sit for the civil service exam at all.
I had wanted to apply for other jobs.
Maybe continue studying.
Maybe leave town.
Mum had listened quietly, then spent the next month placing application forms, reading materials and interview notes on my desk as if they had appeared by weather.
She never begged.
She never shouted.
She simply removed every excuse until only the exam remained.
At the time, I had thought she was being controlling.
Now I wondered whether she had been following instructions.
“Mum,” I said more quietly, “why did I have to clean his flat every week?”
Her fingers tightened around the edge of the table.
Outside, the rain tapped against the glass.
The kitchen light hummed above us.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then she said, “Because he wanted to see you.”
The answer landed softly.
That made it worse.
“See me?”
“To know what sort of person you were.”
My mouth went dry.
“All those questions he asked me…”
Mum did not answer.
“What I read. What I thought about the news. What I thought power was for.”
Still nothing.
My chair scraped the floor as I stood.
“You knew.”
She looked up at me then, and for the first time that night she looked older than I had ever seen her.
“I knew he was watching,” she said. “I did not know what he would decide.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Two years.
Two years of sweeping floors, dusting shelves, carrying tea, answering casual questions with careless honesty.
Two years in which I thought I was helping an old man keep his flat clean.
Perhaps I had been sitting the longest interview of my life.
I wanted to be angry.
I was angry.
But underneath it was something more frightening.
If my uncle had been watching me, then what had he seen?
And why did it matter so much?
Before I could ask, Mum’s eyes moved past me.
Towards my bag by the hallway.
I turned.
A brown envelope was sticking out of the front pocket.
I stared at it.
I had not put it there.
My bag had been with me all day.
At the interview centre.
On the bus.
In the hallway.
I stepped towards it.
Mum stood so quickly her chair knocked against the wall.
“Su Nian.”
Her voice was not sharp now.
It was pleading.
That frightened me more than anything else.
I pulled the envelope free.
It was plain.
No name on the front.
No official stamp.
Only a faint crease along one edge, as if someone had carried it for a long time before deciding to let it go.
My fingers found the flap.
Mum crossed the kitchen in two steps and caught my wrist.
“Not yet,” she whispered.
I looked at her hand on mine.
It was trembling.
My mother, who had not trembled when I ranked third.
My mother, who had not trembled when I ranked first.
My mother, who could make fear sound like common sense.
“What is inside?” I asked.
She shook her head.
At that moment, someone knocked on the front door.
Once.
Twice.
The sound travelled through the narrow hallway and into the kitchen like a verdict.
Mum closed her eyes.
Then a familiar calm voice came from outside.
“Open the door, Su Nian.”
My uncle paused.
“It is time you knew why your mother sent you to clean my study for two years.”