Lai Hui finally took off her shoes and lay down with him. The countryside was filled with the silence of a thousand sounds, the windows of her uncle’s house were without curtains, and as she looked out, the sky was a deep, dark blue, with a slightly yellow moon hanging in it. The trees in the yard stood bare, their branches coated with a layer of silver-gray moonlight, casting long, thin shadows on the ground. They propped up their pillows against the headboard, leaning against each other. Zhou Yuqian had never experienced such silence before; he squinted his eyes without speaking. After a while, the moon hid behind clouds, and the window turned as black as if it had been splashed with ink. Perhaps this darkness made one’s soul feel fragile. Lai Hui snuggled closer into his embrace, her legs on his, curled up like a cooked shrimp. “Want to sleep?” he asked. “No, I’m not sleepy!” “Would you come back with me?” He took her hand under the covers and asked. “Yuqian!” Her head was almost resting on his stomach, and she whispered, “This is my grandmother’s house; my uncle and my mom were raised by her.” “What about your grandfather?” He sensed she was about to tell a story, one he perhaps shouldn’t hear because it might be the reason for her refusal, yet he asked anyway. Compared to having her, he wanted to understand her more. “Grandfather and grandmother joined the army right after they got married, often away fighting, occasionally coming back here. Later, he became a minor officer and married a concubine, never returning to see grandmother. The villagers said grandmother was always waiting for him. She waited for over a decade, but instead of him, his concubine returned with two children during the three years of natural disasters. The elders in the village said that when the concubine first arrived, she was so thin you could barely recognize her face. She left the children with grandmother and died a few days later.” “What happened after that?” Zhou Yuqian knew those two children were her mother and her uncle; such family tragedies were common during the civil war. “Grandmother didn’t remarry. During the busy farming seasons, villagers would help her after their own work was done, often giving her some rice or porridge, which was not easy to come by back then. Grandmother often told my mom and uncle that they were raised on the kindness of the whole village.” She narrated calmly, her face rubbing against his chest, then continued, “For so many years, there was no news of grandfather. Villagers speculated he might have died or gone to Taiwan. That was just a guess; no one knew where he was. From the time they could understand, mom and uncle knew their origins and never asked grandmother about grandfather, but whenever villagers mentioned his death, they would still be saddened. Grandmother would tell them, ‘He’s not dead; your father is living well in Taiwan.’ When mom and uncle misbehaved, grandmother would say, ‘Keep misbehaving, and when your father comes back, he won’t take you to Taiwan.’ Mom said grandmother didn’t believe grandfather was alive, but she wanted her children to believe.” “After mom got married and had me, things were okay at first, but then dad started to stray. When mom caught him with Zhang Lin’s mother—my uncle and mom were devastated, and they beat them up. Actually, mom and uncle inherited grandmother’s kindness, but they had their share of heartaches. They loved grandmother, respected her, yet resented their own birth mother for ruining grandmother’s life!” Hearing this, Zhou Yuqian felt as if his heart was pierced by an arrow of regret. She had endured five years of pain because of him. Just thinking about any single day of those five years was enough to break his soul. “Mom actually died because of the stress I caused her. She and uncle most hated the term ‘concubine’ because it reminded them of their origins and the suffering of their grandmother. So, how could she accept another concubine?” She bit her lip, crying softly, her voice faltering. “Yuqian, do you know? Mom was suffering from a terminal illness, living painfully just to be with me, even though she had doubts about me. She wanted to be with me for as long as she could. Yuqian, think about it, she could have ended her pain by dying, but I selfishly made her suffer just to stay with me, and in the end, I literally caused her death!” “Lai Hui, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—” He held her tightly, wishing he could go back five years to give her anything she wanted unconditionally, even if she ended up with Xie Jiayi, he wouldn’t have wanted her to suffer for those five years. “You don’t need to apologize; you never owed me anything. But Yuqian, even though you haven’t wronged me, I can’t face those things. If mom were still alive, we might have hidden it from her forever, but now, unless I forget—” In the dark room, she lifted her tear-streaked face, speaking incoherently. “I also know I’m wrong, saying I want to leave you while still holding onto you, but as long as you’re by my side, I’m always this conflicted. Do you know? It’s painful—” She became more agitated, her voice louder. Zhou Yuqian, fearing they would wake others, quickly pressed his finger to her lips, his voice trembling with pain, “Don’t say it, don’t say it, I know, I won’t force you anymore. I just want you to be happy; do whatever you want to do—” As the night deepened, the crying in the room gradually subsided. Zhou Yuqian held her as she cried herself into unconsciousness. This was probably the first time she truly let out her emotions since her mother’s death. His fingers tenderly caressed her face, his heart breaking piece by piece. He knew that in the days to come, he would love her even more than before, but he could never love her with the same self-righteousness. Perhaps everyone must be foolish once in their youth, then drink the bitter wine of their own making when they love. Turning on his phone, by the faint blue light, he looked from her brows to her eyelashes, then at her lips, and selfishly, he kissed her. When dawn broke, the window was filled with bright white light. Lai Hui opened her swollen eyes to see fine snow falling. Today was New Year’s Eve; snow was a good omen. She stretched, suddenly remembering she was still in Yuqian’s room, and quickly turned her head. The room was empty. Just then, there was a knock at the door, startling her. If her uncle and aunt saw her here, what would they think? She hastily fixed her hair, thankful she had slept in her clothes, put on her coat, and opened the door. Her cousin stood there, handing her a note, saying, “Brother Zhou had to leave. Dad couldn’t keep him. He took paper and pen early this morning and wrote this note for me to give to you.” She took the note from her cousin in a daze. It was a page torn from a notebook, with a few lines of elegant handwriting penned horizontally across it:
“At the end, all becomes emptiness, and joy and sorrow are necessary experiences; if you need me to share in those experiences with you, I’m here in the southern mountains, always! If you’ve forgotten, then allow me to make this request while you still remember me — take care of yourself!”
Outside the window, snowflakes were falling, one by one, like her tears, swift and relentless, blanketing the window sill with a thin layer of pure white. Sorrow stretched along the little path outside, and she gazed at the layers of white curtains where the figure of that person had long disappeared, leaving the mountains empty and desolate. Her heart seemed to be left there too, frozen solid, stiff, numb, and fragile.
