From cowering at Li Yi’s place in constant fear, not even daring to draw back the curtains, to eventually adopting a “whatever happens, happens” attitude and wandering down the street in flip-flops and a tank top to buy breakfast, the shift took only a single week.
Although Li Yi was stubborn with his words, he cherished his life more than anyone. At first, he wouldn’t just lock every door and window at night; he’d even shove furniture behind that rickety front door.
I stood there with my arms crossed, watching him struggle before mercilessly pointing out the obvious, “Your house is basically a gingerbread cottage. Zhang Mingsheng wouldn’t even need an axe to break in.”
“That would be way too undignified, completely unlike his style of locking away a lover in some golden cage.” Li Yi said between heavy breaths while bracing himself against the refrigerator as he shoved it toward the door, fully aware he’d have to drag it back again the next morning. Thankfully, the power cord was long enough that the eggs, vegetables, and meat he had just bought wouldn’t spoil during this nightly routine. Even while panting from exhaustion, he still didn’t miss the chance to take a jab at me; to this day, he remained convinced I had been lured in by a handsome face and that was how I ended up trapped in Zhang Mingsheng’s grasp.
I opened my mouth to speak but hesitated for a few seconds before deciding not to argue. Zhang Mingsheng’s outward image was indeed impeccable; one could only say I wasn’t a “perfect victim.”
After thinking for a long while, I finally threw out a sentence to save face, “Everyone suffers from a lapse in judgment at some point. I admit my mistake, Officer Li.”
Li Yi no longer wanted to continue the topic. It had taken five minutes for me to come up with such a weak rebuttal, and he found it dull. He flexed his wrist lazily, too exhausted even to lift his feet properly, letting his flip-flops drag across the floor with a rough scritch-scratch sound. Then he collapsed straight onto the sofa, face-first, like a diver plunging in without a second thought.
Muffled, he said, “I’m sleeping in tomorrow. Even if Zhang Mingsheng sets a fire to burn us both to death, I won’t even bat an eyelid.”
The next morning, Li Yi dutifully moved the refrigerator back, smashing an egg in the process. There were no burnt fried eggs to eat that day; perhaps that egg had accumulated enough merit in a past life to avoid the frying pan. Li Yi also asked for my opinion on whether he should apply for police protection. We were at the dining table, and he went back to slurping his noodles the moment he finished speaking. After thinking it over for a long time, I decided not to take my past grievances to the police or the courts just yet, and I gave him my answer in earnest.
Li Yi wasn’t surprised. He let out a hum of acknowledgment and continued drinking his soup and eating his noodles as if it were no big deal. However, I sensed that while he didn’t exactly oppose my decision, he didn’t support it either. It was as if he had posed a trivial question not for a literal answer, but to hear the subtext conveyed in my response.
This junior colleague of mine seemed unchanged on the surface, but in reality, he was quite different from before. I understood the principle that even the closest of brothers must keep clear accounts, and Li Yi treated me well, but perhaps I had stayed in that cage for too long. I had over-idealized my past life and forgotten that even among best friends, intimacy is rarely seamless and lifelong. Encountering this reality left me feeling a faint sense of loneliness.
However, upon hearing a news snippet that Zhang Mingsheng was still unconscious in a private hospital, Li Yi and I instantly threw our silent tension to the wind. We slapped our thighs until they turned red as though we had just hit the jackpot. For Li Yi, it meant he could finally set aside his nightmares of Zhang Mingsheng smashing through the door with an axe at least for a while and instead drift off into fantasies of luxury cars and beautiful women, whether real or drawn in some two-dimensional world, pinned up beside his bed. For me, it gave me more breathing room to think of a strategy.
Yet, after sitting at the desk for an entire afternoon, my mind remained blank. It wasn’t until dusk that I seemed to hear Aunt Liu let out a drowsy yawn, saying it always felt cold after a nap and that she should add another blanket for Keke tomorrow.
I didn’t know where she was now or if she was holding her brother’s hand as they were brought closer to that eerie old mansion, the place where she had wailed so bitterly the very first time she visited.
News about the earthquake gradually dwindled, and entertainment magazines only made a passing mention of the Zhang Group’s eldest grandson remaining in a coma; as for his specific condition, the paparazzi had managed to dig up almost nothing. The discord between the patriarch and grandson of the Zhang family had frequently graced the front pages of second- and third-rate tabloids. If one were to pull a random person off the street and offer them a free bet on whether the white-haired grandfather would meet the King of Hell first, or if the sole surviving Zhang junior would descend to the underworld earlier, no one would easily go “all in.”
Looking at the situation as it stood, Zhang Mingsheng’s decade of hard work and effort seemed to have gone to waste. Zhang Yaonian could now entirely cast aside this eldest grandson, take his great-grandchildren under his protection, and begin cultivating a new successor instead. As for whether he could live long enough to see that through; men like him, in the end, only care about ensuring nothing and no one escapes their control while they are alive; he might not truly care if the family prospers after he is gone.
It was truly hateful of Zhang Mingsheng to use family and children to bind me, but the young children were innocent.
When the sky turned completely dark, I stood up.
If I had already decided to die, I wanted to see those two children one last time before the end.
I didn’t dare tell Li Yi where I was going. If he knew, he would surely think I intended to reconcile with Zhang Mingsheng and that I wanted to stay by his side forever, wearing ugly wigs and hideous clothes, acting as a cheap stepmother to his son and daughter.
Li Yi harbored a sense of loathing toward the unrecognizable person I had become. Though this loathing was ultimately blamed on Zhang Mingsheng, every snip of the scissors echoed with a sharp crack when he helped cut my hair; he used such vicious force as if my long hair were made of iron wire.
He is a bystander; he knows a bit about what I’ve been through these past few years, but he focuses only on the beginning and the end. Most people in this world are like that; unaware that another person’s life is also being lived second by second, each day quietly accumulating within their body, one layer upon another.
The bond between parent and child is a rare destiny, and I never believed I was blessed enough to have it. And yet… and yet.
Ultimately, taking advantage of a time when Li Yi was out, I dressed in casual clothes, pulled on a hat and a mask, and took a series of buses to that private hospital. I hadn’t even worked out how to slip through the dense web of surveillance and security, still fantasizing about displaying some martial arts prowess against the Zhang family and taking on three men at once, when I suddenly noticed Ah Hai standing by the roadside, making a phone call.
I recognized him instantly, yet I almost didn’t dare to believe it was him.
Although he and Ah Shan worked for Zhang Mingsheng, they had always been treated well. Moreover, Aunt Liu supervised everyone’s health daily and made sure they took their supplements and vitamins; after Keke it was Zhang Xiaoyuan, and after Xiao Yuan it was Ah Shan and Ah Hai. Ah Hai had always had a thick head of hair and been full of energy, with even his fingernails kept neat and clean.
Looking at him now, standing in the wind while on the phone, he looked utterly exhausted. His hair was disheveled, stubble shadowed his jaw, and deep dark circles sat under his eyes. His tie was nowhere to be seen, leaving only an open collar and a suit jacket hanging loosely unbuttoned.
I knew in my heart that Zhang Mingsheng truly was in a coma; no doubt life had already started getting difficult for Keke and Xiao Yuan.
Standing in the corner, I reached out and grabbed his arm as he walked past. His body reacted instantly as if to strike back, and one of his hands had already slipped into his pocket, he had a gun. There was no way I could overpower him in that state, so I simply forced him to meet my gaze.
His pupils froze, and the alertness and ruthlessness in his expression vanished in an instant. As an experienced veteran, Ah Hai reacted quickly; he seized my arm, glanced around cautiously, then hurriedly pulled me across the street. We walked for a while until we reached a stretch that was clearly free of any surveillance.
He gently released me before putting some distance between us, and asked, “Since you’ve already left, why bother coming back?”
I remained silent for a few seconds, bypassing the question to ask, “Where is Ah Shan? Is he guarding the hospital room?”
“He’s gone.” The few words Ah Hai tossed out left my mind a complete blank. “He was taking Keke and Xiao Yuan home and vanished midway. I haven’t been able to contact him for days.”
Vanished.
I froze on the spot.
“If anything happened to those two children, Ah Shan wouldn’t choose to survive alone.” Ah Hai said, his words sound less like a guess and more like a guarantee.
A heavy cloud drifted over us at some unknown moment, hanging above our heads and casting the alley into darkness.
Ah Hai had likely already prepared for the worst.
“I don’t know if I can still call you Madam, or perhaps Mr. Yu,” Ah Hai said, his head lowered so I couldn’t see his expression. “If anything happens to Keke and Xiaoyuan, I’ll never be at peace for the rest of my life. Ah Shan and I owe you and Sir too much. I don’t know if you’re as worried about them as I am; of course, you’re free not to be.”
After a pause, he added, “And that’s as it should be.”
A gust of wind swept by, leaving a dull ache in my legs.
If I hadn’t run… if I had stayed that day, would the children still be missing?
“Is… Mr. Zhang really in a coma?” In a daze, I finally asked about that man.
Ah Hai didn’t answer my question. He merely glanced at his watch and started to leave as if something significant were about to happen.
I tugged at his sleeve and asked, “What’s going on?”
Ah Hai turned back and said flatly, “Zhan Weiqing is coming to visit Sir.”
I looked into his eyes and slowly let go of his arm.
