My vision blurred, tears soaking the thin paper.
Outside, I heard his voice: "Ying, can you bring me something?"
I quickly wiped my cheeks, stepped out, and answered with a practiced calm.
He glanced at me eyes faraway, perhaps unaware of their own depth. Then, suddenly, he murmured a line I thought lost forever:
"Do you want to see my flowers? They’ve bloomed beautifully today."
Twenty-five years.
Twenty-five years he had used that same sentence whenever my sadness overtook me. My lifeline. My excuse to smile again.
I didn’t know whether those words came from some buried memory or if they had simply become muscle memory.
I nodded. And together, we looked at his flowers.
He had always been a patient gardener. Other people’s discarded plants, he rescued. Wilting stalks, half-dead shoots, he nourished them until they flourished again. Even his flowers carried a softness that seemed to blur the edges of reality.
Our second year of marriage, the Shen family went bankrupt.
We left the grand compound, forced into a tiny rented room. But even in those grim days, his longing for beauty never dimmed. He collected abandoned plants from gutters or garbage, transplanted them carefully, and on my birthday, he wrapped them in worn paper he’d saved, offering them as if they were grand bouquets.
In winters, we huddled close around a single stove, roasting sweet potatoes. He sliced them into pieces and shaped them like little hearts before offering them to me, as if our hunger could be softened by such gestures.
And maybe it did.
In old age, memory drifts backwards. Each sorrow makes me linger longer in the past. And so, once again, tears pricked my eyes.
He tilted his head, almost as if instinctively, and handed me his handkerchief. "Are you weeping for Yan Ming again?"
I shook my head, then shook it again, harder.
No. I was crying for all of us.
For the four young souls who once laughed beneath a summer sun.
If only I had not been so blind. If I had seen sooner the way Yan Ming’s eyes burned only for Yulan. If I had accepted it, maybe the future would have been kinder. Shen Weilin would have married Zhao Yulan as heaven intended two brilliant souls, radiant together. They would have been happy. They would have had children, marched into the wilderness to teach, perhaps even built a simple home filled with poetry.
Instead, he married me.
Yulan died at twenty eight. Yan Ming never married.
And here I was, sobbing like a fool for three lives ruined.
My grief rose so violently that Shen Weilin finally guided me gently back inside, seating me and rummaging through a drawer for my heart medication.
But he didn’t return right away.
When I raised my head impatiently, I found his figure stilled, his hands holding a tiny pendant, staring as though lost.
Inside that pendant was his picture.
And without warning, my mind spun backward twenty-five years, to one blistering summer.
That summer was unbearably hot. Even Yan Ming grew lazy in the heat, refusing to run wild as usual, and so my days with Shen Weilin grew longer just the two of us.
Sometimes, Yulan visited. She and Shen had grown up together and in the Shen home, she wandered freely, entering any room and teasing every servant. Everyone believed she was destined to be the Shen family’s mistress.
Yet, whenever I watched them, I thought they looked almost too natural, too much like siblings.
One day, Yulan teased me, "Where’s Yan Ming? Why isn’t he glued to your side, little Ying?"
I was puzzling over the homework Shen had assigned me, head bent in concentration. I lifted my eyes sleepily. "He says it’s too hot. He complains I’m boring; I sleep too much."
Yulan and Shen exchanged a look, both laughing softly. Yulan flicked her finger at my forehead playfully. "You’re adorable. Be my little sister, Ying, and I’ll prepare you a dowry myself."
I stared blankly, lost, darting helplessly toward Shen Weilin for rescue.
"Yulan, enough teasing," he said gently.
She pouted dramatically. "Fine. I’ll find Yan Ming instead. He’s more fun anyway."
Slowly, their time together grew. She adored his earthiness, his vigor, the way he laughed without shame. And he adored her light.
That left me alone with Shen Weilin in the quietest of afternoons.
Crickets hummed beyond the window. He looked at me for a long moment, then whispered lightly, "Ying, am I boring to you?"
I shook my head urgently. "No. Never. I like being with you."
He smiled faintly. "And don’t keep calling me ‘Young Master.’ It’s old-fashioned. Call me Weilin."
I flinched. I couldn’t. He and his family had given mine so much; I owed them a lifetime of respect.
He sighed, shaking his head. Then suddenly, his eyes brightened mischievously. "Have you and Yan Ming ever caught cicadas? Teach me. Let’s go."
That became our first time alone, truly outside together.
Night fell when we left. Moonlight dusted the earth silver, and stars burned faint above.
Of course, Shen had never caught cicadas before every attempt was clumsy. By contrast, I was fast, practiced, fearless. Each one I caught he celebrated loudly as if I’d conquered the world.
"You’re incredible," he laughed. "Fearless, quick, skilled. Every time you try, you catch one. Amazing."
His words made me glow with pride. Emboldened, I shoved the net into his hands. "I can catch frogs too. Just watch, I’ll find you one, bright green and fat."
The night wind stirred his white shirt, rendering him ethereal. The boy at my side looked like moonlight given shape. My heart thundered so wildly, I had to flee into the shadows of the woods.
I stumbled quietly deeper, determined to prove myself. Instead of frogs, though, I found something else two figures near the pond.
Yan Ming and Yulan.
She held a fishing pole, eyes fixed on the water. He steadied the lamp beside her, gaze overflowing with gentleness.
When the rod bent, she squealed with delight. Yan Ming’s face split into a grin just as foolish. With a wild cry, he leapt into the water and emerged triumphantly, cradling the largest fish I had ever seen.
Water streamed down his rugged face; his laughter boomed, echoing into the night as he raised the catch high. "The fattest in the pond and Yulan, you made it happen."
And at last, I understood.
They all called me slow, foolish, wooden, but in that second I finally, desperately, understood.
When I returned, Shen Weilin was still waiting under the tree.
I bit my lip, hands behind my back, unable to meet his eyes.
"Did you get hurt?" he asked quietly. "Why do you look so heavy with sorrow?"
I shook my head, but guilt gnawed at me. For reasons I couldn’t name, my chest felt full of betrayal, toward him, toward them, toward everyone.
"Let’s go back," I whispered. "It’s cold."
He studied me for a long moment, then gave a small nod.
I hurried ahead of him, clearing branches, my thoughts spinning hopelessly in circles. And then shadows fell.
A bag dropped over my head.
Chapter 05
*
Comments
Post a Comment