The nanny van bore us back to his upscale apartment complex.
Inside, Yu Sen promptly collapsed onto me like a big, panting puppy. His breath was hot against my collarbone. Every few seconds, he buried his face into my hair, nuzzling my neck.
The assistant, I noticed, conveniently vanished somewhere along the ride.
"Wife," Yu Sen mumbled thickly, "I’m hot. I need a bath...."
And with that, he began stripping. Jacket, shirt, socks it didn’t stop. His hands fumbled at belts and waistbands, stubborn as a child, until he stood with nothing but intent to bare everything.
Typical. When drunk, Yu Sen always ended up naked he’d done it countless times. I’d scolded him every single one.
Before he could finish the process this time, I snatched up a bath towel and wrapped it firmly around his waist.
Dumping him onto the bed like a sack of flour, I turned toward the kitchen to prepare honey water that old hangover remedy I always made for him, no matter how furious I was.
And then came the invasive echo again: his inner voice.
"She still loves me bringing me honey water."
"Later tonight, I’ll knock her flat."
"I’ve been training nonstop muscles sharp, body rock hard. One look and she’ll faint."
"Every day from now on skin to skin."
My feet stopped dead.
So he wasn’t as drunk as he pretended. My mind went blank for several seconds, dread and irritation colliding.
Quietly, I set the empty glass back onto the table, turned on my heel, and walked out without a word, without looking back.
Sure enough, his voice chased me into the hall:
"Wait ....what? Why are women’s moods impossible to read? Wife. Don’t leave. I need you."
The door clicked shut behind me. Silence swallowed his voice.
The residential complex was ultra-modern but isolated surrounded by woods and long driveways. At this hour, hailing a ride was agony. Twenty minutes on the app, not a single driver accepted.
Just as I raised my hand to dial family, my phone buzzed.
The caller ID: Xu Yunting.
I hesitated. Then took the call.
"Xing," his calm, steady voice sounded. "That thing you asked about last time, there’s progress. But it’s messier than expected. Can we meet? Talk in person?"
Relief washed over me. Without him, I’d have been stranded. "Yes," I said softly.
Fifteen minutes later, headlights cut through the winter dark. His car pulled up, brakes crunching on the frost. Xu Yunting jumped out, exhaling white plumes of breath. Without a word, he draped his long gray coat around my shoulders, then pressed a warm hand-warmer into my palms.
His eyes brimmed with worry. "Xing, are you okay?"
For a man who’d clearly driven here, he was panting like he had sprinted the whole way.
I tried answering, but suddenly my knees gave way. He caught me at once.
"Xing...You’re not well are you.... sick again?" He sounded stricken.
I forced a weak smile. "Probably. It’s..... been decades since I felt it. I wasn’t ready for it to flare now."
That old curse, our family’s inheritance. A neurological disorder creeping quietly at first with low moods, then crippling the body with pain and exhaustion during flare-ups. In five years, medicine at home would advance to blunt it. But here in the past, only foreign treatment was viable.
Xu Yunting’s jaw tightened. "Don’t go home tonight. You need stability."
Without waiting for my protest, he pressed a hotel keycard into my pocket.
And there it was the storm bursting in my skull:
"Xu Yunting. Again...He just doesn’t disappear."
"That woman. She’s wearing another man’s coat."
"And a hotel keycard in her hand....oh, perfect. Perfect."
"It’s fine....Totally fine....Not fine."
I looked around warily. And there he was Yu Sen, storming toward me across the frozen pavement. His khaki wool coat was buttoned tight, his boyish face glowing red from the cold and wine. He looked serious.
But instead of words, he lunged. Seizing me from Xu Yunting’s side, he pulled me into a crushing embrace.
"My woman," he snarled coldly, "needs no one else to take care of her."
Xu Yunting stopped, stunned. His gaze flicked to me; I shifted subtly in protest. Reading my look, my friend eased his hold and stepped back.
Yu Sen’s lips curved. His voice low, too sharp, cut through the night: "Yan Xing....you’ve been avoiding me for him. Pure and simple."
Xu Yunting frowned, but his tone was gentle. "Xing..... you’re leaving for treatment abroad. But before you go, you must face what’s in your heart."
Something inside me twisted. He knew nothing of the time travel, nothing of our tangled tragedy. And still, he understood me enough to push with kindness.
How could such a friend fade from my life before, all because of Yu Sen?
I whispered a thanks. Xu Yunting nodded once, climbed back into his car, and drove away.
But Yu Sen wasn’t finished. He enveloped me again, holding like he meant to fuse our bones, voice shaking:
"Yan Xing.....fifty years by my side, does none of it outweigh a stranger who’s only stepped in now?"
Tears splashed hot at my neck. His voice was raw, desperate.
"We were good, weren’t we? I listened. I stopped staying out late. No plaza dancing since you hated it. No endless nights in net cafés. I followed you. I obeyed my whole life. Was that not enough? Why won’t you marry me again?"
I trembled.
"No, Yu Sen. It wasn’t enough."
Pushing him away, I steadied my breath. Memories lacerated me: the silent treatments after petty fights, the way he dismissed my dreams, the work and sacrifices always wielded like medals over my head.
"I don’t want fifty more years of shrinking. Of suffocating."
He clutched my face, tears streaming. Tried to kiss me.
"Enough." I shoved him; he resisted.
His voice rose: "Five years? Ten? No we had fifty Fifty, growing from lovers to family. You can’t tell me you’ll throw it away. You can’t possibly."
Once, I thought love could endure. But marriage created wounds of its own. Facing that truth, I was terrified.
"Those days you remember fondly?" My voice broke into sobs. "I remember them as pain. You crushed my joy every time. I cannot keep sacrificing myself. Maybe I should cheat, fall in love with someone, anyone, just to rip us free. We can be family. But never lovers again."
His hands dropped. His massive frame staggered backward, lips trembling wordlessly.
"But your arm healed," he whispered. "It healed. Didn’t that fix everything?"
Inside his mind, his heart sobbed hopelessly:
"It healed…so why does she stare at old photos every day like a widow? Why… why won’t she still choose me?"
He wept, brokenly, like a child.
And still he did not understand. Our rift was never just the scar. It was everything.
Chapter 03
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