Chapter 4
We’d been politely coexisting for two years when, one night, he asked me what I wanted to drink.
I answered, “I want some alcohol.”
He froze for a second. Normally I only asked for hot water or warm milk.
“Alcohol?” He sounded surprised. “All right, let’s have a little red wine. But not too much.”
“Drink with me.”
“I still have a pile of documents to go through…” For a moment his expression was conflicted, but it quickly smoothed into a smile. Gently, he said, “Forget it, I’ll drink with you.”
He was in a white dress shirt, his skin pale. After a couple of drinks a flush rose under his skin, giving his whole body a strangely compelling charm.
After a few glasses, I asked him, “Do you ever feel like… we don’t really act like a married couple?”
“How are we not like a married couple? I know I’m usually busy with work, and I may have neglected you. If there’s anything I’m not doing well, just tell me and I’ll do my best to fix it.” His expression was very sincere, but his answer sounded like an AI-generated official statement.
I shook my head. “No, there’s nothing wrong with you. I just want to know you better.”
He looked a little startled, then, as if making up his mind, said, “What do you want to know? I can tell you anything.”
“You’ve never talked about your past. I know you had a girlfriend you were with for many years…”
His gaze dimmed for an instant, then he said softly, “Wife, are you worried about something? That’s all in the past. It’s long gone, like smoke.”
In truth, I wasn’t worried about anything. But he grew a little nervous, as if he needed to reassure me over and over:
“Don’t worry. What’s over is over. I’ll never look back. After what happened to my dad, I got a good look at how cruel people can be when fortunes change. I don’t have the slightest bit of nostalgia left. Now I remind myself every day to stay on guard. I can’t relax at work, and my character has to stay humble. I can’t afford to offend anyone; even with subordinates I tread carefully. Because I’ve seen it-how a skyscraper can collapse in an instant, how everyone rushes to push the wall when it starts to fall.
“My father had his glory days too. He worked day and night and achieved a lot, but because he got caught in a mess of emotional entanglements, one misstep led to another, and in the end there was no clean way out. He became a criminal in everyone’s eyes, and everything he’d done was completely negated. I will never make the same mistake he did. Only by keeping feelings out of it can you make the right choices.
“I was a drowning dog your dad pulled from the water. He was willing to cultivate me, and he was even willing to marry you to me. That’s an immense favor, and I will never do anything to betray you.”
He swore up and down, but to my ears, every word between the lines spelled out the same thing: he didn’t love me.
I had no right to complain, because I’d also said, very clearly, that I didn’t love him.
He’d said he wasn’t greedy. Now I was the one being greedy. I really wasn’t worthy of him, yet I still wanted more from him.
He tucked me into bed, gently pulled the blanket up over me, and slipped out of the room without a sound.
When the door closed, I could feel it-there was always a closed door between us. I couldn’t step into his world.