chapter 1
chapter 1
I stood outside the bedroom door, dragging several bags behind me in a rather sorry state, while Jiang Ning kept trying to talk sense into him over the phone.
“What’s gotten into you? You and Lin Qi have been together for years. Just last year, I heard you flew all the way to Norway to choose a necklace for her that cost seven figures. How can you suddenly break up with her?”
Feng Ji was silent for a long moment before giving an irritated click of his tongue.
“So what if we broke up? If you hadn’t fallen for Xu Xinghe and begged me to get Lin Qi out of the way, why would I ever have dated her?”
Jiang Ning sounded embarrassed. Her voice softened. “I’m only worried about Xu Xinghe. You know how long he was in love with Lin Qi back at Linchuan No. 1 High School. I practically forced him into marrying me. Now that you’ve left Lin Qi, what if she comes looking for him? My marriage will be over.”
She sounded utterly miserable.
Feng Ji turned toward the window, a cigarette between his fingers. “It’s been five years. Whatever they had should have faded by now. Otherwise, why would he have helped us stage his death to fool Lin Qi?”
As he said it, he glanced instinctively in my direction.
“That’s enough. I’m hanging up.”
He ended the call and walked over to me. “Finished packing? I’ll get the car.”
On the way, Feng Ji offered me a brief explanation. He had not planned to leave me, exactly. Life with me had simply become too dull. He liked excitement, while I was too obedient and docile. Now that he had grown tired of me, he said, I should congratulate myself on being free.
When I got out of the car, he crushed out his cigarette and arched a brow. “Well? A goodbye hug? You’ll be all alone from now on.”
To be fair, everything he had said was cruel. Yet all of it put together hurt less than that final sentence.
He was right. Whether in the future or in the past, I had always walked alone.
Night was falling, and a fine, dense rain had begun to drift through the air. After Feng Ji drove away, I stood there at a loss. He had kept me shut away for so long that I no longer knew where to go.
Then I remembered the employee dormitories the company provided. I dragged my suitcase back toward the office.
Outside the building, beyond the flower bed, I saw the company’s new junior secretary standing on tiptoe to kiss Feng Ji. She wore a white dress and smiled with bright, fearless confidence.
She looked strangely familiar.
It took me a while to realize that she resembled the girl I had been at eighteen, before I met Feng Ji and Jiang Ning. Back then, I wore my hair in a high ponytail every day and dragged Xu Xinghe over to admire the honor roll with me.
“We tied for first place again!”
The gentle-eyed boy would tap me lightly on the forehead.
After Feng Ji and I got together, he often held me and said with regret, “I wish I’d known the fierce, spirited girl you used to be.”
See? He understood far better than I did how to make up for his regrets. He threw me away, then found himself a replacement who looked like my old self.
I turned away and entered the dormitory without watching any longer.
The slip of paper with the address had been crumpled in my fist. After a long hesitation, I finally opened it.
Xinghe Bay, Riverside No. 1, Building 8.
The longer I stared, the harder I began to laugh.
Xu Xinghe had been living in the riverside villas directly across from my office all this time. On any one of the 365 days in a year, we might have walked the same plane-tree-lined road. We might have bought breakfast from the same old shop in Anping Alley. We might even have passed each other without knowing.
My office looked straight out over the river at night. During countless late nights at work, I had clutched his memorial portrait, drunk myself senseless, and cried until I could barely breathe.
And what had he been doing then? Had he been with his wife? Did they watch the river lights together at night?
Through my blurred vision, I remembered something Xu Xinghe once promised me.
“Lin Qi, I’ll never leave you. Even if we can’t be together, I need to stay close enough to watch over you. Only then will I know you’re safe.”
Look at that. He had kept his word after all.
The whole world suddenly seemed unreal, nothing but wavering light and shadow.
This world was false. But being taken by force was real, and so was being deceived.