Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Nanzhi’s funeral was very quiet.

My mother-in-law held Xiaoman the entire time and did not say a single word to me. My parents stood at a distance, wanting to comfort me but not daring to. People from the company sent over a wreath. The inscription read, “In Deepest Mourning for Ms. Xu Nanzhi,” as neat and proper as an official document.

The cemetery was chosen in the south of the city.

There was a row of plane trees there. When the wind blew, the leaves sounded like many people murmuring under their breath. The photo on her headstone had been taken on her twenty-seventh birthday. She was wearing a blue shirt and holding up a can of orange soda.

After the burial, I handed Xiaoman to my mother-in-law.

She asked, “You don’t want her?”

I said, “I can’t take good care of her right now.”

That was the truth.

It was also despicable.

Xiaoman looked too much like Nanzhi. When she slept, her brows would furrow faintly. When she cried herself out, her fingers would curl into tiny fists. As long as I saw her, I would remember the way Nanzhi had sat on the floor and said, “I’m scared.”

I didn’t dare hold her.

I was afraid that the moment she got close, she would discover that her father was someone who had arrived too late.

On the seventh day after Nanzhi left, I received my first message from Fengli.

That day, I had sat at home from morning until night without turning on the lights or eating anything. At six in the evening, my phone suddenly rang.

Xu Nanzhi: Liang Yanzhou, there’s congee on the second shelf of the fridge. Heat it for three minutes. Don’t use a metal bowl.

I rushed into the kitchen.

There really was a container of congee on the second shelf of the fridge. On the label was Nanzhi’s handwriting: For the person who refuses to eat.

I held that box of cold congee and crouched in front of the fridge, crying until no sound came out.

From that day on, I began to believe she had not completely left.

I granted Fengli every permission.

It could read my calendar, location, step count, and sleep schedule. I treated it as if Nanzhi were still caring about me. When it discovered I had not left the house for three days in a row, it pushed the sound of cats meowing in the alley behind the hospital. When it found me still at the office in the early hours of the morning, it said in Nanzhi’s tone, “Liang Yanzhou, even adults need to be dragged back to bed to sleep.”

Sometimes, even though I knew perfectly well it was only an algorithm, I would deliberately place my phone across from me at the dining table.

I would tell it how awful today’s meeting had been, that Xiaoman had grown taller again, that my mother-in-law still refused to forgive me. The screen would not answer, but after a while, the program would pop up a preset message based on the keywords.

If I said I was tired, it would say: Then sit down first. Don’t rush to prove you can still endure it.

If I said Xiaoman, it would say: Go see her. Don’t just save videos.

If I said Nanzhi, it would remain silent for a long time, then send me the sound of wind chimes.

I took even that silence as her answer.

As long as a person misses someone enough, they can read an echo from every blank space.