Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The motion-sensor light outside our old home was broken.

I fumbled for my keys in the dark for a long time, my hands shaking so badly I couldn’t get the key into the lock. But when the door opened, there was a light on inside.

Dinner was on the table.

Tomato scrambled eggs, stir-fried lettuce stem, and a bowl of congee.

I froze in the doorway, barely daring to breathe.

From the kitchen came the rice cooker’s little chime signaling the end of its keep-warm cycle, like someone had lightly tapped a bowl in there. The air smelled of food, and of dust. The balcony window hadn’t been closed, and the wind stirred Nanzhi’s string of Four Seasons Wind Chimes into a soft, tinkling song.

I walked over and saw a sticky note on the table.

It hadn’t been written recently.

The corner of the paper had yellowed, and the glue had dried out, as if it had been stuck there a very long time ago.

On it was Nanzhi’s handwriting: If you’ve finally come back, eat first.

I stood in front of the dining table, and my vision suddenly went black around the edges.

I had imagined her coming back so many times.

She would be standing in the kitchen, carrying a dish, her eyes curved in a smile as she asked why I was home so late again. She would scold me for not taking care of my stomach, then carry Xiaoman out and laugh, saying, “Look, Daddy’s being silly again.”

But she wasn’t here.

There was only the rice cooker, switched on by a scheduled smart plug. Only the dishes she had portioned and frozen two years ago. Only a program that had led me back here on the anniversary of her death.

I opened my phone, and at last, on Fengli’s settings page, I saw where that message had come from.

Send time: Every year on the anniversary of death, 1:17 a.m.

Send condition: User has failed to complete the “go see Xiaoman” reminder for thirty consecutive days.

Message content: Liang Yanzhou, I don’t think I can hold on much longer.

Note: If seeing this sentence still scares him, then it means he still understands what “too late” means.

In the study of our old home, I found the second box Nanzhi had left behind.

A piece of paper was taped to the box: For the person who is finally willing to open it.

Inside were copies of her medical records, summaries of her counseling sessions, a “crisis response plan,” and a long letter written to me.

The letter began very calmly.

Liang Yanzhou, if you’re reading this, then in all likelihood, I’m already gone. Don’t rush to say you’re sorry. When you say sorry, you always say it with so much force, like you’re trying to press everything back into place. But so many things can’t be pressed back into place.

She wrote that her illness hadn’t been because of me. That I couldn’t save her, and that I shouldn’t think of myself as her only medicine.

She also wrote that she had indeed resented me.

Resented me for outsourcing companionship to everyone else. Resented me for demanding she act normal when she was at her most chaotic. Resented me for hearing her say she was scared, only to hand her the words, “Don’t overthink it.”

But at the end, she wrote: What I feared most wasn’t that you didn’t love me. It was that you thought love was enough as long as it existed in your heart. Liang Yanzhou, if the love in your heart never becomes action, then to someone who is falling, it’s not that different from having no love at all.

I gripped the letter, tears falling one by one, blurring the ink.

At the end of the letter, she said:

I left you many messages, not to trap you by my side. It’s because I know what you’re like. When the pain truly hits, you hide. You even push Xiaoman away.

If one day those messages make you mistakenly believe I’ve come back, please wake up.

I have not come back.

But you can still go back.

Back to Xiaoman’s side.

At the bottom of the box was a printed form.

The title was Liang Yanzhou User Manual.

Item One: When he’s under too much pressure, he will pretend he’s fine, so don’t just ask, “Are you okay?” Ask, “What did you eat today?”

Item Two: After he makes a mistake, he likes to punish himself with work. It looks like he’s trying hard, but he’s actually running away.

Item Three: He loves Xiaoman very much, but he may be afraid to see her. Please tell him that fear is not a reason to refuse.

Item Four: If he starts believing I’m still alive, contact a doctor. Do not cooperate with his hallucination.

The final column of the form was titled “Things I Hope He Remembers.”

Nanzhi had written: I am not an exam in his life. He doesn’t need to spend the rest of his life failing it to keep me company.

I looked at that sentence, and for the first time, I wasn’t knocked down by guilt.

I was pushed forward by her.

She had seen me too clearly.

So clearly that even though she had already been standing in such a dark place herself, she still left a light for me by the exit.