Chapter 5

Chapter 5

On Qingming, I went to sweep Dalang’s grave.

“Wenqing, I’m leaving. I won’t be coming to see you often anymore.”

“What you said before you died truly broke my heart.”

“But I am a person who honors her obligations. You wronged me, but I cannot wrong you in return.”

“I was married to you for four years, and I endured four years of resentment.”

“Then I stayed in your family for another four years, and I paid back every bit of the resentment we suffered in those four years.”

“If you know anything in the underworld, you should be at peace now. Go on and reincarnate properly.”

“From now on, I will live my own life too.”

“The debts between us are settled.”

“If there is a next life, I will not marry you.”

“May you get what you wish for in your next life, and may everything go smoothly for you.”

After making my offerings, I walked around the cemetery. Since I would not be able to come often in the future, I wanted to take one last good look at this place.

Gravestones stood in clusters.

There were many grieving people.

There were also many who were not grieving.

People came and went in a hurry. How much sincerity was in their hearts? Only they themselves knew.

All at once, I felt that Qingming was truly a wonderful day. One day set aside for the past, and all the other days left to the future.

The past and the future, both arranged so clearly. That was truly good.

I made a loop and came back, only to see Erlang (Second Master) crying in front of Dalang’s gravestone.

He probably thought no one was around, because he was weeping without restraint.

“Brother, I’m sorry. I would rather I had been the one to die.”

“Father and Mother blame me. Sister-in-law blames me. Mengzhi blames me too.”

“Living is worse than death.”

“Brother, I never meant to inherit both branches of the family.”

“Father and Mother said I owed you a son, so I agreed.”

“I never meant to scheme against Sister-in-law. I’m not that kind of person.”

“I’m not…”

The past was like the wind.

And the past ought to be like the wind, blowing everything away.

Later, I took my dowry, the betrothal gifts, and the compensation Erlang (Second Master) gave me, and left the Cen family.

I was twenty-four when I left the Cen family.

I was eighty-four when I died.

Before my death, I had no lingering attachments, and I certainly never imagined I would be reborn at sixteen.

My life afterward had been quite splendid. I truly could not understand why I had been reborn.

If I had to find a reason, I supposed it was so this life could be made even more complete.

After the matchmaker left, Mother complained that I had no manners.

When she met my indifferent gaze, she grew even more furious.

But looking at the young Mother before me, I felt nothing anymore.

In my previous life, after I left the Cen family, I did not go back to see her for many years.

Later on, she came to visit me with a cane, her eyes full of tears, saying she regretted it.

I merely brought over a stool for her to sit on, then went back to my own work.

She sat there very obediently, just as I had when I was little, quietly staying there for the entire day.

She was only in her fifties when she died.

She did not live as long as I did.

So now I was not afraid of her at all. Instead, I could sense her guilty conscience and the hardness she was forcing herself to maintain.

I said, “I don’t like either of them. I won’t marry either one.”

“You have truly lost all sense of propriety! You don’t like either of them? If your younger sister weren’t marrying Erlang (Second Master), do you think a man as fine as Dalang would ever look twice at you?”

Mother berated me angrily.

I laughed in spite of my anger.

So I was just an add-on?

“Then I have even less reason to marry him. If he never looked twice at me, what would I be marrying him for?”

Mother froze.

She had probably thought I would cry, get angry, or fight back.

In the end, I did not care in the slightest, and that made her anxious instead.

“No. You must marry. If you don’t, what will happen to your sister?”

I raised my eyes and looked at her coldly.

“What do you mean, what about my sister?”

“If you don’t marry into that family, how is your sister supposed to live well? Who will look out for her? If Dalang marries some formidable wife, how could your sister possibly have an easy time under her? Only if you sisters marry over together will I be at ease.”

“Oh. So my sister is the one who’s my freebie. Without me, she can’t even live a good life. Useless.”

My sister was so furious she leaped out.

“Who’s useless?”

“You!”

“Mother, look at her! She’s insulting me.”

She was trying the same old trick she’d used when we were children.

But she didn’t know that she was facing the soul of an eighty-four-year-old woman, one with an abundance of battle experience.

I slapped her across the face.

“So what if I insulted you? I’ll hit you too.”

“If you weren’t useless, why would Mother have to buy one, get one free, and insist on sending you along as my freebie?”

“Without me, you couldn’t even get through the Cen family’s door.”

She screamed.

My mother screamed.

My mother chased me to hit me, so I chased my sister to hit her.

My mother couldn’t catch me, but I could catch Li Mengzhi.

Li Mengzhi took a solid beating from me.

Her pretty face was streaked with tears.

Sobbing, she said, “Mother, stop chasing her. It hurts so much.”

My mother held her and cried in distress, then went to find medicine for her.

I ran to a friend’s house and spent the entire afternoon doing needlework with her.

No one came looking for me, and I had long since stopped expecting them to.

In my memories, getting along with my parents was something from more than sixty years ago.

That thin scrap of affection had long since drained away in the river of time.

Returning to my youth and calling people Father and Mother again already felt deeply unfamiliar.

I slept soundly at my friend’s house.

The next day, I went to another friend’s house.

On the third day, I went to yet another friend’s house.

On the fourth day, my parents finally came looking for me.

When they found me, they forced smiles in front of my friend’s parents, utterly ashamed under the other family’s contemptuous, disdainful gazes.

Once we left, Mother secretly pinched my waist.

I slapped Li Mengzhi across the mouth.

Mother froze in shock.

Li Mengzhi was stunned.

“Sister, why did you hit me?”

“Mother, why did you pinch me?”

I looked at Mother, my gaze as calm as a cold pool.

Mother’s lips trembled with rage, but she couldn’t say a word.

Father barked, “What are you all making a scene for? Haven’t you embarrassed yourselves enough?”

After we returned, I was grounded. Li Mengzhi was still allowed to go out.

I cut up four trunks’ worth of Li Mengzhi’s clothes.

When Li Mengzhi came back, she forgot all about showing off the hairpin in her hand. With a shriek, she hugged her clothes and cried.

This time, she finally showed a little spirit.

She picked up the hairpin and stabbed it at me.

“Li Xiangzhi, I’ll fight you to the death! What gives you the right to ruin my things? What gives you the right?”

I kicked her in the stomach, sending her sprawling to the floor.

“Because you have them, and I don’t.”

“Because Father and Mother treat us unfairly.”

“Because you’re the one getting married, but you want me to marry over too and shield you from the wind and rain.”

“Because you can’t stand on your own two feet. Because you’re useless!”

My voice carried the resentment I had hidden away, loud enough for everyone to hear clearly.

Mother stood outside the door, tears in her eyes, stunned and frightened.

She didn’t know that the eldest daughter she had always considered insignificant had been hiding such deep hatred for them.

That hatred shocked her.

And I finally understood what, exactly, could cross the long river of time.

Hatred was one.

Love was another.

They did not vanish because my life had been good or bad. They had always existed.