chapter 16

Chapter 16

The light overhead was on, casting everything around in a warm yellow glow.

So it was just a dream.

I let out a long sigh of relief.

Wiping my tears, I looked at Cheng Yubai with grievance, my memory still lingering on the days when Dad used to collect mountain goods: “It’s so late, why hasn’t Dad come home yet?”

All around was silent.

My hand paused mid-wipe, and I slowly lifted my head to look at Cheng Yubai.

His eyes were rimmed red, bloodshot, with dark circles beneath making him look especially exhausted, as if he hadn’t rested for a very long time.

Sensing something, my gaze drifted inch by inch toward the coffee table.

There sat a cup of murky bitter tea, exuding a faint rotten bitterness in the height of summer. On the wall, a new memorial photo had appeared-Dad and Mom smiling side by side.

Memories surged like a tide; I remembered everything.

I remembered the last day of the college entrance exam, when I was lazy and didn’t want to go with Dad to pick up Cheng Yubai, insisting instead on having an egg roll.

Dad agreed.

When he left, he told me not to wander off, to wait for him at home.

I agreed too.

But I waited and waited, until night fell, and neither he nor Cheng Yubai returned. Just as I was about to fall asleep, an aunt from the neighborhood office came. On the way to the hospital, she told me why Dad hadn’t come home, and told me to be strong.

I didn’t cry; I just felt a little lost.

It was as if my eyes and ears were wrapped in a layer of plastic film. Only when I saw Cheng Yubai standing at the hospital entrance did I feel a touch of reality.

He took me to see Dad one last time.

It was so cold in the morgue, so cold that I was shaking all over.

Under the cold fluorescent light, Dad was covered with a white cloth, but one arm lay exposed-swollen, pale, lifeless. I stared wide-eyed, afraid to get close, and even less brave to lift the cloth and look at his face.

So I fled in panic.

It’s all fake, I told myself. Dad didn’t take a detour to buy me an egg roll, didn’t jump into the water to save someone, didn’t get swept away by the undercurrent. Everything that happened was just a dream.

And so I muddled through two months, until today.

I stared blankly at that cup of bitter tea, not crying, not making a fuss, just my mind a complete blank.

I didn’t dare think.

I didn’t dare think in detail.

What kind of pain did Dad endure in his final moments, swept away by the undercurrent? Every time I thought about it, I felt like I was suffocating.

Why did I have to want an egg roll?

Why did those people have to dig sand from the riverbed?

And those kids-why were they so disobedient, playing by the river?

I wanted to resent them, but in the end, I couldn’t help but imagine: if I hadn’t said I wanted an egg roll that day, would none of this have happened?

Overwhelming guilt threatened to tear me apart.

Cheng Yubai looked at me, his voice hoarse: “Manman, I know you’re hurting inside. If it hurts, just cry. Don’t hold it in, okay?”

I said nothing.

He pressed his dry lips together, stood up, and went to the kitchen to bring back a bowl of porridge. “…Eat something, Manman.”

Hugging my knees, I still said nothing.

I had barely eaten anything these two months. Cheng Yubai tried everything to get me to eat more, but I just couldn’t. Without enough nutrition, I quickly wasted away; my once-round cheeks became sunken, and my lips lost all color.

Cheng Yubai placed the porridge on the coffee table, forcing a smile: “There’s still soup simmering in the pot. I’ll go check in the kitchen and be right back.”

He said he’d just check, but he didn’t come back for a long time.

Uncontrollable panic welled up inside me. Afraid he’d disappear like Dad, I hurriedly propped up my weak body and, holding onto the wall, made my way to the kitchen.

At the doorway, I froze.

Cheng Yubai was crouched on the floor, covering his face and crying silently, his back trembling as if enduring immense pain.

In front of him sat a familiar little pickling jar.

Neither Cheng Yubai nor I liked many foods, but Dad’s pickled radish was one of them. It was a hassle to make, time-consuming and labor-intensive, but because we both loved it, the jar was never empty.

The day before Dad passed away, he had just made a fresh batch.

Thinking of this, I slowly walked over to the jar. With just one glance, I understood why Cheng Yubai was crying. After two months of neglect, the water around the rim had dried up, and the jar was covered in dense mold.

Dad’s last batch of pickled radish, made just for us, was now inedible.

Never again.

My tears fell instantly, my already aching throat tightening even more, my heart burning with pain. Unable to bear it any longer, I finally broke down and sobbed uncontrollably in front of the pickling jar.

Cheng Yubai held me tightly in his arms.

His tears fell onto my face, slid down my cheeks into the corner of my mouth, mingling with my own tears. The salty bitterness flooded my tongue, bitter to the very core.

“It’s okay to cry.”

Cheng Yubai pulled himself together, comforting me with his hoarse voice, “…It’s okay, it’s okay, Manman. Everything will get better.”

Gripping his collar, I cried so hard I could barely breathe.

Seeing those moldy pickled radishes, I was more awake than ever. Cheng Yubai and I-we were no longer children with a loving father.

I knew deeply that he would never, could never come back.

But someone who was laughing and talking with you just yesterday, suddenly leaves you the next day. You can never see him again, never hear his voice, never touch his face. How am I supposed to accept that, how am I supposed to accept it?

With tears streaming down my face, I clutched my aching chest.

“Dad, I don’t want the egg roll anymore.”

Please come back.