July 14, 2018. My flight was delayed due to weather, and I didn’t land until three in the morning.
As soon as I turned on my phone, I received a call from my senior. He told me to get to Baoshan Hospital immediately. Now!
I asked him what was wrong, telling him to explain himself first.
“Xiaoyu,” he said. “Something happened to Xiaoyu.”
My ears began to ring, and a splitting headache took hold.
That day was the third anniversary of my relationship with Qiu Xiaoyu. If the plane hadn’t been delayed, I would have proposed at midnight.
At four-thirty in the morning, I saw her at the hospital.
She was covered with a white sheet. Her exposed skin was deathly pale, and when I took her hand, it was cold and stiff.
It didn’t feel like Xiaoyu’s hand at all.
But the autopsy report stated it clearly: Qiu Xiaoyu had died in a car accident at 6:10 PM at the intersection of Qinghe Road and Wenshuo Road.
“It was a truck. The driver was exhausted and didn’t slow down before… Li Tong!” My senior suddenly grabbed my hand tightly.
My hand was just about to lift the white cloth covering Xiaoyu’s face.
“Let go,” I said.
“Li Tong, it’s better… if you don’t look.”
Choking back a sob, I repeated, “Let go.”
He stopped blocking me.
I slowly pulled back the sheet.
She was still beautiful, her features soft, just like when she tried to sleep in every morning.
Only, there seemed to be a wound on her neck.
And that wound extended downward. It grew deeper and larger, until her entire body…
Was completely destroyed.
I collapsed to my knees.
It felt as if a knife had been driven through my heart. My eyes stung, but there were no tears, and I couldn’t make a single sound.
“Did you forget our anniversary? You have to make it up to me tomorrow.”
I knew it was an auditory hallucination; those were the words from the WeChat message Xiaoyu had sent me.
The final WeChat message of her life.
Our entire story had somehow ended on such an unremarkable sentence…
Suddenly, my throat tightened, and I retched, vomiting up mouthfuls of bile.
