Chapter 45

I hadn’t actually changed my name. Even if I were to change it, I would have changed it back to Yin Ming.

Yan Yang was Yan Yang, my Didi. His father had snatched my name from me, but I definitely would not be like his father.

I would not do something like that to him.

I left the office. The moment I stepped out, I heard an agonised cry echo out from behind me.

Had it been this agonising when he left my mother and me?

Had it been this agonising when he learnt of my mother committing suicide?

I doubted so.

He had never cared about us. If he cared, why had he abandoned me and even erased my existence? Why did he feel that Yan Yang and I being together meant that I had definitely deliberately lured him into it? In his heart, was I really that horrific?

I smoked my cigarette as I walked out. When I reached the ground floor, I realised I was crying.

I lifted a hand to wipe my face. The back of my hand was covered in tears.

Strange. I had actually cried because of him.

After this whole mess in the morning, I went back to the hotel and took a relaxing soak in the bath. When evening came, I put on some proper clothes and went out again, this time to Yan Yang’s house.

If I hadn’t appeared this morning, then this family would definitely be having a very joyous night together right now. Perhaps there would be other relatives with the three of them as well, celebrating a lively reunion together while I was alone in Boston, doing whatever with my time with nobody caring about me.

It was winter; the sky darkened early. It was barely past six when I arrived at the entrance of the microdistrict, but the sky was already pitch-black.

I paid the taxi fare and got out of the car. I went into a mart near the roadside and bought two bottles of good wine.

It was the New Year; no matter what, you couldn’t show up at someone’s door empty-handed. It would be impolite.

That day, I had indeed gone crazy. I couldn’t care less about anything else. In my mind, there was only the thought of revenge, and snatching Yan Yang back.

But I had forgotten that by doing all this, I had already hurt Yan Yang.

Against the strong wind, I walked into the microdistrict. I had lived here for many years. Until now, there was still a bed there that belonged to me.

I counted my steps, my gaze fixed ahead. The management of this place was not bad; for the Spring Festival, they had hung up some colourful lights on the bare tree branches.

But a bare tree was a bare tree; even coloured lights couldn’t give it any life.

When I fished out my keys and opened the door, the people in the living room all stared at me, shocked.

Yan Yang, his parents, and the shreds of paper scattered all over the floor.

I stood at the door and smiled, “Happy New Year.”

I walked in and changed my shoes in the foyer[1], just like I used to. Carrying the two bottles of wine, I went over and saw that the shreds of paper were the photos, ripped into pieces.

The other three people in the living room seemed to have had a ‘pause’ button pressed on them. Only I was freely moving about. I placed the bottles on the coffee table, then turned around to look at Yan Yang.

It was only at this moment that I noticed that Yan Yang’s face was injured.

I froze. Seeing his eyes puffy from crying, I suddenly realised that he had been bullied by someone.

My first thought was that his father had hit him, or his mother had hit him. They had taken advantage of my absence to bully Yan Yang. But I simply did not realise that the one who had been bullying him was actually myself. It was I who had caused all of this.

Seeing him like this, I immediately turned to hit his father, but at the same time, I was pulled away by Yan Yang.

He pushed me away, crying as he stared at me.

The instant he pushed me away to protect his father, I finally understood the reality that I had been abandoned. The question I had been asking him over and over again,  finally received its answer today.

Yan Yang had never been in such a sorry state before. His hair was a mess, his eyes were puffy, and the corner of his mouth was bleeding.

He looked at me, tears running down his face like a flood as he asked, “Ge, why?”

I didn’t understand what he was asking, but at the time, I was already on the brink of a breakdown. My head was filled with the thought of Yan Yang not wanting me anymore. I was overcome with panic.

I stared at him as he cried, then heard him say, “Why do you have to treat me like this?”

Me? Treat him like what?

“In the past, no matter what happened, I always still believed that we were truly in love,” Yan Yang’s voice was very soft, so soft that it made me feel like I was dreaming. He said, “But now, I don’t believe it anymore.”

Yan Yang didn’t believe it anymore.

I watched him kneel down and kowtow to his parents, then get up and return to his room.

When Yan Yang’s father picked up the wine I had put on the table and furiously smashed it against the white wall, his mother was sitting on the floor crying.

I had actually destroyed this family.

Just like how that man had once destroyed mine.

But I didn’t feel gratified at all.

I just felt like I was about to die.

Footnotes:

[1] ‘changed my shoes in the foyer’: It is common practice in China to change into indoor slippers when entering the house.