PSE - 36

Neither Xue Jing nor Ha Yue expected that after parting ways that day, they wouldn’t see each other again until over a month later, deep in winter.

On the second day of Suicheng’s citywide lockdown, epidemic prevention workers discovered that Xue Jing had recently traveled between Jicheng and Suicheng. He was classified as high-risk, though he wasn’t sent to a quarantine facility. Instead, workers in protective suits placed a symbolic yellow caution tape across his doorway and stationed special personnel to guard it 24/7, forbidding him from leaving or entering.

After Xue Jing completed his 14-day isolation period, Zhao Chunni’s health code turned red due to her prolonged stay at home without participating in mandatory nucleic acid tests. The same two volunteers from the hutong took turns guarding Ha Yue’s household instead.

Though they were supposedly flirty new neighbors, over these dozens of days, Xue Jing and Ha Yue interacted more like pure elementary school pen pals. Their communication method and content were entirely Platonic, resembling old-fashioned letter exchanges.

However, instead of passing notes filled with idle chatter during class, they exchanged readings and annotations about Xue Jing’s novel.

Ha Yue’s first task after waking up each morning was no longer preparing breakfast. Instead, she lingered in bed for ten minutes, opening her phone to read the chapter Xue Jing had written the previous night. After skimming through it and jotting down a quick reading reflection, she would get up to cook breakfast and wake her mother.

It was probably a rebound after hitting rock bottom. Since the day she had a fight with Ha Yue, Zhao Chunni’s bad temper went back into hibernation. For at least a month, she hadn’t scolded anyone with harsh words. Instead, she started to frequently sabotage household chores.

　　As soon as Ha Yue finished folding the quilt, she came over with a stern face and pulled it apart. As soon as Ha Yue put the dishes on the table, she grabbed the food with her hands instead of using utensils.

　　During the day, Zhao Chunni would stare at the TV for twelve hours straight, but when it was time to sleep at night, she didn’t seem tired. She would pull Ha Yue aside and chatter about her childhood.

　　One moment she was in the countryside shucking corn with her parents, and the next she was in the county receiving a silver necklace from an admirer.

　　Often, while talking, her eyes would suddenly become unfocused. Then she would fix her gaze on Ha Yue’s face and ask who she was, what time it was, and what month it was this year.

　　If Ha Yue couldn’t soothe her in time, the tension would cause her body to tremble. Zhao Chunni would tilt her shoulder, roll her eyes, and urine would flow down her legs to her feet.

　　In order to keep her mother clean and fresh, Ha Yue had to change her undergarments several times a day. Even bathing was the same. Often, after washing her at night, Zhao Chunni would soil herself again in the middle of the night, and Ha Yue would have to bring a basin to the bedside to wash her again.

　　While taking care of her mother alone, wet clothes always hung in the yard. More than ten pairs of underpants fluttered like flags in the wind. Despite this, she often found herself in a rush because the washed clothes weren’t dry enough. This showed that the workload of caring for a patient was no less than managing a small store.

　　Previously, she only thought running the small store was hard work, but after taking care of her mother alone, she actually began to miss the “leisure” of the store.

　　If Ha Yue was truly exhausted and closed her eyes for a brief rest, ignoring Zhao Chunni’s many questions, Zhao Chunni would walk to the mirror and talk to the person in the mirror.

　　When the person in the mirror didn’t respond, she would sulk and bury her head in the blanket, refusing to breathe.

　　To prevent her mother from being overly stimulated and to ensure she got enough rest, Ha Yue had to throw away all the mirrors in the house while her mother was asleep. The ones she couldn’t throw away, she covered with newspapers.

　　However, under Ha Yue’s relentless and strict morning routine, after two weeks of passive training, Zhao Chunni finally began to see changing diapers as the first task upon waking up each morning.

　　Not having to wash clothes multiple times a day was a good thing.

　　Besides that, Ha Yue also ordered a GPS bracelet online to prevent wandering. However, convincing Zhao Chunni to wear such an embarrassing thing on her wrist and not take it off was a long and delicate task.

　　Neuronal degeneration and brain malfunction caused Zhao Chunni to lose her memory, but not her stubbornness.

　　This stubbornness made it hard for Ha Yue to endure. The physical exhaustion from taking care of a patient was still bearable, but more often she felt spiritually numb looking at her mother’s cold face. Her body was taking care of her mother, but her soul seemed to have ascended, watching herself with a numb expression from above.

　　The novel plots she received on her phone every morning became her only pastime during these days. Of course, texting with Xue Jing also helped. They couldn’t meet in person, so they chatted even more.

　　In just a few weeks, their chat history had nearly reached a thousand messages. They discussed plotlines, ideologies, the past, Xue Jing’s experiences studying abroad, and also talked about Ha Yue’s parents’ divorce, business failures, and the business strategies of the small store.

　　The day before Suicheng slowly lifted its lockdown, the internet was flooded with news about the shocking national fire incident from a few days ago.

　　Their chat window unusually quietened down too. The suffocating smoke and despair in the video flames were overwhelming. An unsolvable low pressure also permeated Ha Yue’s home.

　　That day, Zhao Chunni was particularly disobedient. From the morning, she kept nagging to go out and release the geese that had long been eaten. After Ha Yue refused, she refused to eat properly. Unable to hold chopsticks, Ha Yue fed her by hand, but she clenched her teeth and wriggled her body. Even if she managed to get a mouthful of rice, she spat it out on the ground.

　　A single breakfast took four whole hours. By noon, after Ha Yue finally settled Zhao Chunni on the sofa to watch TV, the two piglets in the side room started chasing and biting each other due to the inability to castrate them during the lockdown.

　　Three-month-old piglets, never short of food or drink, should weigh nearly a hundred jin and be ready for slaughter in six months. But during the lockdown period, the local rural veterinarian couldn’t come to provide services, so Ha Yue’s pigs hadn’t been castrated yet. The piglets were about to enter their estrus period, and the fighting would only worsen. Injuries were minor concerns; development and meat quality would be affected.

　　Pork with a strong fishy smell was difficult to consume at home, let alone sell for money.

　　After temporarily separating the two pigs with a fence and treating their wounds with potassium permanganate and ferrous chloride solution, Ha Yue returned to the living room in extreme frustration and drenched in sweat. To her astonishment, the sofa where Zhao Chunni had been sitting was gone.

　　Turning around, she saw that the door to Zhao Chunni’s room, which had been without a lock for days, was now tightly shut.

　　”Mom! Open the door!”

　　Ha Yue pounded on the door with both hands, but no matter how much she knocked and shouted, Zhao Chunni, who had barricaded the door with a sofa inside the bedroom, remained unmoved.

　　She locked herself in the room, opened all the wardrobes, took out every piece of clothing to search the pockets, and then threw them forcefully on the floor.

　　While searching, she cursed under her breath, “Your father stole my money when he left! You’re just like your father. How did my money disappear? You must have taken it.”

　　”That was my hard-earned money.”

　　”Give me back my money! It was in this pile of clothes. How could it be gone?”

　　”My money… give me back my money…”

　　”That’s my money… I will never give it to him for his business!”

　　After a month, Zhao Chunni had another manic episode.

　　In fact, where did Zhao Chunni have any money? Her frugal savings over the years had been completely swindled away by an insurance scam a couple of years ago. After that, Ha Yue didn’t allow her to keep cash at home anymore. All the money was deposited into a current account under Ha Yue’s name. The paltry sum of a few ten thousand yuan wasn’t even enough to cover the flexible employment personnel’s pension insurance shortfall.

Unable to see her mother, Ha Yue ran into the yard and clung to the window like a spider, calling out her name.

　　In a daze, Zhao Chunni turned her head, glanced at Ha Yue, ignored her, then dragged a chair over, stood on it, tiptoed, and reached out to grab the large wooden box on top of the wardrobe.

　　The wooden box was part of her dowry, unusually heavy, weighing at least several dozen pounds.

　　Seeing that the chair was wobbling precariously, as was the box on top of the wardrobe, Ha Yue, in a panic, grabbed a spade from the yard and swung it forcefully, smashing the glass on the window.

　　With a “crash,” the broken shards of glass flew past her neck and landed at her feet. Ha Yue didn’t have time to check herself, immediately jumped into the bedroom, and dragged her mother down from the chair.

　　The wooden box fell down, landing beside them, the copper lock twisted, its contents spilling out.

　　Inside were Zhao Chunni and Ha Jianguo’s marriage certificate, wedding photos, and all the gifts Ha Jianguo had given Zhao Chunni during their courtship.

　　A heart-shaped silver necklace, a green plastic brooch embedded with rhinestones, a polka-dot polyester scarf, countless love letters, and even a bundle of red string with jujube pits attached.

　　Mother and daughter narrowly avoided disaster, falling onto these remnants of love.

　　Zhao Chunni was like a small insect accidentally fallen into water, her limbs stiffly flailing, her speech increasingly slurred. Ha Yue lay on the ground, a thin line of crimson seeping from her neck, her arms tightly wrapped around her waist, staring motionlessly at a void on the ceiling.

　　Forgive her for not feeling any joy of survival, only an endless swamp overflowing from her heart.

　　That intangible swamp spread from her body to beneath them, seemingly filling the entire room.

　　That night, because the main bedroom window had a large hole, and the nighttime temperature was cold, Ha Yue gave her single bed to her mother.

　　During the night, Ha Yue curled up on the sofa, repeatedly reading the new book by Xue Jing on her phone, which she had already read countless times.

　　Ha Yue felt a deep resonance with the “wife” character in the book. When one’s beliefs, dreams, and emotions are all stripped away, it seems the only outcome for that person is destruction.

　　41 years ago, “The Fall of the House of Usher” depicted a Gothic ecological disaster, while now, Xue Jing used the guise of love and marriage to write about modern people trapped in systemic dilemmas.

　　Humans explore the universe outwardly, but the universe is cold and boundless; humans explore the soul inwardly, but the soul is lonely and bitter.

　　All of it is unsolvable.

　　Although Xue Jing’s book still lacked a properly handled ending, Ha Yue guessed this would be his first true tragedy. Free will was insignificant in the face of fate. If life was inherently filled with suffering akin to that of pigs and dogs, perhaps it was better to live without thought, at least not perceiving oppression and pain.

　　At 2 a.m., a meandering cry suddenly came from the small bedroom.

　　Ha Yue got up and walked to the bedside, turning on the bedside lamp. In the orange glow, Zhao Chunni’s face was streaked with tears.

　　Ha Yue’s eyes showed no emotion. She turned off the night light again, dragged a chair over, and sat silently beside her.

　　In the darkness, Zhao Chunni slowly reached out her hands toward her.

　　Expecting her mother to choke her neck fiercely, the ensuing action was surprisingly gentle. A weight settled on her head, accompanied by a “rustling” sound—Zhao Chunni’s hand was stroking her hair from top to bottom.

　　When Ha Jianguo hadn’t yet betrayed her, Ha Yue’s happiest moments were on Children’s Day when her mother would take half a day to braid her hair into countless tiny braids.

　　Her fingers weaving through her hair and scalp was especially soothing, like a kind of massage. Once her hair was combed, the three of them would ride bicycles to the Xinhua Bookstore to buy picture books.

　　Back then, Ha Jianguo still had a stable job, and Suicheng still felt full of vitality.

　　Perhaps recalling those days simultaneously, Zhao Chunni sighed and asked her, “Your hair is gone. Do you hate me?”

　　Hair wasn’t particularly important to Ha Yue. In this brief moment of clarity from her mother, she should say something comforting. But Ha Yue opened and closed her mouth repeatedly until the dry oral mucosa stuck together, peeling off a layer of skin, and still, she didn’t make a sound.

　　Not getting a response, Zhao Chunni slowly withdrew her hand, closed her eyes again, and her voice was filled with sadness.

　　She began reciting in a tone familiar to Ha Yue, full of cynicism: “Living like this, what’s the difference from being dead?”

　　”I want to commit suicide. Slit my wrists, jump off a building, or get hit by a car on the street.”

　　”But I’m too scared. I’m afraid of pain. Can you help me? Buy me some pills.”

　　”Take them and just fall asleep, never to wake up again. Please.”

　　After a brief moment of clarity, Zhao Chunni fell back into a daze. Her eyes were covered with a white film, twitching in their sockets.

　　After about an hour of turmoil, Zhao Chunni finally fell asleep, drooling at the edge of the bed. Ha Yue remained in the same position, leaning over her mother’s bedside. Her phone vibrated in her pocket—it was Xue Jing telling her he had gotten up.

　　He drank coffee, ate “breakfast,” and prepared to work.

　　Lately, he reported everything to her, big or small. Even finding a little green caterpillar on today’s vegetable package, he took a detailed photo and sent it to Ha Yue.

　　He said the caterpillar had seventeen folds on its body and wondered if there would be any traces after it transformed into a butterfly.

　　Xue Jing seemed to have an innate ability to find joy in suffering. In his opinion, the isolation life in Suicheng wasn’t bad either. At least the boxed meals were of high quality, with two vegetarian dishes and one meat dish. The worst meal he ever had was at a popular restaurant in Edinburgh. After the pandemic ended, he wouldn’t suffer alone—he must invite Ha Yue to experience the ordeal too.

　　Children who have never been hurt in their lives are probably like him. Always waking up refreshed after a nap.

　　There were many such invitations.

　　Ha Yue believed that the cherry blossoms in Tokyo, the lagoons in Iceland, and the white walls in Fira must be beautiful, but she would never be able to go there in her lifetime. The world’s beautiful scenery was out of her reach.

Money flows to those who are already wealthy, love flows to those who are already loved, and suffering is naturally left for those who can endure the most.

　　Life is just so unfair.

　　”Xue Jing, how long will it take you to finish the ending?”

　　”When the lockdown is over, let’s go watch a sunrise.”

　　During her high school graduation trip, Ha Yue’s classmates planned a hike in Daqing Mountain. At the time, she was introverted and heard that there was an odd number of people on the list but all the tents were for two. Fearing she would end up alone in a tent, she voluntarily said she wasn’t interested.

　　But to this day, she still wonders what the sunrise there would look like.

　　”The ending is still far off; it will probably be written until spring.”

　　”What’s wrong? Are you tired of reading it lately? Tell me specifically what’s wrong, and I can revise it from the beginning.”

　　”We can see the sunrise soon, no need to wait long. Jinzi said they could return home from the hospital tomorrow, and our lockdown will probably be lifted soon too.”

　　Ha Yue looked at Xue Jing’s reply on her phone, but her words were spoken to her already sleeping mother beside her.

　　She said: “Mom, let’s wait until spring. When he finishes the novel, we’ll take the medicine you mentioned together.”

　　So don’t be afraid. Even if I die, I won’t be alone. On the road to the underworld, we’ll keep each other company, and it won’t be too lonely.