PSE - 44

Xue Jing nodded, his expression innocently angelic.

“I know. You said you were inspired by me, unwilling to die just yet. There are still a few things left undone in your life. First, after all these years, you still miss your dad, so you sent over a dozen heartfelt emails to his company inbox. Then, you mentioned how resentful you are, questioning why you were the only one not given severance pay when your previous company disbanded. You bombarded your former boss with dozens of harassing calls.”

“At first, he tried to reason with you, but your barrage of insults left no room for rebuttal. You woke up his wife and kids, and he blocked your number. So you used my phone to call him again. When he blocked mine too, you resorted to anonymous dialing apps online.”

“After all that commotion until dawn, you suddenly slapped your forehead and remembered that legally, your dad owes you child support. You declared you’d sue him until he was bankrupt and crawled back to the keyboard to draft another email, this time using your face to type.”

As Xue Jing recounted these events, his tone was eerily calm, like a Spring Festival Gala host delivering stand-up comedy. But to Ha Yue, these tales were worse than any comedic skit—her face twisted in a grotesque mix of shame and disbelief.

Raising his voice slightly for dramatic effect, Xue Jing added, “Oh! And before passing out, you insisted that you’re morally upright and completely worthy of me. You demanded to inform my parents immediately. Tomorrow would be too late—you had to call them right then.”

Ha Yue was struck as if by lightning, her lips twitching involuntarily. After a long pause, she managed a strained, awkward smile and asked, “Teacher Xue, could you stop scaring me? Didn’t you try to stop me while I was doing all this?”

Surely he must have intervened, right? How could he possibly let her act so shamelessly and recklessly?

Even trees have bark—didn’t she need some semblance of dignity to live?

Watching Ha Yue’s dumbfounded expression filled Xue Jing with immense satisfaction. Smiling mischievously, he crouched down to pull her legs out from under the covers, slipping on her slippers—one on each wrong foot.

Looking up at her with a perfectly encouraging smile, he said, “No, why would I stop you? We’re close now—no secrets between us. Whatever you want, I’ll follow. If you point east, I wouldn’t dare go west.”

“You couldn’t find your dad’s company email, so I helped you subscribe to a paid search service. Those anonymous calling apps cost money too—I bought several for you. As for my parents, ever since I published my book and they realized I had no intention of joining the family business, they’ve cut ties with me. You kindly called them to update them on my life—I’m sure they were thrilled!”

How else would she have gotten their numbers? He’d personally entered them into her phone.

After saying all this, Xue Jing affectionately wrapped his arm around Ha Yue’s shoulders and planted a kiss on her cheek. The force of the kiss reopened his wound, and he hissed in pain, pressing it as he whispered into her ear, “What’s there to be afraid of? I think you handled everything perfectly. Do whatever you want—don’t hold back. If anything goes wrong, we’ll deal with it. I can even help you find a lawyer.”

Lawyers? He knew plenty—he was well-connected.

“Oh, right!”

While Ha Yue was still processing the chaos she’d caused, Xue Jing’s eyes sparkled mischievously. Cupping her face like capturing the moon in water, he grinned like a fox that had just stolen a chicken.

“Now that I think about it, you also said yesterday that you wanted to get back together with me and that you loved me. So I’ll take you at your word—I love you too. From now on, we’re officially boyfriend and girlfriend.”

A minute later, a torrent of obscenities erupted from Xue Jing’s house, shattering the sky.

Xue Jing scrambled out of the yard, wearing his coat inside out, his slippers mismatched and on the wrong feet.

The workers installing the glass paused in shock, mouths agape like prairie dogs, watching the spectacle unfold.

After closing the courtyard gate, Xue Jing shivered from the cold. He turned around, smoothed his tousled short hair, and then faced the workers in Zhao Chunni’s house with a warm, composed smile.

With his hands tucked into his sleeves like an old rural cadre and wearing mismatched slippers, he nodded politely at the workers. Then, flashing his eight perfectly aligned teeth, he chuckled and brushed off the earlier commotion: “It’s nothing. My girlfriend has a temper—I get yelled at all the time. Carry on with your work. You’ll be paid as promised.”

---

Hometown Redwood Furniture Market, Dongyang Exhibition Hall

After days of pandemic-related lockdowns, the exhibition hall was covered in dust. At the crack of dawn, Jiang Zifan drove to the company to clean up in preparation for the next day’s order conference.

Ever since his stepfather had been paralyzed in a car accident a few years ago, Jiang Zifan dropped out of school to take over the family’s redwood furniture business. Over the years, his mother had taken his stepfather to various hospitals for treatment, spending a considerable amount of money. The entire household depended on this single source of income to stay afloat.

In the past year, the redwood furniture market had been particularly bleak. Even the few employees they had hired eventually quit one by one. Though technically the “young boss” of the company, Jiang Zifan now handled everything himself—sales, customer service, and after-sales support.

With no liquid capital left, aside from his car and the storefront, all their remaining funds were tied up in orders.

After working tirelessly all morning, Jiang Zifan hastily ate a plate of roasted meat for lunch. In the afternoon, he visited the factory to check on the progress of the workers’ production, replied to messages from several clients, and arranged a business trip with some timber merchants for the following week. Only then did he finally have a moment to sit in front of the computer and open the company email.

At first glance, the first few emails starting with “Dad” made him think it was some new type of mass phishing scam. But after reading through them patiently, Jiang Zifan furrowed his brow and immediately called his mother.

That evening, after dinner, mother and son sat beside Ha Jianguo’s hospital bed. This bedroom, which faced the sea, had been converted into a makeshift ward. Besides the oxygen machine and IV stand, there was also a television mounted on the wall facing the foot of the bed. Ha Jianguo had been bedridden for years and had contracted pneumonia again in the past six months. His condition was now even worse than before; he spent most of his days asleep, rarely lucid.

Due to the severity of the car accident, Ha Jianguo was left paralyzed from the neck down and suffered brain damage. Over the years, feeding, injections, and bathing had all been handled solely by Jiang Yimei. Doctors had repeatedly predicted that Ha Jianguo wouldn’t survive much longer—his body was barely clinging to life, and even his ability to speak had been lost. A single bout of phlegm in the night could suffocate him. Yet every time, Jiang Yimei gritted her teeth and pulled him back from the brink of death.

Ha Jianguo survived the first three years, then the second.

Jiang Zifan pitied his mother and had suggested hiring a professional caregiver—a cost their family could afford—but Jiang Yimei always refused.

She didn’t find caring for Ha Jianguo burdensome. Though they had never married, over the years she had come to regard him as both family and partner. She took full responsibility for his care and didn’t want to entrust it to anyone else.

The television was broadcasting the evening news, with reports about the gradual lifting of restrictions across the country growing more frequent. Public opinion buzzed with speculation about domestic policies and discussions of economic recovery.

As Jiang Zifan wiped down his stepfather’s body, Jiang Yimei sat nearby, wearing reading glasses and carefully going over the emails from Suicheng.

She read each word slowly. When the news ended, she removed her glasses, reached under the bedside table, and handed her son an old passbook.

When Jiang Zifan saw the figures inside, his face darkened, and he angrily tossed the passbook back into her lap.

Jiang Zifan kept his hair cropped short, had an average build, and handsome features. From the right side, he appeared to be a refined young man. However, a large scar extending from his left ear to his chin gave him a somewhat sinister air.

His tone was accusatory and sharp, clearly opposed to his mother’s decision.

“Mom, you’re really going to give it to them? That’s all we’ve got! Do you know how hard it was for you to take care of him all these years? Their family was so heartless—after the accident, not only did that woman ignore our calls, but their daughter didn’t even bother to check in once? Have you thought about what will happen if he passes away? What will you do then? Are you planning to stop taking care of yourself? Are you going to die with him?”

“What about me? Did you even think of me?”

Jiang Yimei was used to her son’s blunt personality and wasn’t offended. Instead, she held the passbook tightly in her hands, repeatedly rubbing the monthly deposits recorded within.

Sixteen years ago, when she and Ha Jianguo first moved from Suicheng to Yuecheng to start their business, life had been incredibly difficult. At the time, Jiang Yimei was raising her young, severely burned son, who required multiple skin graft surgeries. In those early days, all their initial clients were secured through Ha Jianguo’s tireless efforts. He would walk for hours under the scorching sun in ill-fitting suits and worn-out shoes, humbling himself and exhausting every ounce of energy just to secure deals. By night, he would collapse into bed at their rented apartment near the hospital.

Later, after Jiang Zifan’s skin grafts were successful and he started elementary school, life improved slightly. Ha Jianguo and Jiang Yimei agreed to set aside a portion of their earnings each month as an education fund for both Ha Yue and Jiang Zifan. Inspired by the families around them in Yuecheng who sent their children abroad for higher education, they wanted to ensure their children would have financial security. Although Jiang Zifan wasn’t Ha Jianguo’s biological child, he loved him as his own, and Jiang Yimei fully supported the decision without hesitation.

Those were the sweetest years of their lives—a happy family of three, thriving business, and a steady stream of clients. They earned a good amount of money and enjoyed ten prosperous years. That is, until Ha Yue’s sophomore year in college and Jiang Zifan’s post-Gaokao summer, when Ha Jianguo proposed returning to Suicheng with the passbook earmarked for Ha Yue to visit his daughter and ex-wife.

Initially, Jiang Yimei objected. Fearing retaliation from her ex-husband, she and Ha Jianguo had fled to Yuecheng and lived under the radar, avoiding contact with anyone from Suicheng. She was terrified that her ex-husband might find them and forcibly take her son away.

Moreover, she feared that Ha Jianguo might reconcile with Zhao Chunni and leave her.

But Ha Jianguo believed that enough time had passed. He reasoned that Jiang Yimei’s ex-husband and his ex-wife likely had new lives by now. He had already missed too much of Ha Yue’s growth—her adolescence, her college entrance exams—and if he missed her university years as well, he feared she would never forgive him.

He was no longer young, and he feared he might die without reconciling with his daughter.

The couple argued for a long time over this. No matter how Ha Jianguo assured her that he wouldn’t reconcile with his ex-wife or disturb Jiang Zifan’s biological father, Jiang Yimei pleaded with him not to leave Yuecheng, not to leave her and their son.

On the day of the flight, she locked the house door from the inside in an attempt to stop Ha Jianguo from going to the airport. But Ha Jianguo eventually found the spare key. With a torrential downpour making taxis impossible, he drove himself to the airport.

It was on that reckless drive to the airport that he got into a chain collision on the expressway.

In the end, Ha Jianguo never made it back to Suicheng.

Jiang Yimei truly didn’t find caring for Ha Jianguo burdensome. Physical exhaustion wasn’t what weighed on her heart. What tormented her most was waking up every morning on the small bed beside Ha Jianguo, staring at his body sunken into the mattress, and asking herself the same question:

If she hadn’t stopped him from returning to see Ha Yue and Zhao Chunni, would he still be lying in this hospital bed?

Would he still be commanding respect in the business world? Even in middle age, he would have remained handsome and full of vitality.

If she hadn’t been so selfish, he wouldn’t have become this broken man, unable to move on his own.

But then again, their relationship had begun with ultimate selfishness.

Perhaps everything had been predetermined from the start. This man and this woman were always destined to reach this point.

Recently, Jiang Yimei had started practicing Buddhism. The Buddhist scriptures spoke of karma and retribution, and she seemed to have come to terms with the bitter fruit she had sown.

With a gentle gaze, Jiang Yimei looked at her son, her eyes lingering on the unnatural, twisted skin on the left side of his face. Lost in thought, she murmured: “Zifan, do you remember those days in Suicheng when you were little? Do you remember the burn on your face?”

“You were so young then—you probably don’t remember. But I remember it all too clearly.”

“Even now, in the dead of night, I can still hear your screams as your father pressed your head against the boiler.”