PSE - 45

During the years when Ha Jianguo was laid off, a wave of slot machine fever quietly swept through Suicheng. Unlike Ha Jianguo, who idled away his days taking his daughter to lottery shops to try their luck, Jiang Yimei’s husband, Li Jun, leveraged his status as a former furniture tycoon-turned-ten-thousand-yuan household. Introduced by friends, he began frequenting underground casinos in the suburbs of Suicheng.

At first, Li Jun would sneak out after his wife fell asleep in the early hours of the morning, playing for just two or three hours as a form of stress relief—a brief escape from his social obligations.

But as the thrill of gambling numbed his senses and emotions, he became ensnared in its addictive allure. The ten-second rounds of gambling games seemed so simple and safe, but under the carefully designed sound effects and flashing lights, pressing the electronic button three hundred times in an hour was more than enough to hook him. Beyond wins and losses, time lost all meaning in Li Jun’s mind. He began spending nights at the casino, never returning home.

It was as if the version of himself illuminated by the casino’s machine lights was the real him, while everything outside felt complex, hollow, and meaningless—a futile grind.

Jiang Yimei, with her child in tow, repeatedly confronted him at the casino entrance, but Li Jun remained unrepentant. Not even the cries of his child calling out “Dad!” could awaken his conscience.

The addiction brought on by gambling was no less potent than drug abuse.

Within half a year, he stopped working during the day and abandoned all concern for the furniture factory. The only reason he returned home was to demand money from his wife for gambling.

If she didn’t prepare the funds on time, he resorted to violence. When beating her failed to make her hand over their savings, he resorted to threats, vowing to kill their son, who was not yet three years old.

It was on such a morning that Ha Jianguo walked into Li Jun’s furniture factory, cheerful and unsuspecting.

The previous afternoon, because the safe had been emptied, Jiang Yimei had just endured another brutal beating from her husband. To humiliate her as much as possible while keeping their financial troubles hidden from friends and family, Li Jun’s abuse targeted areas of her body that were difficult for others to notice. Thus, when Ha Jianguo approached the young mistress of the shop to describe the single bed he wanted, he noticed nothing unusual about the woman before him.

Just as he finished paying the deposit, Jiang Zifan—still using his father’s surname at the time—ran downstairs and threw himself into his mother’s arms, begging her to hold him.

Pain shot through Jiang Yimei’s lower body. She refused him several times, citing “Mommy is busy,” but the boy persisted, climbing into her lap like a monkey, clinging to her neck, and bouncing around. He whined about wanting dorayaki, the pastry he’d seen in Doraemon.

At the time, supplies in Suicheng were limited, especially imported foods from other countries due to its inland location. Jiang Yimei had no idea what dorayaki was, so Jiang Zifan threw a tantrum, crying and jumping on her lap, tugging at her hair bun, and shaking her shoulders repeatedly, wailing, “Mom, buy it for me! Please, please buy it! I want it!”

A moan escaped Jiang Yimei’s lips as beads of sweat formed on her forehead. Ha Jianguo, who had just placed the receipt back in his wallet, noticed the woman on the stool slumping over, clearly in distress. Hesitantly, he asked, “Are you alright?” Before he could react further, Jiang Yimei collapsed to the ground.

The child, having hit his head, scrambled up and began wailing loudly in Jiang Yimei’s direction. Ha Jianguo quickly picked him up to check his forehead. Thankfully, it was only a minor injury. He comforted Jiang Zifan with the same soothing tone he used for Ha Yue. Turning his attention back to Jiang Yimei, he saw that she was pale and unconscious, her beige dress already stained with pus and blood.

Despite Ha Jianguo’s suggestion to seek medical attention, Jiang Yimei, who regained consciousness a few minutes later, refused to go to the hospital.

Her eyes red and pleading, she implored the stranger before her to take her son out for some food, giving her time to tend to her wounds.

Moved by compassion—for he, too, was a parent—Ha Jianguo agreed. He carried the child across the street to a small convenience store opposite the furniture factory and purchased every type of bread on the shelves.

Squeezing the red bean paste from one bread into the cream filling of another, he then used his large hands to flatten the round bread into a pancake-like shape.

Jiang Zifan, delighted with the “dorayaki” Ha Jianguo handed him, jumped around excitedly, stuffing it into his mouth. He then dashed upstairs in the furniture factory to show off his prize to his mother.

Not long after, Ha Jianguo followed the child’s path up the stairs, carrying some medical supplies. Following the sound of their laughter, he made his way to the bathroom.

Inside the bathroom, Jiang Yimei sat on a small child’s stool. Her hair, earlier pulled loose by her son, hung damp and clinging to her delicate face, cascading down to her chest. In the sweltering heat of summer, she had removed her long skirt and was soaking in cold water to clean herself, wearing only a flesh-colored slip.

The humid, confined space—often romanticized by poets as a place of both pain and sweetness—left Ha Jianguo feeling similarly conflicted. It was as if he had accidentally stumbled into someone else’s private garden, where roses bloomed wildly, untamed and fragrant.

Ha Jianguo glanced at her, knowing he should retreat. But what caught his attention more than Jiang Yimei’s glistening skin were the festering, decayed wounds covering her body.

Yet despite these injuries, Jiang Yimei seemed oblivious to both pain and shame, smiling tenderly at her son. She affectionately brushed his cheek with her hand and said softly, “Did you thank Uncle for the treat?”

“Uncle is such a good man, isn’t he?”

That day, Ha Jianguo left the medical supplies at the top of the stairs and hurried back downstairs, his steps hurried and disoriented.

But even after picking up his daughter from school that afternoon, eating stir-fried noodles, and lying in bed, his restless heart continued to race. That night, as he closed his eyes, Zhao Chunni’s voice echoed beside him, complaining about how her boss was giving her a hard time again. If only her husband weren’t so useless, she wouldn’t have to endure such treatment.

Yet Ha Jianguo, the subject of her complaints, wasn’t reflecting deeply. His thoughts wandered, and as soon as he closed his eyes, he found himself back in that bathroom.

The image of Jiang Yimei, her body covered in cigarette burns, filled him with an unexpected pang of sorrow.

So, under the pretense of adjusting the dimensions of the single bed, he returned to the furniture factory three days later.

The iron-framed bed had been expanded from 1.2 meters to 1.5 meters, and he learned that Jiang Yimei’s furniture factory was severely understaffed.

From that day on, every morning after dropping his daughter off at school, he went to help out at Jiang Yimei’s factory. Though she couldn’t pay him immediately, he lied to Zhao Chunni, claiming he had found a decent job there.

For two weeks, he worked diligently as a salesperson at the factory. One rainy evening, Jiang Yimei invited him to stay for dinner, and Ha Jianguo readily accepted. Midway through the meal, he suddenly remembered that Zhao Chunni had mentioned earlier that she would be working late and wouldn’t be able to pick up Ha Yue from school.

After his emotional betrayal began, he had started tuning out Zhao Chunni’s words, no matter how loudly she spoke. Everything she said felt muffled, as if he couldn’t process her messages anymore.

Rushing out of the factory, he hopped onto his old bike and pedaled furiously through the rain to the elementary school. When he saw his daughter squatting outside the security booth, he realized that if he continued to indulge these feelings, he might end up hurting his family.

In that moment, he resolved to stop seeing Jiang Yimei and find another job.

But cutting off the flow of water only makes it surge stronger. His already wavering resolve eventually crumbled entirely.

On the day Ha Yue’s single bed was completed, Jiang Yimei called Ha Jianguo, explaining that they were short on delivery staff and needed his help at the factory. The moment they met, after exchanging pleasantries, Jiang Yimei asked him directly: “Jianguo, why haven’t you come back? Are you avoiding me? Do you think I’ll cling to you?”

Ha Jianguo’s eyes darted away as he laughed nervously, his throat dry. “What are you talking about, Boss? Why would you cling to me? I just found another job, and your place is a bit far. I can’t make it back in time to pick up my daughter.”

But before he could deflect the topic, Jiang Yimei stared at him intently and said, “I know you have a family. I won’t cling to you. If one day you don’t want this anymore, just tell me—I can accept any outcome.”

“These past few days, I’ve thought about you every day, to the point of heartache. Can you swear to heaven that you haven’t thought about me?”

“Or are you afraid? Afraid my husband will come after you?”

“We haven’t had a marital relationship in a long time—you know that, right? He doesn’t even come home.”

Later, things unfolded as they did. Neither Jiang Yimei nor Ha Jianguo ever discussed in detail how their inappropriate relationship had developed.

Perhaps it was out of a desire to retaliate against her husband, or perhaps it was because no one had shown her kindness in so long that she came to see Ha Jianguo as her savior. She didn’t care about his modest clothing or the fact that he was married. She admired how gentle he was with her child, how much she liked the cheap bracelet he gave her. She listened to his naive ideas and encouraged him to start his own business to earn money.

Eventually, she began to fantasize about running away with Ha Jianguo. Wouldn’t it be wonderful? At least Ha Jianguo was taller and more handsome than Li Jun. At least Ha Jianguo had a gentle temperament—she would never have to live in fear of fists.

Though extramarital affairs are condemned by society, at the time, she believed that what she and Ha Jianguo shared was a form of love. This distorted affection gave her a sliver of courage. The next time Li Jun came home to beat her and demand money, she finally uttered the word: “Divorce.”

She told him she had found a buyer for the furniture factory. Once she got the money, she would leave this house. She refused to live like a widow, serving a gambling husband.

Unfortunately, this act of rebellion brought her no relief. Enraged, Li Jun pressed their son’s face against the scorching boiler and took all her jewelry—the gold set from their wedding, the jade and diamonds he had given her over the years to celebrate anniversaries and the birth of their child.

Li Jun didn’t believe she had the guts to sell the factory. In his eyes, Jiang Yimei was just a weak, helpless woman. She never fought back, not even when he beat her, always staying silent to avoid waking the sleeping child in the room. Afterward, when their son would stumble out, rubbing his sleepy eyes, she would force herself to smile through her injuries and coax him back to sleep.

Despite the marriage deteriorating into such a miserable state, Jiang Yimei still refrained from speaking ill of her husband to their child. While Li Jun gambled recklessly outside, she told her son that his father was away on business trips, working hard to provide for them.

She would tell her son, “Mommy loves you, and Daddy loves you too. You are the most cherished treasure in this world.”

But even so, that same Jiang Yimei broke their secret agreement one night and called Ha Jianguo. This time, she didn’t say anything about not wanting to disrupt his family. Instead, she pleaded with him pitifully, asking him to be her hero and savior. Emotional appeals weren’t enough—she also planned to take all of Li Jun’s assets from the furniture factory and run away with Ha Jianguo.

Ha Jianguo didn’t disappoint her. He truly took her and left Suicheng.

The car they fled in sped away so fast, the two of them huddled tightly together in the backseat, holding the injured Jiang Zifan, like a desperate escape scene straight out of a movie. Jiang Yimei remembered that Ha Jianguo seemed to cry at some point. Whether it was out of reluctance to leave Suicheng or something else, he mechanically reassured her: “Things will get better. They will. As long as we succeed in starting our business, everything will be fine.”

But now, looking back, those words were probably meant for himself.

At the time, Ha Jianguo was two years older than her—only twenty-nine.

They both needed a hypocritical excuse for their selfishness. She wanted to save her son, so she ignored the consequences for his family. And he, unwilling to remain an ordinary worker for the rest of his life, cut ties with his wife and daughter.

Jiang Yimei opened the window, letting the damp sea breeze flow into the room. She stood up, took the towel from her son, and continued gently wiping Ha Jianguo’s feet. Her voice was soft: “So, give his share to his daughter. It’s already been delayed for many years—it can’t be delayed any further.”

“Just consider the years he acted as your father. He treated us well, didn’t he?”

“I know you’re a good child, with a kind heart.” Over the years, not only had she repeatedly refused to sign the hospital’s consent forms to stop resuscitation efforts for Ha Jianguo, but every time she withdrew money from the company account to cover medical expenses, her son had never uttered a single word of objection.