CITM - 12

Books scattered across the floor, pages fluttering down like fallen leaves. Clutching her chest in immense pain, Tong Mingfang pressed forward.

Bai Wenfu stepped in front of Ye Yun and turned his head slightly to look down at her, his voice low: “Go back to your room.”

Ye Yun scrambled to her feet, stumbling as she ran into the room and shut the door tightly behind her.

Blood dripped from her finger, trailing down her fingertip. She didn’t tend to it. She didn’t turn on the light. She simply sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the pale wall, as if frozen in place.

Outside, Tong Mingfang’s grief-stricken wails echoed alongside Bai Wenfu’s deep, suppressed voice. Through the door, Ye Yun heard it all in a daze. Her thundering heartbeat rang in her ears, distorting everything. She couldn’t piece the sounds into meaning. Her world was unraveling, warping into something that devoured her whole.

Her mind drifted to the first time she met Wen Bin.

That day, he wore a light-colored plaid shirt and walked toward her from a distance. He had said, "Hello."

She had accepted her fate from those very words — never expecting that a beginning born from them would come to such an abrupt end before it ever found its footing.

Ye Yun didn’t know what to do. Her mother wasn’t by her side. There was no one from home to tell her how to handle herself in this situation.

She could only sit there, motionless, until the blood on her fingers dried.

The voices outside gradually faded. Moonlight quietly crept over the treetops. The house fell into a terrifying silence. Ye Yun lost all sense of time, sitting still as chaotic, tangled thoughts swirled in her head like a ball of knotted thread. She didn’t know how long had passed until a knock on the door pulled her back to the surface.

“Come out and eat,” Bai Wenfu’s hoarse voice called from outside the door.

Ye Yun’s hands slowly clenched beside her. She didn’t move. Her eyes, fearful and trembling, stared at the door. She was scared to step out, scared to face Tong Mingfang, scared to see the mess left behind. It was as if staying hidden in this room was the only way to escape it all.

After a long silence, Bai Wenfu spoke again, his tone calm and steady: “Mom’s gone back to her room. Come on out.”

Only then did Ye Yun finally move. She shuffled to the door and opened it.

The mess had been cleaned up. The torn books were gone. The overturned stool had been righted. The lights were on, and Bai Wenfu was standing just outside the door, waiting.

When he saw her come out, he glanced at her pale face and said, “Go sit.”

Dinner had been made by Bai Wenfu. He set the dishes on the table in front of Ye Yun, then served another bowl of rice and brought it to Tong Mingfang’s room.

The door was half-open. Ye Yun heard him gently coax, “I’ll leave this here. Eat a little.”

A short while later, Bai Wenfu exited the room and quietly closed the door. Though he had cooked the meal, he hadn’t taken a single bite. Instead, he walked straight outside.

Ye Yun held her bowl, her eyes falling on his retreating back. His steps were slow, his right leg moving stiffly, as if something were tugging at it. His gait was slightly uneven, as though he were enduring pain, deliberately holding himself back.

In the corridor, he lit one cigarette after another. There were no lights, and he was shrouded in shadows, his furrowed brows refusing to relax for a long time.

Ye Yun mechanically shoveled food into her mouth, repeating the same motion over and over until the bowl was empty. As she was cleaning up the dishes, Bai Wenfu came back in, pulled out a chair, and sat across from her. “Let me see your hand.”

Ye Yun set down the bowl and placed her left hand on the table. Blood had dried between her fingers, leaving dark red stains and smudges.

Bai Wenfu frowned, pushed off the table, and went to his room. He returned with a bag of cotton balls and band-aids, setting them in front of her.

Ye Yun awkwardly tore open a band-aid and tried to place it over her wound. Bai Wenfu sat beside her watching, but it was as if his gaze wasn’t really on her—he seemed lost in thought. It wasn't until Ye Yun accidentally stuck both ends of the band-aid together that he snapped out of it, took the band-aid, repositioned it properly over her wound, then picked up a cotton ball and gently wiped the dried blood between her fingers, carefully avoiding the injured area.

A night breeze blew through the door, causing the white ceiling light to sway. The warm yellow glow danced across the table in rhythm with the swinging lamp.

The soft touch of the cotton on her fingers was as light as a feather brushing past her heart. Ye Yun’s eyes suddenly welled with tears.

She hadn’t cried when she heard about Wen Bin’s accident, nor when Tong Mingfang pointed at her and cursed her as a bringer of misfortune. Not even when she had locked herself in her room, alone. But in this moment, everything inside her collapsed, and tears spilled down her cheeks like a curtain of rain with broken threads.

Wen Bin’s tragic death, Tong Mingfang’s resentment, the debt of the destroyed books, the loss of direction in her life, and Bai Wenfu shielding her with his own body…

Grief, fear, anxiety, confusion, injustice...

Never before had all these emotions struck Ye Yun all at once like this, overwhelming her as if she were drowning. She couldn’t withstand the deluge and could only turn her head, biting down on her lip to keep from making a sound.

Bai Wenfu lowered his eyes, the line of his jaw clenched tightly, the crease between his brows never fading.

His voice was low and carried a barely perceptible sorrow as he said to her, “I’ll handle the books. Take these band-aids, change them out tomorrow. Leave the dishes—I’ll take care of them. Go back to your room and get some sleep.”

Ye Yun’s tears gradually stopped. When she turned back, her lip was marked with blood from biting down so hard. Her teary eyes were filled with helpless sorrow.

Bai Wenfu watched her walk back to her room with a heavy expression, a storm of emotions brewing in his gaze.

...

According to Lu Ping, the borrowing records for her books had been erased. Bai Wenfu hadn’t asked Lu Ping for help, so Ye Yun didn’t know how he’d managed it, only that no one brought it up again.

Perhaps it was because Ye Yun had only known Wen Bin for a short time, or maybe because he had left for sea soon after she arrived in the household, but she had gotten used to his absence. Though she had grieved his death, she accepted the reality not long after.

Even though their time together was brief, Wen Bin’s passing had an earth-shattering impact on Ye Yun. She had come to this city from Qingxi Village to marry him. In a way, he had been her anchor in this home. With Wen Bin gone, Ye Yun became like a floating weed, rootless and untethered in this city.

Tong Mingfang was a superstitious woman. The day they picked for the marriage certificate turned out to be the same day her youngest son died. Naturally, she believed Ye Yun had jinxed him—had cursed Wen Bin to death. She wasn’t the only one. Even the older women in the neighborhood started gossiping. They said Ye Yun was a femme fatale with bad luck, that if the Bai family had chosen a more plain-looking woman, maybe none of this would’ve happened. Instead, they picked someone with a seductive face—no way she’d ever live a peaceful life with Wen Bin, even if he had come back.

Tong Mingfang had once proudly brought Ye Yun into the family, and now her situation had fallen into disgrace. All the things people had once silently tolerated were now openly criticized.

She hated seeing Ye Yun constantly buried in books, annoyed that people came asking her to embroider things, and she despised the way men stood in the hallway looking toward their home, ogling Ye Yun like hooligans.

All these tensions erupted after Wen Bin’s death. The moment Ye Yun stepped out of her room, it felt like everything she did was wrong. Tong Mingfang always found something to scold her about.

So Ye Yun locked herself in her room. She stopped reading, stopped embroidering for others, and stayed inside all day. But even with a closed door, Tong Mingfang’s complaints still seeped in relentlessly, impossible to ignore.

Sometimes, Ye Yun would wake from nightmares of Tong Mingfang’s resentful face.

Her only comfort was when her eldest brother was home. Whenever Bai Wenfu was around, Tong Mingfang’s complaints would stop. He would intervene and stop her endless rants. Only then would Tong Mingfang calm down a bit.

But Bai Wenfu couldn’t always be home. Even though he stayed around more often than before, he still had his own responsibilities, and there were times Ye Yun had to face Tong Mingfang alone.

Life had become a minefield—every step filled with dread and uncertainty.

Ye Yun began to think about returning to her hometown, but Tong Mingfang was like a lit fuse, ready to explode at any moment. Ye Yun had no idea how to even bring it up to her.

The only time she left the apartment was to go to the public bath. Even then, the gossip didn’t let her go.

The women cooking in the hallway would shout across to their neighbors without a hint of shame, “It’s her! The bride the Bai family brought in from the countryside.”

Ye Yun heard it but didn’t have the courage to look up. She kept her head down and quickly walked home. Bai Wenfu, smoking in the corridor, swept his eyes over them with a chilling glare, and only then did the women finally quiet down and return to their chores.

Ye Yun walked upstairs, murmuring a quiet “Big Brother,” before slipping into her room.

Her room had become a prison—and yet, also her only safe haven.

She placed the basin on the floor, water still dripping from her hair. She didn’t bother with it, her gaze fixed blankly on a single spot.

She sat there for a long time, until her hair was nearly dry. Suddenly, someone knocked on the door.

“Open up.”

Ye Yun stood up and cracked the door open. Bai Wenfu’s figure blocked the hallway light. He looked down and asked, “Want to go out for a walk?”

Her dazed eyes flickered slightly. “Where?”

Bai Wenfu leaned casually against the doorframe. “How would you know if you don’t go?”

Ye Yun’s gaze drifted past his shoulder toward the opposite room, then she lowered her eyelashes. “It’s too late. If Mom finds out I went out, she’ll be upset.”

“Then don’t let her find out.”

Ye Yun suddenly looked up. Her long-dormant heart skipped a beat—had she heard him right? The ever-stoic, by-the-book Bai Wenfu was suggesting they sneak out behind Tong Mingfang’s back. She could hardly imagine the explosion if Tong Mingfang found out.

Bai Wenfu tilted his chin slightly, looking at her with a relaxed expression. “Scared?”

No one willingly chooses captivity. Every word from Bai Wenfu held an irresistible pull for Ye Yun.

With one hand in his pocket, his posture was nonchalant, unbothered—perhaps it was this very calmness that gave Ye Yun the courage to defy.

She hesitated, then said, “You go first. I’ll come down after.”

Bai Wenfu chuckled softly. “What’s there to be afraid of?”

Ye Yun pressed her lips together and said nothing. Bai Wenfu turned and tossed over his shoulder, “I’ll be waiting at the corner by the newsstand.”