6

Nian Jinsi is running.

The word "running" might seem rather leisurely, but it's more appropriate for those in the early morning or evening, wearing sportswear, looking relaxed, and using various devices to track their exercise status.

At this moment, just after dawn, Nian Jinsi, appearing on the deserted street, clearly didn't fit that description. She was running wildly. Her long hair, always carefully tied with a hairpin, trailed behind her. Her face was still covered in blood scabs, her eyes wide, her jaw tense, and her arms flailing wildly, as if slicing through a transparent barrier in the air. The hem of her nightgown kept rising and falling at her knees, the bruises on her calves flickering in and out, and her long sleeves slipped to her elbows, revealing more purple scars. These were usually covered up with concealer.

Her lungs were almost about to explode, but Nian Jinsi still couldn't stop. As soon as she stopped, the scene just now would rush into her mind, forcing her to only see that scene.

After four years of marriage, the question that Nian Jinsi repeatedly pondered was not how to maintain love with her husband Kong Yanchen, not how to manage her marriage and career, but how to survive.

Every morning when the studio class started, Nian Jinsi would sit in front of the dressing table, squeezing large tubes of concealer onto her neck, arms, and legs, and she would always think of the past.

At the time, Nian Jinsi had just graduated from university and was obsessed with painting. The only thing she had in her rented apartment was a full-length mirror. Her downstairs neighbor, an elderly woman, needed to borrow her bedroom window to repair a broken air conditioner. Seeing her window-side desk, she asked Nian Jinsi a question she had never considered: "Why don't you have a dressing table?"

Nian Jinsi said, "I don't need it."

The neighbor smiled and said in a very gentle and affirmative tone: "Yes, yes, a girl needs to have a dressing table in her room when she gets married."

At the time, Nian Jinsi felt that arguing was pointless and just smiled. But now, she sat at the dressing table, head bowed expressionlessly, applying concealer bit by bit until it matched her skin tone.

She really needs a dressing table.

Nian Jinsi looked up, her expressionless face reflected in the mirror. A bruise on her forehead had turned purple after a night of sleep. She patiently began over again, covering it up step by step, applying her makeup. After turning off the lights, the uncurtained room returned to darkness. She smiled into the dark mirror, a perfect, standard smile revealing eight teeth. Kong Yanchen shattered it with a simple cough in the living room.

Nian Jinsi taught the children how to draw people, letting them choose whoever they liked. The children chattered and discussed, and when they saw the ring on her finger, they asked if her favorite person was her husband. Nian Jinsi sat behind the table, smiling a standard smile. The tips of her eight teeth trembled against her lower lip, as if the teeth of a saw were wearing away her life.

Beat, apologize, promise not to do it again, beat, apologize, promise, beat, apologize, promise, beat, apologize, promise—

This is her married life.

It's hard to fully understand someone before you're completely connected. Every time Kong Yanchen beat her, he'd lie down on the bed and fall asleep with a clear conscience. He'd roll over, leaving his back to her, snoring like a cow. Nian Jinsi covered her wounds. She couldn't understand his composure, and she couldn't face herself. She didn't even dare to lift the quilt and get out of bed. A few minutes ago, Kong Yanchen had grabbed her neck from behind and pinned her to the edge of the bed. Her nose hit the edge of the bed, bleeding profusely, staining the sheets red. Finally, satisfied, he stopped.

She just covered her face and nose.

The nosebleed wouldn't stop, and she finally had to get out of bed—if she bled to death, that would be pathetic. She quietly got out of bed and ran to the bathroom to find a towel. As she covered her nose, she looked up and saw herself in the mirror. It was the first time she had seen herself since the beating.

The woman in the mirror was pale, her eyes filled with fear, and she was trembling all over. She didn't recognize this woman, she didn't think it was herself, and she didn't even lean towards her. This was a woman she would have considered pitiful if she had bumped into her on the street.

She thought it was someone else.

That night, for the first time, she felt a sense of strangeness in her face and body. She lifted her nightgown, revealing faint scars on her abdomen. Turning her back, she saw bruises that had barely faded, and even traced the soles of the man's feet along their edges. Nian Jinsi loosened her grip, rolled up her sleeves, and caressed every scar on her arms with an almost obsessive gaze, as if she were observing someone else's intoxicating pain.

Until another face appeared in the mirror. Nian Jinsi turned around abruptly. Kong Yanchen was standing behind her, looking apologetic and saying, "I'm sorry."

Beating, apology, promise.

Nian Jinsi suddenly felt her stomach churn. She covered her belly. Kong Yanchen approached and reached out to cover hers. His palm was broad, and she had always felt his hand was very warm. Now it was covering the back of her hand, and she suddenly pulled it away. So the man's palm was pressed against her belly, as if he was about to disembowel her. A sour gas rose up, and Nian Jinsi vomited in Kong Yanchen's face. While he was stunned with filth on his face, she dodged and ran to the restaurant.

The apology that appeared on Kong Yanchen's face at a specific moment and for a specific purpose turned into a hand reaching into her stomach, churning it upside down. Then the hand pinched her stomach, her intestines, her esophagus, squeezing her into a ball of minced meat. She finally vomited.

She once had a great goal: to paint and make money, and she could do it. She opened the studio after she got married so that she could have the freedom to come home late. Kong Yanchen liked her to wait for him at home and kept asking her to close the studio. She always refused, and then Kong Yanchen would unilaterally beat her.

Kong Yanchen was very cunning. He would often choose a time when the neighbors were asleep and would always do it silently. If she dared to cry or scream, he would stuff anything he could get his hands on into her mouth. Once, he almost stabbed her throat with a pair of scissors, and then he would kneel down and cry and apologize.

Beating, apology, promise.

Nian Jinsi ran to the kitchen, and Kong Yanchen followed closely behind her. His hand had already grabbed her collar, and her neck was immediately strangled so that she couldn't breathe. Kong Yanchen still didn't say a word, but his hand was pressing on her trachea, and his fingers were stuck in the side of her neck. Nian Jinsi couldn't pry his hand away. Her head became dizzy, her vision was blurred, and her feet began to slip.

She desperately reached for the sink, and when her fingers touched something familiar, she immediately grabbed it and stabbed it behind her.

Oxygen suddenly filled her chest, and she fell to her knees, coughing violently. She lay on the ground and gradually recovered, suddenly realizing that the surroundings were too quiet and Kong Yanchen did not kick her.

She turned around and saw Kong Yanchen lying on the ground with a knife stuck in his abdomen and a pool of blood under him.

Nian Jinsi slowly stood up. Kong Yanchen trembled all over, his mouth gurgled, and his eyes looked more gentle than ever. Nian Jinsi walked around him, walked out of the restaurant, walked out of the living room, and walked out of the door.

She entered the elevator, the lights pale as she stared at her own blurry reflection. She walked out of the building, her strides growing longer and faster. Leaving the residential complex, she suddenly felt the air was incredibly fresh, the roads wide and seemingly endless.

Nian Jinsi began to run wildly.