Chapter 51
"She should be conscious now." The young man standing by the bed tilted his head, observing the person on the bed calmly. The doctor beside him was not so calm. He pursed his lips and thought again and again, then said:
"The shrapnel did not cause direct brain damage to the patient, but excessive mental stimulation may cause brain nerve function..."
"Speak human language."
“… Crazy.”
The young man listened and turned to look at the person sitting on the sofa. The person was wearing an iris blue satin shirt and white trousers. He lowered his head and slowly turned the ring on his left ring finger. His voice was so low that it was inaudible: "I understand. You can go and do your work."
The doctor felt as if he had been pardoned. He nodded to the two of them and hurried out, but he couldn't help but look back before leaving.
The woman on the bed had a young face but short snow-white hair. She had been sitting in the corner against the wall with her legs hugged since she woke up. Her wrists and ankles were tied with flexible nylon ropes, just long enough for her to reach the bed. She had her eyes open but couldn't see anything. From time to time, she tapped her temples as if by muscle memory, making a metallic sound, "knock knock."
The area covered by the hair looks no different from that of an ordinary person at first glance, but when one turns the head under the sunlight, one can still see the light reflected from the silver metal.
After the doctor left, the three people in the room didn't speak or look at each other. The young man walked behind the sofa and stood with his hands behind his back.
The birds outside the window chirped for a while and then fell silent. The melodious sound of bells could be heard in the distance. The person on the sofa stood up and walked to the bed and sat down.
"Mr. Jiang." The young man called him, but he seemed not to hear him. He sat there with his back to the woman in the shadows, staring intently at the skull structure diagram on the wall of the ward.
The young man didn't try to persuade her anymore. He just looked at the woman expressionlessly. He wasn't nervous, but he definitely wasn't relaxed either.
Jiang Huai sat by the bed, from the bright sunshine to the dusk. The woman in the corner was completely hidden in the darkness. Only from time to time, a hollow "tap tap" sound came from the shadows. The rhythm and intervals remained unchanged, mixed in with the rustling sound of the clock, like an extra pointer.
…
"You've died once, and I've built a grave for you." Jiang Huai suddenly smiled and looked down at his hand. The ring shone coldly in the gray twilight. "Let's forget about the past."
“Knock knock.”
The ward fell into silence again, and the sky was getting darker.
"Ajie." Jiang Huai lowered his eyes, "You go."
The young man standing behind the sofa had no other expression except blinking in the past few hours. At this moment, he just looked at Jiang Huai deeply and left.
Jiang Huai turned around and looked towards the corner. In the darkness, he could only vaguely see white hair and white clothes, motionless, like a wig and hospital gown hanging on the wall.
"You chose your own path," he said, one hand on the edge of the bed, looking at his ankles, bound with nylon rope, faintly visible in the moonlight. His tone was calm, "I didn't hesitate when I fired that shot. I knew what I was doing, and I knew what would happen to you."
He reached out his hand, his fingertips lingering on her ankle for a moment before gently gripping it. He smiled and said, "But I don't know what will happen to me."
“Knock knock.”
He lowered his eyes and stroked her cold bones. After a moment, he stopped and turned away from looking at her. The moonlight cast swaying shadows of trees on the wall opposite him, swaying gently in the wind.
"Wake up," he sighed softly with his back to her, "You're going to be a mother, how can you act crazy?"
One minute, two minutes...
There was no more "knock knock" sound.
"You've been sleeping for half a year now. Look how big your belly is." Jiang Huai tilted his head and smiled, a mottled shadow swimming across his face. "The due date is..." He turned around, but she remained motionless in the night. "May 4th."
Zhou Yue seemed to be standing in a desolate open space. The words people said to her were blown back and forth like the wind in the wilderness, and she could not hear them clearly.
She walked and walked in this wasteland, but there was only the unchanging gloomy sky and desolate grassland. The distant water was lifeless. She saw the Bridge of Sighs and rushed to it, but the stars were not on the bridge. She waited and waited, lying on the stone pier boredly looking down. There was only her own face on the water, a chubby face of about five or six years old, just finished a performance, with colorful pigtails, two red dots on her face, and a small red dot on her forehead. She held her chin with her hands, her little mouth pouted sullenly, and muttered cruel words: "That bad gorilla dared to leave me here alone? When he comes, I will scold him to death!"
But the gorilla never came.
"Hey, are you leaving or not?" The voice was so sharp and thin that she started. She looked down and saw an old woman sitting next to a stone pillar. In front of her was a small table, a notebook, and a bowl of soup. She glared at her with disdain. "Either leave or go back! What are you wandering around here for?"
"I'm waiting for someone!"
"Waiting for someone?" The old woman glanced at her with disdain. "Who else but you would be so uncultured? Standing in the way and not letting the person behind you leave?"
"Of course he has!" Her eyes widened. "He won't leave me alone! He will definitely wait for me!" Her eyes lit up and she squatted next to the old woman and put on a smile. "Grandma, have you seen him? He's dark, tall and strong, like a big Tibetan mastiff!"
"What big Tibetan mastiff? I haven't seen one... Hey, what are you doing rummaging through?" the old woman screamed, snatching the notebook from her hand. "You little girl are so unruly! Who told you to rummage through my client information? This is all private information, don't you understand?"
She flipped through two pages but didn't see his name. She was so upset that she yelled, "No! He won't leave me alone!"
"Tsk, what can't you do?" the old woman said disdainfully. She threw down her notebook and picked up the black porcelain bowl on the small table. "You bunch of mediocre people, what's so engraved in your heart? What's so unforgettable? Drink this bowl of soup and you'll forget it all!"
"Besides," the old woman smiled meaningfully, "Are you so sure he'll still want to be with you in his next life?"
Zhou Yue could no longer speak and lowered her head. A gust of wind blew away the little round face on the water. When it was still, there was only an adult face. The hair was short to the chin and it was snow-white. When she turned her head, a flash of silver light passed across the water. Looking down, the loose hospital gown could not cover the bulging belly.
"You're a mother now, how can you act crazy?"
The voice came from far away, and the wilderness disappeared. Before her was the pitch-black hospital room. Moonlight shone on the bedsheets, and the shadows of trees swayed on the blank wall. A person sat beside the bed. His meticulously combed hair was as white as hers. His gold-rimmed glasses cast a light as cold as the moonlight. His face was beautiful, like a woman's. When he smiled, the corners of his lips and the corners of his eyes pointed. He turned his head to look at her and whispered softly, "The due date is... May 4th."
She looked at him, his face became familiar, screaming, wailing, exploding in her ears in an instant, like a violent storm sweeping over her,
"I love you..." He put his hands under his face and looked at her infatuatedly. His gray eyes were so clear that there was nothing in them. He had returned to the state of a child, forgetting the pain of torture and the pain of being abandoned by her. He only remembered that when he was six years old, he left his home and was taken to a strange home. He met a pink and tender little girl. She was five years old, younger than him, and was his sister. He loved her very much.
"I love you..." He put his hands under his face and stared at her infatuatedly. His gray eyes were so clear that nothing was in them. He had returned to his childhood, forgetting the pain of torture and the pain of being abandoned by her. He only remembered that when he was six years old, he left his home and was taken to a strange home. He met a pink and tender little girl. She was five years old, younger than him, and was his sister. He loved her very much.
There was a crisp clang in the darkness, and the gold-rimmed glasses that had been on the man's nose just now had shattered on the wall. The man tilted his face, and several hideous wounds next to his eyeballs instantly oozed blood, covering his face.
Zhou Yue failed to dig out his eyeballs, but was dragged against the wall by the nylon rope. Her internal organs were displaced, and the IV tube tore off a large piece of flesh from the back of her hand. Blood silently seeped onto the bed sheet. She remained silent from beginning to end, and the low growl in her throat sounded like the sound of a broken throat.
Her voice was ruined and she could no longer perform on stage. She could only hum a few songs for her own entertainment, but they could not be long. For countless days and nights afterwards, she sang lullabies every day in the empty bedroom of her villa halfway up the mountain. As she hummed, she became hoarse and her voice became stuck, just like the old-fashioned radio of her landlady Aunt Lou when she still lived in Shahe Street. The sad singing voice was distant and ethereal, sometimes absent and sometimes faint, becoming weaker and weaker, and finally only a chaotic noise was left.
Tiantian lay in her arms, biting her hair with relish, his eyes as bright as black grapes staring at her steadily. After a while, he raised his warm and soft little hands, stroking her cheeks and eyes, and imitated the way adults comforted her vaguely: "Oh...oh...don't cry..."
He was so well-behaved, as if he didn't exist. After she knew she was pregnant, he often sat on the bed and looked down at her bulging belly, without moving. Occasionally, he turned over at night, carefully stretching his little body, like a feather passing by. As soon as she opened her eyes in the dark, he hid and didn't move, for fear that if he disturbed her, she would no longer want him.
She really didn't want him.
That night, Jiang Huai stood in the cold moonlit ward with blood on his face. He tilted his head and looked at her for a while, then whispered, "It seems you are better now." Then he left.
"May 4th, May 4th, May 4th..." Zhou Yue lay on the soft and weightless bed, and her whole body seemed to be weightless. She counted, but with every step, the screams and wails exploded in her ears like mortars. Those images rushed into her mind, his face, his broken body, his bloody breath and smile, saying "I love..." She couldn't remember where she had counted to, and her unfinished words, along with them, disappeared like a kite with a broken string. She curled up into a ball, counting with her fingers on the sheets with shaking hands, crying and knocking on her broken temporal bone like a madman.
She counted over and over again until just before dawn. The cries of the pelicans outside the window were hollow and cold. She knelt on the bed, looking at the gradually thinning shadows on the wall, and smiled, "Stars, you are so useless."
It was too early, but just as she expected, he left her nothing. The dozen years in between were also turned upside down in her chaotic memory. Sometimes it was so clear that even his furry eyelashes like a little animal could be touched, and sometimes it was blank, as if he appeared silently in her house that summer, ate up a whole plate of shredded potatoes and her birthday cake, and left silently.
After that day, Zhou Yue was taken back to her "home", the hillside villa where Xingxing had been killed.
She hadn't seen Jiang Huai for a long time. The phone on the bedside table rang several times, buzzed for a while, and then fell silent.
Aunt Xu came back and was still as considerate and attentive to her as before, but also ignored her. In comparison, all she could see was what was in Zhou Yue's belly.
Every morning after she made porridge and came over, Aunt Xu would stand by the bed with a bone china bowl in hand, waiting for Zhou Yue to wake up from her long dream. Her eyes curved with a smile as she looked at Zhou Yue's belly, which was covered in a moon-white buttoned blouse, and she would lower her voice and admire, "Your daughter is so big! She will definitely grow up tall in the future."
The older generation likes giant babies. No matter how many times you were at the gates of hell when you were born, or whether the fat baby is overnourished, they just like them. They like them so much that they tell lies with their eyes open.
Zhou Yue glanced at the electronic clock on the bedside again. It was mid-February and she was six months pregnant. This was the size of a six-month pregnant woman's belly. She lowered her eyes and gritted her teeth, staring at her bulging belly, clutching the quilt tightly in her palms. But the little thing in her belly seemed to be in a good mood. It was rare for it to get close to her in the morning, turned over, and left a small handprint on her belly.
She was locked up with a thin silver chain. She had to be accompanied by Aunt Xu when she slept, ate, and bathed. The villa was wrapped in sponge, like a chiffon cake. She was led up and down by the smiling Aunt Xu, holding the silver chain. She could hear her soft voice behind her: "Madam, watch your feet."
She went into the bathroom and looked at her blurry face in the misty mirror. There was a glass and a toothbrush beside the white sink.
Aunt Xu went to get the antiemetic medicine. Zhou Yue vomited some porridge after breakfast, which made Aunt Xu a little flustered, and she let her go into the bathroom alone.
That day, Zhou Yue locked the door and took a very long bath. She wanted to wash herself clean inside and out before setting off. She had to go. Her memory was becoming more and more fragmented, like a burning photo, curling up and turning black from the edges, and turning into ashes in the blink of an eye. She could hardly remember him.
The water in the bathtub overflowed, and on the tiled floor, blood and black flesh merged together, rising higher and higher, flowing into the sewer in a bright red swirl...
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