Frame-up (Part 1)
The chirping of cicadas ripped through the May afternoon. Shen Zhihe's pen scratched across the draft paper with a sharp, rustling sound. Diagonally in front of him, Gu Hanzhi flipped through her exercise book, the sound as soft as a feather falling to the ground. The pile of test papers between their desks nearly touched the ceiling, isolating the surrounding noise into a blurry background.
"Did you use the Lorentz force decomposition method for this physics finale?" Gu Hanzhi suddenly tilted her head, her hair brushing against the electromagnetics problem Shen Zhihe was checking. His Adam's apple moved slightly, and the tip of his pen smeared ink on the paper—this was the third time he had lost his composure in front of her. Ever since the birthday fireworks rained down on her shoulders, he found that he could no longer view this opponent with purely competitive eyes.
The school bell startled sparrows from the trees, and Shen Zhihe returned home in the setting sun. A pair of unfamiliar pink high heels lay slanted beside his basketball shoes in the entryway. Xu Huanxi's laughter, mixed with the sweet and sour smell from the kitchen, filled his nostrils. His grip on the strap of his schoolbag suddenly tightened. Last week, his mother's mint green slippers had been placed in the same spot.
"Zhihe, wash your hands and get ready for dinner!" Shen Zhiyuan's voice came from the restaurant. The crisp sound of the red wine glasses clinking reminded Shen Zhihe of the smell of disinfectant in the hospital - that was the day his father announced his remarriage with Xu Huanxi. He hid in the fire escape, listening to his mother's weak cough on the phone, and looked sharply at his father in a suit and tie holding the hand of the beautiful Xu Huanxi at the end of the corridor.
Xu Huanxi was placing red roses in a vase, her pink skirt brushing the hem of Shen Zhihe's school uniform pants. She turned, revealing a diamond necklace adorning her collarbone. Shen Zhihe remembered it as his mother's favorite. "Zhihe, are you back?" Her sweet voice cut like a dagger coated in icing. "Come and try the squirrel mandarin fish your dad specially asked the chef to make."
The crystal chandelier above the dining table was blindingly bright. Shen Zhihe stared at the bowl of mushroom soup, slicked with oil. It had been his mother's favorite recipe during chemotherapy, now served in a gilded bone china bowl. Shen Zhiyuan wiped the sauce from the corner of his mouth, a smile etched in the wrinkles around his eyes. "Zhihe, your Aunt Xu is pregnant. We're having a new family member."
The dull thud of the spoon hitting the bowl startled the pigeons outside the window. Shen Zhihe watched as Xu Huanxi's hand caressed her swollen belly, pale blue veins snaking beneath her fair skin like coiled snakes. The shadow cast by her eyelashes as she lowered her gaze held a secret triumph—just like the fleeting cold glint in her eyes three months ago when she deliberately dropped the pregnancy test results at his feet in the hospital corridor.
"Congratulations, Aunt Xu." Shen Zhihe dug his nails into his palms, and the newly indented pen marks beneath his school uniform sleeves were bleeding. He heard his own voice echoing from far away, mixed with Xu Huanxi's charming exclamation and Shen Zhiyuan's hearty laughter, echoing in the ornately decorated restaurant like a ridiculous pantomime.
The gilded sunset glow filtered through the carved window lattices, dappling the tips of Shen Zhihe's leather shoes. He watched Xu Huanxi's swaying skirt disappear around the corner of the corridor, Shen Zhiyuan's slender arm resting on her back, like a fragile piece of porcelain. His Adam's apple rolled as he turned, and the hem of his skirt swept down the copper bells below, startling the white doves from the eaves with its clear ringing.
The moment the study door closed, the scent of dark redwood mixed with the odor of worn leather wafted in. Shen Zhihe unbuttoned his silver-gray tie, his knuckles unconsciously rubbing the fleur-de-lis pattern on the tie clip—the one his mother had pinned on him for the last time before her death. In the bedside photo frame, his five-year-old self, wearing a crooked bow tie, was cradled in the lap of Wu Yantang, dressed in a dark green cheongsam. The pearl hairpins on her temples shimmered, a faint shimmer that seemed a world away.
As his fingertips traced the fine lines around his mother's eyes on the glass, Shen Zhihe suddenly curled his fingers. A drizzle of rain had begun outside the window, rustling against the banana leaves like the Moonlight Sonata his mother had played. "Mother, if you were still alive..." The words caught in his throat. He remembered the dimple smile that had once belonged to his mother, as Xu Huanxi and Shen Zhiyuan chatted and laughed during the day. His nails dug deep into his palms.
The pocket watch on the book suddenly clicked softly, and the brass cover popped open, revealing half a yellowed magnolia bookmark. Memories flooded his mind like a tide, and he seemed to see his mother teaching him to read beneath the blossoming tree, the wind-blown magnolia blossoms falling between the pages of the open book. The rain was now gathering speed, and the brass bells on the eaves were tinkling again, but no one was there to put on his soapberry-scented robe.
The next day was the weekend. Xu Zhiyi had gone shopping with her classmates and didn't stay home. Shen Zhiyuan had also left early for a company market event. Only Xu Huanxi and Shen Zhihe were left in the huge villa.
The morning light was cut into pieces by the carved window lattices, slanting across the dark red carpet of the spiral staircase. Xu Huanxi held onto the gilded railing, her fingertips unconsciously caressing her slightly bulging belly, her mink nightgown slipping halfway down her shoulders as she moved. When Shen Zhihe appeared from the corner of the second floor, carrying documents, she deliberately spoke in a sighing tone: "Zhihe, the baby in my belly is your biological brother." Her scarlet nails scratched across the velvet handrail. "When he's born, there might not be a place for you in this family. And your mother..."
"Auntie," Shen Zhihe interrupted suddenly. The sunlight shone through the slippers beneath his dark gray pajamas, stretching and distorting his shadow on the wall. He clutched the book to his chest, his knuckles white from the strain. "I don't think you're qualified to mention my mother yet."
The crystal chandelier reflected tiny rays of light at the corners of Xu Huanxi's eyes. She chuckled softly, her fingertips running across Shen Zhihe's tense jawline: "Your mother? She's just lucky. If she hadn't intervened back then, Zhiyuan and I..." Before she could finish her words, Shen Zhihe suddenly took a half step back, his hand slamming heavily on the railing, making a dull sound.
Shen Zhihe took a deep breath, his Adam's apple rolling as he swallowed back his anger. "Auntie, you're pregnant now, you should get some rest." As he turned to leave, his wrist was suddenly gripped by a force like an iron clamp. Xu Huanxi's nightgown completely slipped down to her elbows, revealing the ambiguous red mark on her collarbone. "Don't you want to say something..."
"What did you say?" Shen Zhihe turned abruptly, his eyes behind his glasses cold as ice. "Are you saying you booked a presidential suite at a hotel the night before your wedding to your father and ordered several male models?" He twitched his lips in a mocking smile. "Or were you saying you called my father crying at three in the morning, lying that you were comforting your best friend?"
Xu Huanxi's face instantly lost its color, veins throbbing beneath her well-maintained complexion. She stumbled, clutching the railing, her diamond-studded slippers slipping on the marble floor. "You're exactly like that bitch! She looked at me that way back then..." Her sharp voice suddenly cut off. Shen Zhihe had already violently shaken her hand away, sending the book scattering across the floor.
"So mother's death was caused by you." Shen Zhihe bent down to pick up the book, and every piece of paper was wrinkled. When he stood up straight, a cold light flashed in his glasses, and his eyes swept over Xu Huanxi's trembling fingertips, "She found out that you were cheating on her, and tried her best to persuade you to turn back, but you..." A sneer escaped from his throat, carrying years of accumulated hatred, "You pushed her off the rooftop, and you knew very well that mother had leukemia and could not withstand too much stimulation!" Shen Zhihe was a little excited, and his eyes were bloodshot.
The hallway suddenly fell silent, the only sound echoing in the empty space was the ticking of the old-fashioned clock. Xu Huanxi gripped the railing tightly, the diamond ring on her ring finger pricking her palm painfully. As Shen Zhihe turned and left, his back gradually overlapped with the afterimage of Wu Yantang being wheeled into the operating room on that rainy night many years ago.
The carved bronze door thudded against the wall, and a cold wind blew raindrops into the entrance hall. As Chen Zhiyuan shook the snow off his shoulders, he caught sight of a skirt fluttering around the corner of the staircase. Xu Huanxi's pale face flickered in the crystal chandelier. She tilted her neck back against the carved railing, her long, dark hair cascading down like a waterfall, her pearl earrings scattering tiny glints of light as they fell.
"Ah!" A tearful scream pierced the silence. Shen Zhihe froze halfway up the stairs, his fingertips still hovering over where Xu Huanxi had stood. Dark red blood slithered along the beige carpet, entwining his shiny slippers like a venomous snake. Xu Huanxi curled up like a shrimp, her white skirt soaked in blood. Her delicate wrists tightly grasped her abdomen, tears forming on her eyelashes.
"Zhiyuan..." She stretched out her hand, her bloody fingertips leaving a plum blossom-shaped mark on the man's dark suit. "Zhihe said...that I'm not worthy of the Shen family..." Her sobs were interrupted by violent coughing, and scarlet blood splattered on Shen Zhiyuan's collar. "I know he doesn't like me, but this is your blood..."
Shen Zhiyuan's pupils constricted, and his bony hands trembled as he cupped her face. The rain outside the French window intensified, casting a bluish hue on Shen Zhihe's pale face. He watched as the faint sneer on Xu Huanxi's lips vanished in an instant as Shen Zhiyuan leaned over. That smile, hidden beneath a blood-stained pearl necklace, pierced her bones more than an icicle.
Shen Zhiyuan gripped the handrail of the hospital corridor, his knuckles white from the strain. He looked at Shen Zhihe, who lowered his eyes to wipe his watch, and suppressed anger suddenly broke through his rationality: "Shen Zhihe! Even if you don't like Aunt Xu, you shouldn't do this!" The railing creaked under his palm under the heavy weight.
Shen Zhihe's fingertips suddenly tightened, and the dial mirror reflected the red light of the emergency room behind his father. Half an hour later, he watched with his own eyes as Shen Zhiyuan carried the unconscious Xu Huanxi into the ambulance. The woman's blood-stained nightgown glowed an eerie white in the moonlight.
At this moment, the smell of disinfectant suddenly became pungent. He sneered, and the sound that came out of his throat seemed to be icy: "Frame-up? Xu Huanxi is really good at this." His hair fell down to cover the red corners of his eyes. He stared at his father's suddenly pale face, and said to himself with the tip of his tongue against his back teeth, "I'm afraid father doesn't know yet, the bastard in her belly is not yours at all? Xu Huanxi, let's wait and see..." After that, he turned and walked into the bedroom.
Fine threads of rain wove into a gray net in the twilight, enveloping the entire city in damp wrinkles. Magnolia petals, battered by the wind and rain, floated in the stagnant water like faded boats, swirling along the murky current until they became lodged in the drain, clogged layer by layer into a pale barrier.
Newly sprouted willow branches swayed drooping, their rain-soaked buds trembling in the wind. The distant cherry blossoms were stained a hazy crimson by the rain, their unopened buds looking like crushed rouge, blending into the gloomy skyline. Thunder rumbled, and the rain suddenly fell in torrents. Water curtains from the eaves pounded onto the bluestone slabs, splashing water mixed with mud and sand, turning the once spring-filled path into a tangled mess.
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