Chapter 17

Chen Man ran downstairs; downstairs had already turned into a mess, like a pot full of porridge. The sound of police sirens, the alarms of the ambulances incessant, the group of people standing in a circle and watching obstructed by the police cordon; each person had their heads stretched out, looking within, wanting to see the state of the victims with their own eyes. Humanity’s favourite thing was watching a bustling scene; after all, the needle hadn’t pricked their own mothers, so they just didn’t know pain. Chen Man stood lifelessly at the doorway, looking at the doctors and nurses running about, hurriedly taking away those few injured people; in total, there were four, having been directly covered with white cloth.

Five people; one was missing.

Secretary Yang hurriedly followed after; it could be counted as chasing after; the police blocked them and didn’t let them advance; Secretary Yang hurriedly tugged at Chen Man’s sleeve, and said, “General Manager, don’t stand about here; let’s go back; staying here would cause trouble. Oh right, didn’t you say that you were going to go back home? The front door can’t be passed through; how about you go from the back door…?”

Before finishing the single phrase, Chen Man ran off again; her appearance was as if she had suddenly thought of something; Secretary Yang had been at the office for many years; where did she have the physical endurance to relentlessly chase her? Putting her hands on her hips, she stood in place, staring blankly for a good while, and then in the end, she decided that she would remain where it was nice and cool, and wouldn’t follow after and do parkour.

…

Chen Man had run to the underground parking lot, and after finding her own car, she sat, immediately acting, one foot pressing the acceleration pedal to the floor. The distance between the office and home was, in fact, very close; but, even if it were closer, it wouldn’t be possible to arrive home in only three minutes; on the way there, Chen Man didn’t know how many digital cameras she’d been shot by, but the her of that moment didn’t have the inclination to care about the matters of penalty points and violation tickets. She stood, rigid, in front of her own front door, her head full of two entirely different memories; her mind had become chaotic, and Chen Man, for a moment, couldn’t differentiate between them; in the end, that memory was in fact the truth. But in this moment, the great door was suddenly opened.

Jiang Xichu had nonchalantly put on a pair of clothes, and then hurriedly made to leave; as a result, she’d just opened the door, her own foot not having even made a single step out when the person that she was going to go look for had already appeared before her eyes. Jiang Xichu’s expression was slightly distracted; very quickly, she showed an expression of unrestrained fury. “Where did you go! You didn’t pick up the calls I made; didn’t I tell you, today you weren’t allowed to leave, and even more, not allowed to go to the office? Is it that you turned all of my words into wind past your ear? Chen Man, why are you always like this; can’t you for once, just once! Listen to me!”

Chen Man gazed at Jiang Xichu, startled; this version of her appeared to be foolish and stupid; Jiang Xichu, seeing this appearance of hers, was incomprably angry. “Didn’t you hear anything I just said to you? There’s no point in acting stupid, you! —”

Her furious words came to an abrupt stop; what had abruptly silenced Jiang Xichu was the sudden touch of Chen Man drawing closer to her. Chen Man raised a hand, the palm of her hand gently settling on Jiang Xichu’s face, her motions far too careful, as if what she was touching wasn’t a person, but a porcelain doll that would be broken if it weren’t handled carefully. Jiang Xichu, in sudden afterthought, realised that Chen Man wasn’t in a good condition, and her voice lowered slightly. “Chen Man, what happened to you?”

The familiar sound once more came, both vivid and raucous to the person across from her, beautiful enough that one couldn’t help but weep.

Taking a step forward, Chen Man embraced Jiang Xichu tightly, and in the split second that she closed her eyes, her teardrops fell as if trying to outdo each other, the stiffled sobs sounding by her ear; Jiang Xichu’s body was originally tense; sensing the person at her side was weak and helpless, she slowly loosened her body, then raised her hands, gently patting Chen Man’s back.

Chen Man’s voice was hoarse from crying; when she, with great difficulty, contained her crying, Jiang Xichu walked into the kitchen, and brought out a cup of water, and then gave it to the hands of Chen Man, sitting on the sofa. To compare an instance of a bad state occuring, where Chen Man would incessantly ask questions in pursuit, Jiang Xichu didn’t, in fact, have that much inquisitiveness; she was more inclined to let the other person take initiative to speak themselves, and wouldn’t smash pots and question things until the endpoint.

“I…I had a dream”

Sure enough, very quickly on holding the cup of water, Chen Man began to speak. Jiang Xichu looked at her calmly; Chen Man lowered her head, and slowly said, “In my dream, you were in an accident, and then this morning, I went to the office to have a meeting, and in an unusual coincidence, heard there was an incident downstairs, just like what happened in my dream, so I was panicked.” In a few, succinct words, she explained why she’d just then lost her self-control; Jiang Xichu’s heart shifted.

“It was only a dream; was there the need to be this agitated over it?”

Hearing these words, Chen Man’s heart ached even harder, and her head fell a bit further. “...Really, it was too realistic.”

It was realistic enough to recall it; that sort of heart-tearing, lung-rending, grief-stricken state wouldn’t be able to be aleviated in an instant; the world became drab and murky, and sound and colours became fuzzy; Chen Man hadn’t ever known how much she herself truly loved Jiang Xichu; she had assumed that her sentiments were the same as other people’s, calm and unruffled, neither light nor intense, but only when Jiang Xichu was gone did she understand that was because Jiang Xichu had always been by her side, so she couldn’t sense how important Jiang Xichu was to her in the end. Seeing her own lover become a handful of dirt with her own eyes, that sort of feeling was like her heart being gouged out while she was still alive; it was too painful, painful enough to make the whole body shake, painful enough that there was no way to keep living.

Gazing at Chen Man, Jiang Xichu blinked gently, her line of sight falling onto the cushion at the side. “As a matter of fact, I also had a dream.”

Chen Man raised her head.

“I dreamed that…that I was in an accident, but I in fact never left, remaining at the side of the person who, as far as I am concerned, was the most important, watching her become dispirited and listless and muddled, seeing her, bit by bit, hound herself to death with endless pain.”

Chen Man’s eyes widened without her control; the blood all over was as if frozen; in that moment, Jiang Xichu turned her gaze over, and smiled faintly at Chen Man. “Do you know what the me in the dream did afterwards?”

Chen Man didn’t reply; she had already lost the ability to respond, and Jiang Xichu also didn’t require her response; she smiled again, and said, “I prayed to the gods; it didn’t matter who it was, anyone would do; I asked them to take pity on me, to put to use my little bit of grace, and let me return to the side of that person, to give me a chance to let me save her.” One of Jiang Xichu’s hands supported her jaw, and her tone was both tranquil and calm, and even brought with it a bit of a smiling expression. “And then, the gods answered me.”

Facing each other soundlessly, there wasn’t a single sound in the calm room; the rims of Chen Man’s eyes were read, tears starting to fall again; Jiang Xichu was silent fo a moment, and then in the end sat down, reaching out a hand, placing it on the lower portion of Chen Man’s jaw, and caught the falling teardrops. Exasperated, she said, “How is it that you like to cry this much, ah? This time, you’re really going to turn into a human figure made of water…”

Without warning, she was tugged, and fell into Chen Man’s embrace; Jiang Xichu was startled for a moment; this posture was rather uncomfortable, and she wanted to sit up, but she heard Chen Man’s tone, full of suffering, say, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

She didn’t know; she really didn’t know; if she knew, there was no way that she would be that way before Jiang Xichu’s eyes. What had left an incredible shadow on Chen Man was Jiang Xichu’s leaving, and what had left an incredible shadow on Jiang Xichu was, then, Chen Man’s neglect towards her own life. Chen Man should indeed be apologising to her.

Jiang Xichu drew in a long breath, and then controlled her eyes, not having a response. In regards to this matter, she would never forgive Chen Man. But correspondingly, she would never leave Chen Man; she already couldn’t stand a second repetition. After a couple quiet moments, she returned the embrace, using her clinging, sticky manner to tell Chen Man her own mood and thoughts.

In the end, how many unimaginable matters she’d gone through, no one could say clearly; Zhuangzi dreaming of a butterfly, the butterfly dreaming of Zhuangzi, in the end, which memory was real was simply too hard to judge; but, at least, the interaction with this tranquil moment was held onto tightly in the hand, and this was truly incomparable. Laying on the bed, Jiang Xichu leaned against Chen Man’s shoulder, picking up locks of Chen Man’s hair, just curling them between her fingers; suddenly, she thought of a matter, and abruptly raised her head. “You still haven’t told me what you wanted to do buying that piece of land.”

Chen Man was startled, and turned her head, smiling. “Oh, this.” Not keeping her in suspense any longer, she replied, “You already don’t remember, but there was the place you lived when you were little; at that time, your family was still whole. I thought, that was your childhood years, and also the truly genuine home of yours, so I decided to buy it back, and rebuild it, and gift it to you.”

Who knew that Jiang Xichu, being that conflicted over her buying that piece of land, had made the matter so full of complications from the beginning.

Jiang Xichu in fact had remembered it; hearing that, she was silent for a while, and only after laid back down, muttering to herself, “Why spend that much money…isn’t it all just a waste.”

The corners of Chen Man’s lips rose; whether her Secretary Jiang truly was both wholeheartedly sincere or full of hypocrisy, she could tell just by listening at will; right now, it was clear that it was hypocrisy, and her heart was already incomparably happy, although her face was still aloof.

Chen Man felt that she had never been this happy before; she was just about to say a few more phrases of endearment, and let Jiang Xichu be as happy as her, when she saw Secretary Jiang suddenly raise her head. “Right, when I just went to get water from the kitchen, I realised that there were sleeping pills in the cupboard; having slept this well these past couple of days, you didn’t give me sleeping pills, did you?!”

Chen Man was silent: “...”

Was there enough time to admit wrongdoing now?

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