In the guest room, He Xiyan lifted the quilt. Sitting there leaning against the bedhead, she stared at the firmly closed window with blank eyes. Suddenly, she blinked her eyes, tears flowing from the corners of her eyes down her pale cheek, drop by drop.
Some vague pictures flashed through her mind.
Seawater, cliffs, sunset, man with a tiger tattoo on his arm, and…
What else? He Xiyan knocked on her head, but still could not remember.
Chen Jiahang was right. She indeed had committed suicide. When she woke up on the beach, the first man she saw was called Brother Hui. At that time, the man kept patting her face and pressing her stomach to wake her up so that they could sell her.
She committed suicide. She did.
A kind of inexplicable sadness surged in her heart. He Xiyan hugged her knees and all of a sudden, she sobbed in a low voice.
She cried. Though she could not recall the past, at the moment, she indeed felt sad and sorrowful beyond words.
She committed suicide. She didn’t know why she would end her life in this way before she lost her memory. But she could guess that she must have suffered something unbearable, thus losing the courage to live.
As for her baby, it must have gone, she thought. Otherwise, she would not die alone with her child left behind.
She couldn’t find any reason why she committed suicide besides the loss of her child.
He Xiyan stroked her belly. At this time, her face was unusually pale and her heart was hollowed out meanwhile.
She looked blankly at the direction of the window, at the tall buildings outside, and at the city she had never visited before.
At this moment, she seemed to feel that she did not belong to the world.
—-
At this time, the door was pushed open.
Chen Jiahang came in sweating. He was carrying a plastic bag in his hand, in which there was food he had just bought in a shop across the street.
Not familiar around here, he could only find a nearby restaurant and packed two sets of rice and dishes.
He put the food on the TV cabinet, then went to the bed and looked at his wife who was sitting on the bed.
He was so distressed when seeing the tears flowing from her eyes. He then grasped her shoulder anxiously with both hands.
“Yanyan…” His lips moved, calling her name in silence. Then he took one of her hands and wrote the words he wanted to say in her palm:
“Don’t be sad, will you? The doctor wrote in the notebook that your illness is not serious, as long as you eat more nutritious food. Don’t worry. I won’t let you farm in the fields from now on and I’ll do the things at home. You just rest. Besides, you go and buy some tonic with the money we make, then you’ll be better.”
Chen Jiahang wrote word by word, several sentences in a row. After that, he looked at her sympathetically. He still didn’t understand why she was so upset, only knowing that she had been so after seeing the doctor in the afternoon.
So he thought she must be sad due to her illness.
He Xiyan pressed her lips tightly. Instead of responding, she simply looked at the man in front of her, a trace of heartache and inexplicable sorrow flashing through her eyes.
Every time seeing him treating herself well, she felt bad, because she didn’t know how to deal with the awkward relationship between them.
Seeing her not crying anymore, Chen Jiahang hurriedly brought over the packed meals, including a rib soup with corn , a stir-fried beef, and scrambled eggs with tomatoes as well as scrambled cabbage.