Paradise Island (3)
Tan Guhong woke to clear sunlight and a gentle sea breeze. Opening her eyes, she stared blankly for a long while at the blue sky and white clouds so close overhead, visible through the transparent ceiling.
It was as though she had lived through life and death, gone through a cycle of reincarnation, and suffered a break in her memories, leaving her unable for the moment to recall everything that had happened before.
She slowly sat up and looked around inside and outside the room. Nearby, the white curtains swayed in the breeze, while in the distance, the pool on the outdoor deck reflected the glittering light of the morning sun. Her mind gradually began to turn, and only then did she realize where she was.
She suddenly turned her head and found that there was no one beside her. The bed was cold. She did not know when he had woken up.
She wanted to get out of bed, but the moment she moved even slightly, an indescribable soreness rose from deep within her. The memories of last night came flooding back like a tide, and her face flushed faintly.
She casually picked up the bathrobe beside her and put it on. Then she got out of bed to look for Luo Jingming, but there was no sign of him anywhere, inside or outside. She stood at the edge of the deck outside, trying to look toward the beach in the distance, but still found nothing. She could not help frowning slightly.
The two of them had not brought any luggage in the first place, so she could not even tell whether his things were still there. The clock on the wall showed seven in the morning. There was still plenty of time before they were due to leave the ship, so she took out her phone and called him. Once, then again, and again. No one answered.
Suddenly, footsteps came in from outside the door. Her heart eased, and she turned around to greet the person.
“Where did you go...”
The rest of the words were abruptly swallowed back down.
The person who had come was not Luo Jingming, but Miss Lucy, her personal butler on the ship.
Lucy was carrying a tray laden with a sumptuous breakfast, smiling as she said,
“Miss Tan, you’re awake. Mr. Luo’s company had an unexpected emergency last night, and he had no choice but to go handle it. Before leaving, he specifically instructed me to come and collect you. Would you like to have breakfast now? The banana blossom salad and samosas here are delicious. You really must try them.”
Last night’s champagne glasses were still lying in the pool, clothes and bath towels were scattered all over the floor, and the bed was still a complete mess. The harsh morning sunlight shone directly before her, leaving all the disarray and embarrassment exposed with nowhere to hide.
Tan Guhong stood stiffly in place in silence for a moment before saying expressionlessly,
“I understand.”
……
After returning to the ship, Tan Guhong still did not see Luo Jingming. She took a quick shower, climbed into bed, pulled the covers over her head, and fell into a deep sleep.
Last night had been too exhausting, both physically and emotionally. She needed to make up for the lost sleep.
She slept so deeply that she lost all sense of day and night. Her dreams were fragmented, as though she were trapped in a nightmare. Her thoughts were only half clear. She always felt that she ought to get up, yet her entire body remained unable to move. With her eyes closed, countless people and events flashed past around her.
She even dreamed again and again that she had already awakened, then got out of bed, eaten, and continued the journey ahead, where all kinds of things happened, only for the dream to shatter again and for her to wake once more, repeating the cycle over and over. Like peeling an onion layer by layer, it was as though she had stepped into a labyrinth of time, or experienced countless parallel worlds.
Sometimes it lasted only as long as getting out of bed and getting dressed. Sometimes it lasted until the journey had already ended and she had returned to Beijing. Every little detail felt so real, as though it had truly happened, and somehow each one seemed perfectly natural, perfectly plausible.
But in none of those possibilities was there any Luo Jingming.
And yet, originally, there had been no Luo Jingming in her life either.
So, in the final dream, she finally came to a sudden realization and woke up completely.
She lay on the bed drenched in sweat, staring blankly at the chandelier on the ceiling, when she suddenly remembered a detail from last night.
At the very end, at the most crucial moment, he had suddenly stopped moving and remained still for a long time.
Confused, she had reached up to touch his cheek, only for him to catch her hand and place it against his lips, kissing it. He seemed to love this gesture dearly.
He spoke in a hoarse voice, slowly saying, “Is there anything you want to know? As long as you ask, I’ll tell you everything.”
She paused slightly and fell silent for a moment.
What would an ordinary person ask at a moment like this? Love, promises, the future? But none of those were what she wanted to know.
People in love always liked to speak of seas running dry and rocks crumbling, of the end of time and the end of the world. But what in this world could truly remain unchanged forever?
So she gave a light laugh and asked only a completely inconsequential question.
“I want to know, are you really allergic to alcohol?”
He paused, then laughed as well. “Really. My skin turns red, and I break out in a rash. If you don’t believe me, I’ll show you sometime.”
She wrapped her arms around him and smiled helplessly.
“All right. I believe you.”
As long as you say it, then I suppose I’ll believe you.
……
She let out a long sigh, turned over, and got out of bed. She went downstairs and opened the glass sliding door, stepping onto the balcony because she wanted to feel the warm sea breeze.
Only then did she belatedly realize that the cruise ship was still docked at Malé Port. It had not departed.
It was already three in the afternoon. The notifications on her phone only said that the voyage had been temporarily delayed due to weather conditions, with the departure time to be announced separately.
She was somewhat puzzled, but there was nowhere for her to investigate further. After sleeping for an entire day, her head was still groggy, and her body was still somewhat uncomfortable. So she simply lay down on the beach chair on the balcony, doing nothing, thinking of nothing, just staring blankly at the blue expanse of ocean before her, idly passing the time.
She did not know how much time had passed. Because the cabin faced east, she could not see the sun setting. She only felt the sky growing darker and darker, another dusk about to arrive.
Her mind had been somewhat unclear throughout the entire afternoon. She wanted to sleep but could not, wanted to wake but could not fully wake. Somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, with her eyes closed and her consciousness hazy, a hand suddenly touched her brow.
“Why didn’t you go inside to sleep?”
She gave a start and opened her eyes, looking at the person before her.
Luo Jingming had returned at some point. He was sitting beside her, gazing at her with a gentle smile.
She stared back at him expressionlessly for a moment. Neither of them said a word.
“You...”
She had just opened her mouth to say something when she suddenly yawned. Tears instantly welled up in her eyes, completely destroying the atmosphere.
He let out a sudden laugh and raised a hand to wipe away her tears.
“Sorry. Something suddenly came up at the company in New York last night. You were sleeping so soundly, I couldn’t bring myself to wake you. I promise it won’t happen again.”
Next time?
She gave a derisive laugh inwardly and looked at him with a half-smile.
“Do you know what kind of behavior this is? If you were a woman, I could barely convince myself that I’d encountered a fox spirit or female ghost. But you’re a man, so there’s only one profession I can think of: a gigolo.”
He was not annoyed in the slightest. Instead, he played along with her joke.
“Then were you satisfied with my service last night?”
She could not even be bothered to roll her eyes. She turned over to leave, only for him to press her back down, leaning over her.
He asked with a low laugh,
“Really angry?”
Was she really angry?
Perhaps she had been that morning. It had not only been anger, but also some other weak, unmentionable emotions.
It was a physiological instinct etched into the genes of female creatures, something there was no way to avoid.
But it was all over now. After waking from that sleep, it really was all over.
What were they to each other, anyway? What identity, what right did either of them have to be angry?
The premise they had relied upon to spend these past days so happily and pleasantly was nothing more than the fact that they were aboard this dreamlike cruise ship, asking nothing of the past and nothing of the future.
“Forget it.” She smiled lightly. “I’ll let you off. Next time you’re going to disappear, at least leave a note. I thought you’d fallen into the sea and been fed to the sharks.”
She said it all so casually, but the smile on his face slowly disappeared.
After remaining silent for a long while, he turned over and lay down beside her. The two of them gazed side by side at the empty expanse of sea before them, and neither spoke again.
Someone once said that being misunderstood is the fate of the person who expresses themselves. But once language is cast aside, can those exchanged glances, those entangled bodies, allow us to see through each other's hearts more truly?
He slowly reached out and held her. Not pulling her into his arms, but more as though he were nestling against her, his head buried against her neck and shoulder as he breathed deeply.
As though he were trying to draw some unknown strength from her.
She had never seen him show weakness like this before.
She noticed that he was indeed extremely tired. There was weariness between his brows, faint dark circles beneath his eyes. In this tropical country, in the height of summer, the skin of his body was actually cold.
In the end, she gave an almost imperceptible sigh. She reached out to embrace him in return, gently resting her head against the crown of his hair.
Only twenty-four short hours had passed, yet everything between them had been turned upside down.
Not long afterward, the cruise ship began to move. The Queen Anne left Malé and slowly sailed into the Indian Ocean, while the passengers aboard the ship cheered and continued their journey.
But Tan Guhong suddenly felt somewhat tired of it all.
Perhaps it was true that after emotions reached their highest peak, they really would inevitably fall back down. What goes up must come down, joy at its extreme turns to sorrow. No one could escape this damned law.
And so the human heart instinctively develops a kind of fear toward things that are too intense, too beautiful: roses in full bloom, dazzling fireworks.
Because we cannot know whether they will wither, whether they will be destroyed, in the very next second.
In ordinary life, it is always within endless stretches of monotony that we occasionally encounter a trace of happiness and delight, encounter something astonishingly brilliant, and only then can we hold onto it, unable to forget, savoring its memory for a long time throughout the mundane years that follow.
But this journey around the world had gathered all those beautiful moments together, extravagantly piling them before her. One instant followed another, one moment followed another. Amid this ultimate feast for the senses, a person could not help but grow somewhat numb, somewhat lightheaded, mistaking such joy, like an extravagant overdraft, for the norm.
Yet life was still the same life, lonely and desolate, stretching endlessly onward.
For all our lives, all we can possess are moments.
And those moments are far more fleeting than we imagine.
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