YUAN SHENG
Chapter 08
The air in the rented apartment was as silent as death. The only sound left was the constant fireworks of New Year’s Eve, rising into the sky, exploding, and filling the air with deafening cracks.
Chen Huai’s gaze remained fixed on the words in the diary. Every sentence was a recreation of what had happened in the photographs from the past few days, even his thoughts at the time rendered in painstaking detail.
It seemed Qin Yao was quite bewildered too. She circled the diary several times, muttering, “I don’t know what’s going on either. Shouldn’t my memories from before have appeared? How did it become all this...?”
After living for so many years, all sorts of strange things had suddenly crowded together. First, this little thing had flown out of the wardrobe. Then he discovered that he could no longer clearly remember what his grandfather and mother looked like. And finally, he had ended up with such a strange diary.
Chen Huai could not figure out what kind of story could possibly connect all these things together. It was simply impossible to explain, enough to give anyone a headache.
No matter how many times he turned the notebook over and over, there were no more words after that. Qin Yao stopped him. “Hey, hey, stop messing with my notebook. What if you tear it?”
Chen Huai inhaled, then exhaled, and tossed the notebook back onto the table, saying that ever since he had met Qin Yao, nothing good had happened.
He straddled the stool, resting his chin on the backrest. “There’s nothing about your memories in the diary, so what can we do next?”
Qin Yao thought for a long time. Outside the window, clusters of fireworks burst open one after another. After a minute and a half, they died down, only for another round to ignite farther away, one string following another without end. That point of brilliant light and shadow passed through the dust-covered window and fell onto the desk, onto the tip of Chen Huai’s nose and the dark depths of his lacquer-colored eyes.
“I don’t know what’s going on anymore either. After all, I was counting on the diary to recover my memories.” She spoke slowly. “Since that’s the case, there’s only one way.”
“What way?”
“Just like you found Grandpa and Mom, I need to find my relatives and get information about myself from their memories.”
Chen Huai closed his eyes for a moment, feeling exhausted. He arched his back against the chair. “You don’t remember anything. How are you going to find your relatives? Am I supposed to draw your portrait and put it up on the streets looking for your family?”
“No. I still remember one important thing.” Qin Yao’s brows drew tightly together, and with a solemn, righteous expression, she said, “I remember which hospital I’m lying in right now.”
Chen Huai was silent for two seconds. He stared straight at her. “You’re not dead yet?”
Although she was talking about something like this, Qin Yao did not look sad in the slightest. Her tone was strangely calm. “I’m near death. I’ve only got one breath left keeping me hanging on.”
She turned around and quietly watched the fireworks growing farther and farther away outside. People were always more prone to melancholy and empathy late at night. Chen Huai stared at this lonely little flame for a long time, lost in thought, and then heard her voice.
“Even though I don’t know whether I’ll survive in the end, no matter what, I don’t want to forget those people.”
She said that sentence again: “Because people prove that they exist through their memories.”
A few seconds later, Qin Yao yawned. She looked a little tired, but still muttered to herself, “Have you seen Coco?”
Chen Huai said he had. He paused for two seconds, then turned his head away before he could bring himself to say, “Don’t worry for nothing. Aren’t you going to find your relatives? Someone will remember you, one way or another.”
And if nothing else, he would remember that there had once been traces of her existence in this world.
Although he might not live much longer himself either. At worst, once he went down there, he could say hello again... Besides, compared to Qin Yao, Chen Huai was the one who should be more worried about whether anyone would remember him after he died. Probably no one would even arrange a grave for him. They would just cremate him and scatter his ashes into the sea.
He let out a long sigh, thinking that he really was meddling in other people’s affairs. He could barely keep himself alive, yet here he was worrying about Qin Yao.
There might still be photographs of his mother back in his hometown. He just did not know where that person had put them. After Sun Hongping died, that man had considered them inauspicious and burned quite a few things. He did not know whether he could still find even one photograph of Sun Hongping.
Once he found a photograph and saw everything, he would be able to die without a care.
Then all the suffering and misfortune of his life could finally come to an end.
“...”
On the day of the Spring Festival, Chen Huai wore a mask, pulled the hood of his down jacket over his head, and trudged through the piles of snow to the hospital Qin Yao had mentioned. Since it was a holiday, there were also more family members visiting than usual, all mindful of giving their sick relatives a little holiday warmth.
Downstairs at the hospital, there were even people pushing little tin carts selling dumplings. In the freezing snow and ice, they wore thick gloves, while water boiled on the stove, sending streams of steam billowing upward.
Qin Yao said she only knew that it was this hospital, but she was not sure which ward exactly. Chen Huai stared at her in silence. He did not even feel like speaking anymore.
She was probably feeling a little guilty too, because she kept burrowing into the collar of his clothes. Tucked against his abdomen, she had even become a little warmer, like a hand warmer.
Chen Huai lowered his head and looked at his slightly protruding stomach, then slowly shifted his gaze away, murmuring under his breath:
“...Enough. There really is no way around you.”
It would have been one thing if she were simply a spoiled little pest who threw tantrums and shamelessly refused to budge. But he could not even pick her up and give her a good squeeze. All he could do was let her order him around like a dog, and he was not even allowed to complain. Otherwise, she would sulk and hide inside the shell of the roly-poly toy, refusing to come out.
Chen Huai could only slowly make his way upward through the hospital building, quickly scanning the nameplates hanging outside each ward, searching for Qin Yao’s name. Finally, on the third floor, he saw the two characters “Qin Yao” on a nameplate. Only, the door was tightly shut.
He had only been standing at the door for less than five seconds when someone behind him asked, “Are you a family member of Qin Yao?”
The man was wearing a white lab coat, with a ballpoint pen tucked into the pocket over his chest. His name badge read “Cao Yu.” He was holding a booklet and looked like a doctor. He had probably been on duty the night before, judging by his disheveled hair and the short bluish stubble along his chin.
Chen Huai opened his mouth and began lying without batting an eye. “I’m her friend. I heard something happened to her, so I wanted to come by and visit.”
Cao Yu looked puzzled. “She’s been lying there for a year, and you only found out something happened to her now?”
“I was studying out of town before and never had the time. I could only come back once I was on holiday for the New Year. I came straight here today.” Chen Huai was quick to patch up his lie.
Cao Yu looked him up and down a few more times. Perhaps seeing that he looked young and was indeed about Qin Yao’s age, he believed him for the most part. As he twisted open the door handle, he said, “Her parents have barely come a few times. You’re quite thoughtful.”
Chen Huai followed him inside. Cao Yu bent down to adjust the IV drip rate, recording that day’s physical readings in the booklet. As he wrote with his head lowered, he said, “But she’s unconscious right now. Take a couple of looks and leave. Don’t stay too long.”
After saying that, Cao Yu did not hear a sound from Chen Huai for a long while. When he turned around, he saw him standing there with his brows furrowed.
Chen Huai squeezed Qin Yao, who was hidden against his abdomen, inwardly cursing his rotten luck. The thing lying on that bed was clearly a silver-colored human figure.
He had barely seen a few normal people these past few days. Instead, he kept running into ghosts.
“What’s wrong?” Cao Yu asked him.
Chen Huai stared at the silver figure on the bed and tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Nothing. It’s just my first time seeing something like this. It’s a little frightening.”
Cao Yu hooked the pen back into his pocket, utterly unsurprised. “Just a living dead person. It’s not like she’s become a ghost.”
After a pause of two seconds, he added in an extremely low voice, “The ghosts might actually be living better than she is...”
Qin Yao, inside Chen Huai’s down jacket, remained completely still. Chen Huai was silent for a moment before asking Cao Yu why he said that.
Cao Yu glanced once more at the person lying quietly on the bed. “Within the past year, her parents have only come twice. And even then, they only came because I called to urge them to come pay the hospital fees. The last time they came, as soon as they left me, they went to the family planning department and said they wanted to have another child.”
His voice grew softer and softer, as though he were mourning too. “You should know, right? She was already her parents’ second child. She had an older brother, and he died too.”
“People like that, I don’t even know how they have the nerve to...” Cao Yu suddenly realized that he had misspoken in front of an outsider and did not continue. The words that followed were all condensed into one long sigh.
The weather was too cold, so Cao Yu turned the air conditioner in the ward up a few more degrees, then closed the door and prepared to return to his office. Chen Huai stared at the door for a few seconds. Thinking of Qin Yao, he changed direction and followed him.
Because it was the Spring Festival, there were fewer people on duty in the department. Everyone had gone to eat lunch, leaving only Cao Yu in the office. He had just sat down when he saw Chen Huai following him to the doorway.
Cao Yu set the booklet on top of a pile of old books, his gaze falling on the computer. Without thinking much of it, he asked, “Is there anything else you want to ask? Come in and talk. Pull the door shut too. It’s chilly outside.”
Chen Huai turned around and closed the door. After walking closer, his gaze first fell on the pile of old books wedged between the bookends on Cao Yu’s desk. They all looked as though they had been read many times. The titles of several of them seemed familiar, as if he had seen them somewhere before, though they were all divided into upper and lower volumes.
He sat down. Cao Yu was updating the medical records in the hospital system. Chen Huai asked what exactly had happened to Qin Yao to leave her like this. Cao Yu said he did not know the specific details either.
“They said Qin Yao went to a family’s home to steal money and was caught red-handed by the owner. The person had been drunk at the time. The two of them got into a scuffle, and he beat her badly enough to leave her like this. She’s never woken up.”
Steal money? Chen Huai frowned when he heard that. This was nothing like something Qin Yao would do.
Her wishes were that simple. Even during the New Year, she had told Chen Huai there was no need to buy the more expensive firecrackers. She said it would be enough to buy a few boxes of snap pops for her to play with. She said her grandmother used to buy them for her mother like that during the New Year, and later her mother bought them for her.
Qin Yao remained curled up inside his clothes, still neither moving nor speaking. She was simply not as warm anymore, like a flame that had already burned itself out, with only a trace of warmth left behind.
After chatting for a few more moments, Cao Yu was unwilling to say anything else. Chen Huai politely thanked him, and Cao Yu stared at his books and fountain pen, saying flatly, “It’s nothing. An old friend’s son asked me to, saying he hoped I would do everything I could to wake her up, so I paid a little more attention to her.”
He suddenly looked as though he had become sad. Chen Huai did not continue asking. Qin Yao finally deigned to speak, saying only, “Let’s go.”
After leaving the heated room, they realized how cold it was outside. Chen Huai stood beside the floor-to-ceiling window and looked down. The dumpling seller was still there below. He breathed out a puff of air and watched the glass become covered in cold frost.
“Will you wake up?” he suddenly asked.
“I don’t know,” Qin Yao said. “Do you want me to wake up?”
“That’s hard to say.”
Qin Yao was just about to get angry when Chen Huai let out a very soft laugh. “But I don’t really want you to die.”
Sun Fusheng was dead. Sun Hongping was dead. He had originally planned to die too, but Qin Yao had stopped him.
Dying is so easy. Living is so hard.
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