When the two returned to Ji Qikun’s home, the moon, carrying the chill of early autumn, had already risen outside the wide floor-to-ceiling windows.
Because they were late for dinner, Wei Zhi took two steaks out of the freezer and used the microwave to defrost them quickly.
Ji Qikun unbuttoned the third button of his shirt and sank into the long sofa in the living room in a relaxed posture.
“My uncle said we should just go and register the marriage first, then hold the wedding ceremony in a couple of years. What do you think?”
“That’s fine.”
“For me, as long as I can marry you, it doesn’t matter whether there’s a ceremony or not.” Ji Qikun narrowed his eyes, a faint smile playing on his lips as he stared intently at Wei Zhi’s back as she stood before the kitchen island. “And you?”
The countdown on the electronic screen slowly ticked down, and the deep red steaks moved on the rotating turntable. The narrow space was filled with orange light, and the frost covering the flesh vanished before her eyes.
Wei Zhi took one last look at the meat as it gradually revealed its bright red original form, then turned to look at Ji Qikun.
“I feel the same, of course,” Wei Zhi said with a smile.
Ji Qikun rose from the sofa, walked to the island, and gently wrapped his arms around Wei Zhi from behind.
“Do you know how much I love you?”
Ji Qikun’s low, soft voice sounded in Wei Zhi’s ear. His warm breath was like dandelion seeds landing on her sensitive ear canal, triggering an instinctive physiological flinch.
He tightened his arms, leaving no room for that gap to escape.
“No matter what happens, I will never give up on you. Even if you were disfigured today, I would marry you without hesitation. Do you know why? Because I love you more than anyone else in the world,” he whispered. “You are my everything. And you?”
“I love you very much too—”
“Compared to my love for you, it’s not enough,” Ji Qikun said. “Sometimes, I feel it’s unfair. I love you so much, I give you everything I can, yet you don’t trust me completely. You haven’t opened your whole heart to me.”
“I’ve already given you my whole heart,” Wei Zhi said.
“Do you dare to prove it?”
“How?”
Ji Qikun released Wei Zhi, a thoughtful expression appearing on his face.
“Where is your phone?” He suddenly smiled.
Wei Zhi handed the phone to him without hesitation.
Since Ji Qikun had deleted her contact list twice, there were no traces of anyone else on her phone. Even if there had been, she was certain she had deleted them cleanly.
Ji Qikun did not check her contacts, however. Instead, he went straight to the recent calls and dialed the first unknown incoming number.
A moment later, the call was answered.
“…Hello? Dashanguan Police Station.” A young man’s voice came through the phone.
Ji Qikun turned the phone toward Wei Zhi, smiling as he signaled for her to speak.
“Hello… I’m Wei Zhi, I was there a few days ago,” Wei Zhi finally spoke.
“Ah, is there something I can help you with?”
“I wanted to ask if there’s any news regarding my brother?”
“Not yet. If we find anyone, we’ll notify you immediately.”
“…Alright.”
“Is there anything else?”
Wei Zhi glanced at Ji Qikun’s expression and said, “No, thank you.”
After hanging up, she thought it was over, but Ji Qikun dialed the second record in the call log.
The second, the third, the fourth…
Ji Qikun went through every call record from the last three days. They were nothing more than calls to the gallery’s finance office for work handovers or calls to the police station.
None of these fell under the private interactions Ji Qikun had forbidden.
He didn’t find anything that would make him angry, but he didn’t look happy either. On the contrary, Ji Qikun looked at Wei Zhi with a scrutinizing gaze, the luster in his dark eyes like the cold reflection on snakeskin.
“I did everything I promised you,” Wei Zhi said.
Wei Zhi had once wondered if Ji Qikun would truly be satisfied and become a normal lover if she followed his words completely.
Clearly, he wouldn't.
Even if she truly "proved" her love in his way, his heart remained like a bottomless abyss, devouring every life from which it could draw strength.
“It seems you didn’t care about your relationships with others to begin with,” Ji Qikun said.
The confusion in his eyes cleared, replaced by the high-and-mighty insight Wei Zhi was familiar with. He handed the phone back to her, clearly having lost interest in it.
“I just feel that compared to you, other people weren't important to begin with.” Wei Zhi maintained a calm smile.
Ji Qikun looked at her for a long time, his gaze lingering on her eyes and lips. She could even feel an unusual heat in his stare.
“Me too, baby.”
He lowered his head and kissed her lips gently.
“No one else matters.”
…
In the dead of night, Wei Zhi lay in bed, facing the balcony. She listened to the steady breathing beside her, staring unblinkingly into the darkness.
Since quitting her part-time delivery job, she had been troubled by a new problem.
She couldn't sleep, night after night.
She constantly replayed the events of the day, or even the long-buried past, searching for a sliver of opportunity she had failed to grasp at the time.
Most of the time, it was the scene of Wang Lin hanging herself while half-kneeling. Just as she managed to erase that cruel image, other painful memories would take its place.
Wei Zhi gazed into the darkness. At this moment, she was remembering what happened tonight. She felt as if she had returned to that moment, her soul detaching from her body and floating in mid-air, dispassionately watching herself like a marionette, forced to call everyone on her recent call list.
Only now did she lower the barriers in her body and emotions, chewing on the sense of shame that belonged to that moment.
At some point, she fell into a muddled sleep, returning to her shattered past in her dreams.
That seemed to be the first time her soul had detached from her body.
*Ah, so all pain comes from the body; my soul itself has no feelings,* her detached soul thought indifferently as it watched the little girl curled up in the corner after being beaten.
It sounded like magic, but it was something that truly happened to her.
It wasn't until many years later, in a psychiatric department, that she learned the formal name for this "magic."
“Depersonalization is one of the risk factors for your depression.”
Pale walls, a sympathetic doctor, the deafening chirping of cicadas, the overly lush green leaves outside the window, and a friend tightly holding her hand. Her memories of being sixteen were blurred, as if she had spent those years in a dream, leaving only scattered fragments.
Only that summer remained unforgettable.
“You will feel an unreal sense of detachment from your surroundings or your own body, as if you are just an observer. But that is only an illusion,” the female doctor said softly. “The more you escape reality, the less you can overcome it.”
Sixteen-year-old Wei Zhi’s first reaction was to laugh in spite of herself, and the confusion in the doctor’s eyes only heightened her sense of unreality.
“An illusion?” she murmured to herself.
What had saved her from harm and violence were not the people responsible for protecting her, but an illusion.
Was she the one who was sick, or was it this society that made an illusion her only salvation?
“Have you thought about suicide?” the doctor asked.
Wei Zhi didn't speak, so the doctor tried another way.
“Do you engage in self-harm?”
Wei Zhi didn't answer.
“Xiao Zhi, do you engage in self-harm?” the doctor asked again.
She woke up.
There was no one beside her; it was already light out.
After finishing breakfast, Wei Zhi called Ji Qikun. Only after obtaining permission to go out for sleeping pills did she drive to the Mental Health Center.
The car Ji Qikun had given her to drive was a Mercedes S-Class that had been parked in the underground garage for a long time. When Wei Zhi went to get it, a thin layer of dust lay on the hood.
She had never bought a car, but fortunately, she had her driver's license, and she hadn't forgotten what she had learned back then. Once she gripped the steering wheel, she quickly became familiar with the feeling of driving.
The female doctor who had diagnosed her with severe depression years ago had long since been promoted to the provincial hospital. Wei Zhi hadn't had a fixed psychiatrist since then; her only purpose in coming to the psychiatric department was to get medicine—all kinds of medicine.
The male doctor prescribing the medication seemed to have looked at her medical records and gently asked how her mood had been lately.
“Not bad,” she smiled.
Wei Zhi got her prescription for sleeping pills and walked out of the consultation room toward the pharmacy. At the medicine pickup window, she saw Zhang Kaiyang sitting on a blue plastic chair, waiting for his number to be called.
Neither had expected to meet the other here, but Wei Zhi was slightly less surprised by comparison.
Wei Zhi walked up to Zhang Kaiyang, who had already stood up, and gave a polite smile.
“What a coincidence.” She intentionally made a light joke. “We really did meet again somewhere else, though this place isn't much better than the police station.”
“…Why are you here?” Zhang Kaiyang’s expression was solemn.
“Can’t sleep. Came to get some sleeping pills.”
Wei Zhi openly showed him her prescription, and he actually read the words on it seriously.
“I showed you mine; shouldn't you show me yours?” Wei Zhi said half-jokingly.
Zhang Kaiyang hesitated.
Wei Zhi didn't press him. She sat down in the spot next to where he had been. After a moment, Zhang Kaiyang sat down as well.
The large screen displayed the names of people who could pick up their medicine; neither Wei Zhi nor Zhang Kaiyang were on the list.
The powerful cooling system made the entire health center feel like an ice cellar. Perhaps because it was Sunday, countless blue plastic chairs were occupied. The faces, young and old, were no different from the pedestrians outside the center. A middle-aged cleaning woman passed by with a soaking wet mop, leaving a trail of water droplets along the way.
Wei Zhi’s gaze followed those falling droplets when Zhang Kaiyang suddenly spoke.
“Depression.”
He was responding to Wei Zhi’s earlier question about his prescription.
Wei Zhi had already guessed as much, but she couldn't help but give him a surprised look.
“Is it strange?”
“No,” Wei Zhi said reflexively.
It was a hollow comfort. Judging by their mutual silence, Wei Zhi wasn't the only one who knew that.
“I guess I’m just too fragile,” Zhang Kaiyang said self-deprecatingly.
“I don’t think so.”
Wei Zhi’s blurting out of those words caught Zhang Kaiyang off guard; she could tell from the startled look in his eyes.
“For a long time, people have thought that soldiers and police officers are indestructible.” Wei Zhi paused, then continued, “The collective spirit might be so, but the individuals who make it up are just like ordinary people. They have emotions and desires, and they get sick just like anyone else, because they were ordinary people to begin with.”
People always tell patients with mental illnesses, ‘You need to be stronger,’ or ‘You should think about happy things more.’ It’s like telling a paraplegic patient, ‘Why don’t you get up and take a walk?’
They don't mean any harm, but these unintentional words lash out at the patient like a whip.
Wei Zhi had never told her family about her illness because she could guess what they would say.
*“What depression? You’re just too fragile! Young people these days get ‘depressed’ at the drop of a hat; it’s all Western nonsense! We didn't have that stuff in our day!”*
*“Ooh—‘Depression,’ the latest fashion accessory. Sis, why didn't I think of that?”*
Only Wang Lin would have been sad for her.
But she didn't want her to be sad.
She had tried her best to pull her head out of the swamp, struggling to move inch by inch toward the shore. All that suffocation and exhaustion was for the sake of a beautiful future with her mother.
But that had become sea foam, vanished and gone.
Even if she eventually got what she wanted, the perfect future she had envisioned would always be missing a piece. It was a scar left by love that would never disappear.
“…I didn't expect to be comforted by you in return,” Zhang Kaiyang said with a bitter smile. “Still, it’s somewhat my own problem; I haven't been able to adjust my mindset properly.”
He was silent for a moment, then asked:
“Is your insomnia related to Ji Qikun?”
“It started after my mother passed away.”
Zhang Kaiyang’s emotions were complex. He didn't know whether to feel relieved that her pain didn't stem from Ji Qikun, or saddened that Ji Qikun wasn't the only one draining her mental energy.
He clearly should have detached his emotional connections from his work, but he couldn't do it, nor was he willing to. No matter how much he saw, he could never become accustomed to the suffering of others.
That was why he was here.
Zhang Kaiyang’s name was called on the large screen, and he suddenly snapped back to reality.
“Goodbye,” Wei Zhi smiled.
Zhang Kaiyang looked at Wei Zhi and rose from the plastic chair. “Call me if there’s danger… whether it’s mental or physical.”
He spoke with hidden meaning, then turned to the window to get his medicine.
Wei Zhi watched him disappear into the crowd.
He was a good man, but Wei Zhi would never ask him for help.
Even when she discovered twenty-three GPS trackers in her bag, she hadn't thought of asking the police for help.
Because she was also a rat that feared the light, unable to walk beneath the sun.
…
One month later.
“My luck is fucking rotten! Again, again!”
Having lost another round, Wei Shan irritably pushed over the mahjong tiles in front of him, wanting to reshuffle. However, he was the only one of the four at the table moving.
“Why’d you stop? Keep going!” he shouted.
Sister Hu crossed her arms and rolled her eyes at him disdainfully. “You haven't even paid off what you owed last time, and now you’ve lost another two hundred. Do you even have the money to pay?”
“How do I not have money? My son-in-law leaks enough from between his fingers to keep a woman like you eating and drinking well for a whole year!”
Sister Hu sneered. “Oh, so impressive. Then pay us the money you owe for the tiles first.”
The other two joined in:
“Yeah, it’s only a few hundred yuan. Brother Wei definitely isn't short on cash.”
“Who’s short on cash? I’ve put all my money into fixed-term deposits at the bank. Just you wait, I’ll have my daughter transfer some to me.”
Amidst low snickers, Wei Shan took his phone and walked out of the mahjong parlor in a huff, dialing Wei Zhi’s number.
“Beep… beep…”
The call went through, but no one ever picked up.
Wei Shan then called Ji Qikun’s number; it was permanently unavailable.
He borrowed the mahjong parlor owner’s phone and called them both again. As if they knew it was him on the other end, both numbers rang but went unanswered.
He persisted in calling them, but his gambling buddies grew impatient and began leaving the parlor one by one.
“Hey, don't go!” Wei Shan hurried to stop them. “What time is it? Let’s play a few more rounds!”
“Play what? Don't call me next time if you don't have money.” Sister Hu crossly swatted Wei Shan’s hand away and walked off quickly with another player.
“Next time, next time. Call us when Brother Wei’s wallet is more convenient,” the remaining male player said.
The game broke up just like that.
Wei Shan had lost money and received a pile of mocking looks.
Wei Zhi and Ji Qikun’s heartlessness made him want to rush in front of them right now and have a massive fallout, but he didn't even know where Ji Qikun lived.
He refused to give up just like that. If he was having a hard time, he wouldn't let anyone else have it easy.
An hour later, Wei Zhi was woken by the vibration of her phone on the nightstand. She thought it was a call from Wei Shan and was about to hang up, only to find it was a call from the Dashanguan Police Station.
“…Hello?”
She had to take the call, so she turned on the bedside lamp.
“Yes… okay… okay… I understand. I’ll come over right now.”
Hanging up, Wei Zhi turned back to look at Ji Qikun. He had already opened his eyes and was watching her with an unreadable expression.
“I have to go to the police station…” Wei Zhi said. “My dad can’t find us, so he’s causing a scene at the station.”
“Xiao Zhi, this can’t go on.” He sat up and said calmly, “Are you going to let your father keep sabotaging our relationship?”
“I’ll make things clear to him.”
“Just making things clear isn't enough,” Ji Qikun said. “If you aren't ruthless, he’ll just come back to harass you again.”
Wei Zhi understood what he meant.
When Ji Qikun needed her to make a certain decision, he usually wouldn't give a direct order. Instead, he would ask her a question, wanting her to make the decision "voluntarily" so that he wouldn't bear any of the consequences.
“I will sever all ties with him,” she said.
***
**Glossary**
Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation
---|---|---
人格解体 | Depersonalization | A psychological state of feeling detached from one's own body or thoughts.
魏杉 | Wei Shan | Wei Zhi's father.
胡姐 | Sister Hu | A woman at the mahjong parlor.
大山关派出所 | Dashanguan Police Station | The local police station mentioned in previous chapters.
省医 | Provincial Hospital | Short for the provincial people's hospital.
