The door opened.
Ji Qikun entered the house and swapped his shoes for slippers at the entryway. He looked up, his gaze falling upon Wei Zhi’s back as she busied herself at the kitchen island.
“Hard at work again, honey?” He smiled as he approached the island, wrapping his arms around her from behind.
“I only just started preparing dinner. I didn’t expect you back so soon.” Wei Zhi forced a smile. “Go on and attend to your things first; dinner will be a while.”
Ji Qikun did not leave. Instead, he pressed closer, his low, raspy voice vibrating directly into her ear.
“I missed you.”
A large hand with well-defined knuckles slid beneath the hem of her skirt, gently stroking the warmth of her inner thigh. Wei Zhi’s entire body went rigid, her heart leaping into her throat, but the hand withdrew almost immediately.
Ji Qikun hooked his arm around her waist and kissed her cheek, his tone carrying a hint of playful reproach.
“Don’t you miss me?”
“…We only just parted ways.”
“True, we only just parted,” he murmured to himself. “But I’ve already started missing you. If I’d known, I would have had you wait for me a little longer so we could come home together.”
He released her and laughed.
“Take your time with the preparations. I’m going to the study.”
Ji Qikun entered the study, and that forbidden door closed before Wei Zhi’s eyes. She stood rooted to the spot for a long time, unable to move. Everywhere Ji Qikun had touched felt as though a cold, heavy serpent had slithered over her, leaving behind nothing but a shuddering trail of goosebumps and the lingering resonance of fear.
After dinner, Ji Qikun did something unusual: instead of returning immediately to his study, he stayed in the kitchen to help Wei Zhi tidy up.
As he tucked the clean dishes from the dishwasher into the cabinets, he said to her, “I finally have this weekend off. Whatever you want to do, your husband will accompany you.”
“Is everything at the company finished?” Wei Zhi asked, trying to maintain a casual tone as she wiped down the counters.
“Business is never truly finished, but I must make time for my wife.”
“If you’re busy, don’t worry about me. I don’t want to delay your important work.”
“Accompanying my wife *is* important work,” Ji Qikun chuckled. “A few new movies were released recently. Xiao Tang mentioned they were quite good. How about we go see a movie this weekend?”
“You and Secretary Tang are on such good terms that you’re exchanging movie recommendations now?”
“We spend a lot of time together, after all. We chat about everything. But work is still the priority; I never have to worry about Xiao Tang’s professional capabilities.”
“True. You spend more time with Secretary Tang than you do with me. I’m almost jealous.”
Wei Zhi said this intentionally.
“It’s just work. You are my only wife,” Ji Qikun said with a smile.
“You’d better mean what you say,” Wei Zhi replied, poking his chest with a finger and offering a smile of her own.
In that moment, they looked like the most ordinary of newlywed couples.
But she did not know his heart, and he did not know hers.
They were so familiar, yet such strangers.
That night, Wei Zhi relied on sleeping pills to drift off.
Sharing a bed while dreaming different dreams—perhaps that, too, was a most ordinary state for a married couple.
Over the weekend, Ji Qikun kept his promise and took Wei Zhi to see the latest films. Over the course of two days, they not only watched two movies but also visited two art exhibitions.
Amidst the dazzling array of artwork, Wei Zhi and Ji Qikun were simultaneously drawn to a massive oil painting that occupied nearly an entire wall.
It was a replica of Hieronymus Bosch’s *The Garden of Earthly Delights*, painted by a rising artist from Jiangdu City.
On the left side of the canvas, the Garden of Eden was lush and green. Adam and Eve stood together beneath a flourishing tree, innocent and pure. Sunlight filtered through the leaves in dappled patches, like a gentle heavenly caress upon the earth, the air thick with tranquility and harmony.
The center of the painting was an orgy of excess—a riotous feast where giant fruits, bizarre creatures, and naked human bodies intertwined to form an absurd, surreal spectacle. People frolicked in the water and reveled on the grass, laughter and song woven together.
The right side depicted Hell—an abyss of darkness and terror. Demons and monsters roamed free while suffering souls struggled in agony, their twisted bodies and hideous faces forming a series of hair-raising scenes. There was no light here, only the distant, roaring flames of karmic fire.
“Do you like Hieronymus Bosch?” Ji Qikun asked.
Wei Zhi shook her head. “I just like the feeling this painting gives me.”
“I like it too,” Ji Qikun said. “For our honeymoon, we can go to Spain. The original is kept in the Prado Museum in Madrid.”
He took Wei Zhi’s hand, feeling her fingers slowly tighten around his. His heart, however, flew back eight years.
“Baby, your style now is worlds apart from what it used to be.” Ji Qikun spoke reflectively.
Inside a studio bathed in the golden light of the setting sun, Mei Man—her long hair tied back loosely with a leather cord—stood with her back to him. She was painting the lakeside view outside the window.
The brilliant, shimmering lake became absurd and somber under her brush; even the shadows of the surrounding trees turned distorted and chaotic.
“Is it not good?” she asked anxiously.
Mei Man stopped her brush and turned around. Backlit by the sun, her face appeared as distorted and blurred as her painting.
“It’s magnificent.” Ji Qikun walked up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder, his eyes fixed on the canvas. “This is true art.”
“Maybe it’s because my aesthetics have changed.” Mei Man gazed at her work, a look of loss flickering across her face. “…I can’t paint the way I used to anymore. Now, I prefer the style of Hieronymus Bosch.”
“That’s a good thing,” Ji Qikun said tenderly. “A bright, cheerful soul is poison to an artist.”
“…Is it?” Mei Man murmured to herself, a frail smile appearing on her face.
“It is,” Ji Qikun said with certainty, increasing the pressure of his hand on her shoulder. “Since you like Hieronymus Bosch, when we get married, we’ll go to Spain for our honeymoon. Bosch’s masterpiece, *The Garden of Earthly Delights*, is in the Prado Museum.”
Mei Man: “…Okay.”
Wei Zhi: “…Okay.”
Vows never rot; that is why they can be recited to different people.
The next day, Ji Qikun woke up at six as usual. After returning from his run, he took a cold shower. Wei Zhi prepared crisp, delicious toast and coffee for him. After breakfast, she saw him to the door.
“Be careful on the road,” she said considerately.
“See you tonight,” Ji Qikun replied with a smile as he stepped out.
Listening to the sound of his footsteps fading away, Wei Zhi walked over to a floor-to-ceiling window. She waited. She waited for the black Bentayga to drive out of the underground garage, watching until the car vanished at the end of the street. Only then did she turn around and walk toward the forbidden door.
She entered the code—the password to the study.
Wei Zhi stood once more before the desktop computer. Facing the familiar prompt, "Favorite Artist," she did not hesitate this time. She typed: *SoulDominator*.
"Welcome back."
A cold greeting appeared on the screen.
He viewed himself as an artist, and they were all his works of art.
How arrogant. How cold-blooded. Just like those people looking down at *The Garden of Earthly Delights*, thinking themselves independent of the scroll when they had long been mired within it.
She opened "My Computer" and checked the files on the hard drives one by one.
On a local disk with a full terabyte of space, she found not only the four thousand gigabytes of emotional control materials from Wei Lai’s cloud drive but also numerous folders named with two or three capital letters.
“ZYW.”
“WN.”
“TJY.”
…
Wei Zhi clicked into a folder named “MM.” Inside were all sorts of indecent photos and explicit videos. Amidst the play of light and shadow, the faces of women were magnified and focused upon, while the person behind the lens remained perpetually hidden in the darkness. His face was invisible, his voice unheard; there were only those invisible eyes, following like a shadow—peeping, violating, and controlling everything.
Despite this, Wei Zhi recognized his identity from the parts of his body that occasionally appeared in the frame.
Her breathing grew rapid. An indescribable nausea rose from her stomach, surging toward her throat.
Finally, she could bear it no longer. She stumbled out of the study and rushed to the trash can in the living room. Her body shook violently, as if she might collapse at any moment. She dropped to her knees, clutching the bin tightly as suppressed sounds escaped her throat and tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Ugh—!”
The light around her seemed to dim in that moment. The dead silence of the room was shattered by her violent retching, only to quickly return to stillness. Her trembling hands gripped the edge of the trash can as if holding onto the last shred of her sanity. Surging tears dripped from her chin onto the carpet, blooming into damp stains.
Her body convulsed, but she did not cry out loud. She fought to suppress the fury within her—that scorching emotion churning in her chest that she was forced to push down, turning it into waves of agonizing cramps.
Those cruel images were like underwater weeds, wrapping tightly around her soul.
By the time she couldn't even bring up stomach acid, the only thing left in her body was a searing pain that felt as if it would tear her apart.
Wei Zhi used a tissue to wipe the grime from her mouth. Forcing herself up, she slowly walked back to the computer in the study. She forced her eyes wide, using her phone to record the discoveries on the screen. Her phone’s memory wasn't enough, so she immediately purchased a high-capacity mobile hard drive and had a courier deliver it.
The transfer of one terabyte of files took 3.7 hours. When it was complete, she restored everything in the study to its original state and replaced the trash bag in the living room.
After careful consideration, she placed the hard drive into a sealed bag and dropped it into the toilet tank.
The rippling water swallowed the evidence of his crimes, but the scars scorched by karmic fire would never disappear. Wei Zhi sat on the toilet lid, her body seemingly losing its connection to her soul. She was still inside her body, yet she could not control the tremors that ran through her, down to her fingertips.
Her phone vibrated, the screen displaying the landline number for the water station.
On the first attempt, the phone slipped through her trembling fingers. It was only on the second try that Wei Zhi managed to bring it to her ear.
“…Hello?”
“Zheng Tianxin has arrived at the water station. When are you coming over?” Tan Mengyan asked.
Wei Zhi did not speak immediately.
“No one will blame you, Xiao Zhi,” her mother’s voice echoed in her mind once more. “We all know you did your best.”
If one does not die of exhaustion, how can it be called doing one's best?
What she desperately sought was not a successful escape for one person, but redemption for everyone.
To that end, she had sacrificed everything, staking it all on this path.
“I’m coming now,” she said hoarsely, then hung up the phone.
She would never retreat.
***
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