One Night, One Day, One Year, One Lifetime was to have ended with He Yujin’s death, but the author had a dream after and her muse returned. The following extra story, told from Gao Fei’s perspective, is a continuation on Gao Fei’s life after He Yujin’s death.
Gao Fei’s story was my favourite part of the book, and the main reason why I have chosen to translate this. Hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did.
EXTRA STORY: This Love Transcends Time and Space
Ten
She said, when the sun rose, not to look at her; when the moon rose, not to look at her.
So, I did as she wished.
When the sun rose, I did not look at her.
When the moon rose, still, I did not look at her.
I sat there. She remained in my arms the whole time. Her body was not cold, the hint of warmth remaining, but there were no longer any movements from her. Her head hung low, and I lifted it, yet it bowed low once more. I lifted her head again. I repeated this three times, until I no longer had the willpower to continue.
When the sun rose once again, I carried her, placed her in the seat beside me, and fastened the seat belt for her. I drove the car home, and laid her down on the bed next to me.
Suddenly, I did not know what I was doing.
I paced back and forth within the room. I thought I should make a call, to inform the others that Ah Yu was dead, and begin to make arrangement for her funeral. The first call I made was to my mother, but the person who answered was my father.
I sat by the bedside. Behind me was He Yujin, her face peaceful.
Tonelessly, I said, 'Father, Ah Yu is dead.'
Across the phone, my father was silent. For a long moment, he did not say a word, but the phone was soon transferred to my mother's hands. She had already learned from my father what had happened.
She said, 'Gao Fei, make a trip back home!'
I assented; hung the call.
I thought I needed someone's help in arranging the funeral, so I made a call to my colleagues. All of them were in disbelief, but without exception, they murmured their condolences and expressed their sympathies.
I changed my clothes and prepared to leave the house. As I stood at the foot of the bed and looked at Ah Yu, I saw that her makeup was still intact, but her face was pale, devoid of any colour. I placed the book of poems she had given me by the bedside table. Within the book was the last verse of Tsangyang Gyatso's poem and a photo Ah Yu had taken of herself. In that photo, the breeze had fluttered against her hair, and her eyes shone with happiness as she smiled blissfully.
My fingers traced her photo as I stared at her, my heart silently repeating the words: That moment, I ascended to the Heavens and became immortal, not for an eternal life, but to watch over you for a lifetime of happiness and peace…
I thought that in the end, this was only her wish.
I placed her photo down, and knotted my tie the way she often helped me. I had not slept for a day and night, and no longer had the energy needed to drive the car. I walked out of my estate and called for a cab, then travelled from the east of the city to arrive at the west. Because of the traffic jam, this took me a whole two hours.
I used my keys to unlock the door. My parents were sitting on a couch in the living room, their white hair evidence of their years. Held within my mother's hands was an envelope of documents, and as she glanced at me, her expression was strange. I received the document. It was a property deed as well as a certificate indicating the transfer of the rights to a property. My parents had become the new owner of Ah Yu's ancestral home.
My mother said to me, 'I don't know when she bequeathed this to us, but now that she has passed on, you should take this and decide how you wish to handle this. We cannot accept this.'
When I left their house, I did not bring the property deed along with me.
The instant the doors to the elevator closed, the image of my first meeting with Ah Yu surfaced in my mind.
That year, with a bright smile, she had said to me, 'Hi, how are you! I'm He Yujin, let's be friends.'
But she did not simply become my friend. She even destroyed my family and ruined my relationship to become my wife.
Just as I had said to her, some people could be so repelling while they were around you, but when they left, they would also cause an unbearable ache in your heart.
I did not know that the people would arrive so quickly. When I returned home, there were already many men dressed in black standing by the doorway. Within their hands was a large chest. When they saw me, they greeted me and said, 'Mr Gao, we are the people the late Mr He have instructed in arranging for Miss He's funeral.'
My mouth was dry, and I took a glass of water by the sink. Ah Yu's father was truly more pragmatic than she was. He had long anticipated this day, convinced that I would never love his daughter, and had already made all the necessary arrangements for Ah Yu to prevent her from suffering the slightest bit of grievance.
I stared as they cleaned Ah Yu's body in front of me, changing her clothes, drawing her makeup. Ah Yu's own makeup was carefully erased by them, and then there were professionals who helped her to powder her face. I looked at Ah Yu who remained incomparably still, quieter than she had ever been in the past.
Many people came to pay their last respects to Ah Yu, and this made me surprised. Among the people helping with her funeral, there included a man named Chu Yun. That man's features were clear and defined, his posture straight and firm. He was in a daze as he stared blankly at Ah Yu's corpse, tears falling rapidly from his eyes.
Her body was not cremated. It had been the wish of Ah Yu's father for her to be buried beside him. He was such a father - one who continued to love and protect his daughter even after his death.
Very soon, the lawyers arrived at our house to announce her will. Only then did I think that, perhaps, Ah Yu was not as absentminded as I had imagined her to be. She had already made the necessary arrangements for everything, and there was no need for me to interfere. I only needed to receive news of her death, just like how one absorbed the latest news from the television every day.
She did not leave me anything. The company, shares, bonds, and all the other estates were left to Chu Yun, the man who had cried as he stared at her body. Her cash and bank deposits were left to the orphanage; her ancestral home to my parents. She did not make any arrangements for our current home. All the lawyer said was that I had the right to continue living here, and could enter and leave as I pleased.
But I did not.
The third day after Ah Yu died, I carried my luggage and left, bringing with me nothing from my marriage.
And the third year after Ah Yu died, I began my second marriage.
***
There is no need to guess. My second wife was my first love, that is to say, the other half of the pair of lovers Ah Yu had tried her best to separate.
In the years I spent with Ah Yu, she had never dated again. Perhaps she had been waiting for me.
That day, she had been dining with the factory director of a steel company. During the dinner, she had too much to drink, and as she left, she met with a few thugs who spoke insolently as they tried to take advantage of her. Yet she retained a sense of rationality and dialled my number, pleading for me to pick her up.
As a man, under such a circumstance, it was expected that I could not decline.
I drove my car over. Under the brilliance of the streetlamps which illuminated the entire alley, I saw her crouched by the roadside, exhaustion written all over her face. Her hair was in a mess, and it was clear that they were the remnants from her struggles.
I walked over. She raised her head to look at me, her eyes filled with tears, looking extremely delicate and pitiful.
I bent down, wanting to comfort her. But before I could say a word, she had already leapt forward, catching me off-guard as she hugged me tightly.
Within my arms, she cried, just like a young child who elicited one's pity.
Then, she said to me, 'Fei, let's get back together, can we? We've already missed five years of our lives. We don't have another five years to waste.'
In this world, she was the only person who called me Fei. This seemed like an extremely intimate way to address me.
Ah Yu would only call me Gao Fei, calling me by the entirety of my surname and given name. Even when we made love, she would still call me in this manner, as though she could not help the careful way with which she spoke to me.
I held her in my arms and said, yes, let us be together.
A man should be responsible, just as a woman should possess self-love.
The next day, I went to a jewellery shop and bought a three-carat diamond ring. I thought that it was a little overboard, but everything the saleswoman said rang with logic and persuasion, as though by buying the ring, I would also be buying the entirety of all the happiness and bliss in this world.
So, I let the saleswoman help me wrap the ring up. I thought to myself that Ah Yu had been foolish. If she had changed our white-gold ring to such a three-carat diamond ring, our story might have ended differently.
I went to her condominium. This was the apartment we had lived together five years ago.
I passed her the ring, then bent down on one knee as I knelt on the floor. Without difficulty, I told her I loved her and wished for us to live together.
She was wearing an oversized Winnie the Pooh pyjamas, her hair tousled and let loose. She stared at me in disbelief.
But she immediately cried, and said to me that she was willing.
I removed the ring from its box and slid it over her slender fingers. Her measurements were the same as it had been five years ago, so the ring fitted her perfectly. Till this date, I did not know the measurements of Ah Yu's ring finger, and now that she had taken our wedding ring with her to the grave, in this lifetime, I would never know them.
We held our wedding in a hotel and attracted several well-wishers. When the pastor recited the pledges of our marriage, I saw the tears shining within her eyes, contrasting beautifully with her rosy cheeks, an enchanting image.
Women loved to cry, just like how men loved to smoke. Both were vices. Women used their tears to intoxicate men, then used their tears to drown themselves in their sorrow after they were abandoned by men.
I raised my hand and wiped her tears away. I heard her pour her feelings out by my ears: Fei, I love you.
I nodded and smiled gently. In front of all the guests, I pledged my love towards my wife.
We held our honeymoon in Hainan. We had fun, amused ourselves, and laughed to our heart's content. Two weeks later, we returned from Hainan, and moved into a new house. This was a house we had bought together, and it was incomparable to the luxurious house Ah Yu had spent a large sum of money to buy. But neither was our house small; it was 148 square meters, an extremely auspicious number.
On our new bed, I kissed my bride. I was indecent, but I did not need to be decent. I recited obscene jokes to her, and she raised her slender fists to hit my chest, saying that I was mean and crude.
So, I really did a lot of indecent things to her.
Three months after we wed, slowly, our lives returned to their old days of peace.
***
And ten months after we wed, I began to have an illusion, an uneasy feeling.
I did not know if it were a mere hallucination on my part, but it did happen.
Each time I was around Jiajing, I began to feel a sense of dissociation, as though I did not truly exist in this world.
Unlike Ah Yu, with my wife, I was always the one who took the initiative. I was extremely invested. They were both my wives, but she enjoyed more than Ah Yu ever did. She was the person who was pleasured, but in my marriage with Ah Yu, Ah Yu was the one who took the initiative, and the one who endured. There were only a couple of letters of difference between the words pleasure and endure, but their meanings were worlds apart.
In the past, I used to think that Ah Yu deserved this. If she did not touch me, then she would never have to endure this. I hated her. Even if I did not hate her body, I was still repelled by it.
But I did not expect that each time as I closed my eyes, my hands, wandering across the body of my wife, would transform into Ah Yu's slender fingers as they traced my body. Within the darkness of the night, under the warmth of the blankets, Ah Yu often clung onto me unabashedly as she chattered on and on, just like a small firefly whose light could never be extinguished. Even if I ignored her advances, she did not grow bashful, and made straight for the main topic.
In the year after she died, I often thought of this question: if Ah Yu had never taken the initiative, would I have taken her? After the night we wed, I loathed her, hated the fact that she was a dishonourable person to have resorted to drugging a man.
But I never came to an answer, so I no longer thought about this question.
As the weeks passed, I began to feel less invested, and attributed this to my fatigue. My job had been taxing in recent days, so I made the decision to not touch my wife for two weeks, and only lifted the prohibitions I had placed upon myself the night my company succeeded in closing their negotiations.
It was just as I had expected: I was only exhausted.
That night, the two of us were incomparably harmonious. After my wife was satisfied, she smiled at me, just like a contented little spirit. I pinched her small face and smiled, pleased with myself.
I thought that I should have already forgotten Ah Yu. Even if there was truly something between us, I should have already forgotten them.
When winter finally arrived, something big happened. The place I once lived with Ah Yu had been trespassed.
I was at work when I received the call from the police. They asked if I were the owner of the house. I said that I was not, but as they still insisted for me to make a trip down, I had no choice but to drive my car and head for my old house.
The place had not changed much. It was as quiet and deserted as it had always been, devoid of liveliness.
I parked my car. At the doorway, a few police cars had already arrived. As I walked in, I saw that the antiques and famous artworks which had once decorated the living room were no longer there. The home which had once been carefully decorated by He Yujin had fallen from its days of beauty.
The police asked me how long it had been since someone lived within this house.
I said, nearly four years. There was still one month and seven days before it would be the fourth year since Ah Yu died.
He wanted me to check what valuables had been stolen, and to make an estimation of the worth of the missing items. I surveyed the room, then shook my head at the police officer. I told them I did not know the worth of the stolen items.
The slightly plump policeman stared at me, the expression in his eyes strange as he said in a tone full of disbelief, 'You've stayed here for two years - how could you be unclear of the assets within this house?'
I shook my head. There was no reason for me to lie.
I told them I could give a broad estimation, and the policeman had no choice but to resign himself to fate as he accepted my suggestion. Then he arranged for a much younger policeman to follow behind me as I made a mark of the missing items. There were several rooms within this house, and as I entered them one by one, I thought that this was the first time I had truly observed this house. Of course, I could not say exactly how many items had been stolen.
I stayed the longest at the bedroom. This was the room I was most familiar with. The safe deposit box had already been prised open, and nothing remained within. The young policeman asked me what it contained, and I said that perhaps there used to be jewellery in there. Ah Yu had jewellery, but I had never known where she had kept them. The policeman asked me for an estimation of their worth, but I could only continue to shake my head.
At last, in their powerlessness, the policemen could only depart. Before they left, they said to me that there were few clues in this case, and the perpetrator behind the crime seemed to be experienced, for he had not left any trace of evidence. They were afraid that it would be a long time before they could make headway in the case.
I knew the unspoken meaning behind their words, that they had few hopes in solving the case. Even if the stolen items were resold on the black market, the police would remain clueless, for there was no one to tell them exactly what had been stolen.
I nodded, then sent them off. I thought that this was my fault, so there was no reason for me to make life difficult for the police.
I decided to tidy up the house. After the entry of the policemen and the trespass of the thief, the place now looked a little disorderly. It took me a long time, and I had never known that it would be so difficult to clean a house. After I tidied the entire house, I sat on the sofa and lit a cigarette. Hung high up in the walls across me was a framed wedding photo. This photo was of no value to the thief, for which thief would steal a person's wedding photo?
The photo was extremely large, so large that within it, the people seemed to have been distorted. I wanted to laugh at Ah Yu. We were not blind, so why had she enlarged the photo to such proportions? But I did not laugh, for I seemed to have receive some kind of message.
I walked back to our bedroom. Within the room was Ah Yu's funeral portrait, her smile as bright as it had always been. I was within half a meter of her, and she was within my reach.
I laid on the bed, a little tired after spending a day at work before suffering through the debacle with the police. I decided not to return, to s[pend the night here instead. I made a call to Jiajing, and she said she understood. Her considerate manner was something Ah Yu could never have achieved.
The moment I laid on the bed, I fell asleep, on the side of the bed I had always slept in.
But I did not expect my dreams. I did not know why, but the dream was extremely realistic, as though I had been wishing for it to happen, using the entirety of my lifetime in awaiting its arrival. In the first place, I had only just been thinking that Ah Yu would never be able to understand what it meant to be considerate, but in the next moment, I was thinking of her.
I extended a hand, brushing past the velvet blankets to touch the place Ah Yu once slept.
It was unbearably real. I called Ah Yu. This time, I was really the person who took the initiative, burying my head deep within the blankets as I arched my body over hers, bringing my face close to her waist, and down.
My entire body heated up. I held Ah Yu tightly within my arms. She stared into my eyes, smiling mischievously.
Within the dream, I was floating, my mind in a haze. I knew that none of these were real. Ah Yu had already been gone for four years, her flesh long decomposed beyond recognition, melding into the earth as she faded away. So the body beneath mine could never be real, but still, I did not wake from my dreams.
It had been years since I last dreamed, let alone an erotic dream.
Only, when I woke up the next morning, my fingers brushed upon a cool wetness. I had achieved climax within that dream –
In the fourth year since Ah Yu's death; in the first year of my new marriage.
In that dream, with He Yujin…
One Night, One Day, One Year, One Lifetime was to have ended with He Yujin’s death, but the author had a dream after and her muse returned. The following extra story, told from Gao Fei’s perspective, is a continuation on Gao Fei’s life after He Yujin’s death.
Gao Fei’s story was my favourite part of the book, and the main reason why I have chosen to translate this. Hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did.
EXTRA STORY: This Love Transcends Time and Space
Ten
She said, when the sun rose, not to look at her; when the moon rose, not to look at her.
So, I did as she wished.
When the sun rose, I did not look at her.
When the moon rose, still, I did not look at her.
I sat there. She remained in my arms the whole time. Her body was not cold, the hint of warmth remaining, but there were no longer any movements from her. Her head hung low, and I lifted it, yet it bowed low once more. I lifted her head again. I repeated this three times, until I no longer had the willpower to continue.
When the sun rose once again, I carried her, placed her in the seat beside me, and fastened the seat belt for her. I drove the car home, and laid her down on the bed next to me.
Suddenly, I did not know what I was doing.
I paced back and forth within the room. I thought I should make a call, to inform the others that Ah Yu was dead, and begin to make arrangement for her funeral. The first call I made was to my mother, but the person who answered was my father.
I sat by the bedside. Behind me was He Yujin, her face peaceful.
Tonelessly, I said, 'Father, Ah Yu is dead.'
Across the phone, my father was silent. For a long moment, he did not say a word, but the phone was soon transferred to my mother's hands. She had already learned from my father what had happened.
She said, 'Gao Fei, make a trip back home!'
I assented; hung the call.
I thought I needed someone's help in arranging the funeral, so I made a call to my colleagues. All of them were in disbelief, but without exception, they murmured their condolences and expressed their sympathies.
I changed my clothes and prepared to leave the house. As I stood at the foot of the bed and looked at Ah Yu, I saw that her makeup was still intact, but her face was pale, devoid of any colour. I placed the book of poems she had given me by the bedside table. Within the book was the last verse of Tsangyang Gyatso's poem and a photo Ah Yu had taken of herself. In that photo, the breeze had fluttered against her hair, and her eyes shone with happiness as she smiled blissfully.
My fingers traced her photo as I stared at her, my heart silently repeating the words: That moment, I ascended to the Heavens and became immortal, not for an eternal life, but to watch over you for a lifetime of happiness and peace…
I thought that in the end, this was only her wish.
I placed her photo down, and knotted my tie the way she often helped me. I had not slept for a day and night, and no longer had the energy needed to drive the car. I walked out of my estate and called for a cab, then travelled from the east of the city to arrive at the west. Because of the traffic jam, this took me a whole two hours.
I used my keys to unlock the door. My parents were sitting on a couch in the living room, their white hair evidence of their years. Held within my mother's hands was an envelope of documents, and as she glanced at me, her expression was strange. I received the document. It was a property deed as well as a certificate indicating the transfer of the rights to a property. My parents had become the new owner of Ah Yu's ancestral home.
My mother said to me, 'I don't know when she bequeathed this to us, but now that she has passed on, you should take this and decide how you wish to handle this. We cannot accept this.'
When I left their house, I did not bring the property deed along with me.
The instant the doors to the elevator closed, the image of my first meeting with Ah Yu surfaced in my mind.
That year, with a bright smile, she had said to me, 'Hi, how are you! I'm He Yujin, let's be friends.'
But she did not simply become my friend. She even destroyed my family and ruined my relationship to become my wife.
Just as I had said to her, some people could be so repelling while they were around you, but when they left, they would also cause an unbearable ache in your heart.
I did not know that the people would arrive so quickly. When I returned home, there were already many men dressed in black standing by the doorway. Within their hands was a large chest. When they saw me, they greeted me and said, 'Mr Gao, we are the people the late Mr He have instructed in arranging for Miss He's funeral.'
My mouth was dry, and I took a glass of water by the sink. Ah Yu's father was truly more pragmatic than she was. He had long anticipated this day, convinced that I would never love his daughter, and had already made all the necessary arrangements for Ah Yu to prevent her from suffering the slightest bit of grievance.
I stared as they cleaned Ah Yu's body in front of me, changing her clothes, drawing her makeup. Ah Yu's own makeup was carefully erased by them, and then there were professionals who helped her to powder her face. I looked at Ah Yu who remained incomparably still, quieter than she had ever been in the past.
Many people came to pay their last respects to Ah Yu, and this made me surprised. Among the people helping with her funeral, there included a man named Chu Yun. That man's features were clear and defined, his posture straight and firm. He was in a daze as he stared blankly at Ah Yu's corpse, tears falling rapidly from his eyes.
Her body was not cremated. It had been the wish of Ah Yu's father for her to be buried beside him. He was such a father - one who continued to love and protect his daughter even after his death.
Very soon, the lawyers arrived at our house to announce her will. Only then did I think that, perhaps, Ah Yu was not as absentminded as I had imagined her to be. She had already made the necessary arrangements for everything, and there was no need for me to interfere. I only needed to receive news of her death, just like how one absorbed the latest news from the television every day.
She did not leave me anything. The company, shares, bonds, and all the other estates were left to Chu Yun, the man who had cried as he stared at her body. Her cash and bank deposits were left to the orphanage; her ancestral home to my parents. She did not make any arrangements for our current home. All the lawyer said was that I had the right to continue living here, and could enter and leave as I pleased.
But I did not.
The third day after Ah Yu died, I carried my luggage and left, bringing with me nothing from my marriage.
And the third year after Ah Yu died, I began my second marriage.
***
There is no need to guess. My second wife was my first love, that is to say, the other half of the pair of lovers Ah Yu had tried her best to separate.
In the years I spent with Ah Yu, she had never dated again. Perhaps she had been waiting for me.
That day, she had been dining with the factory director of a steel company. During the dinner, she had too much to drink, and as she left, she met with a few thugs who spoke insolently as they tried to take advantage of her. Yet she retained a sense of rationality and dialled my number, pleading for me to pick her up.
As a man, under such a circumstance, it was expected that I could not decline.
I drove my car over. Under the brilliance of the streetlamps which illuminated the entire alley, I saw her crouched by the roadside, exhaustion written all over her face. Her hair was in a mess, and it was clear that they were the remnants from her struggles.
I walked over. She raised her head to look at me, her eyes filled with tears, looking extremely delicate and pitiful.
I bent down, wanting to comfort her. But before I could say a word, she had already leapt forward, catching me off-guard as she hugged me tightly.
Within my arms, she cried, just like a young child who elicited one's pity.
Then, she said to me, 'Fei, let's get back together, can we? We've already missed five years of our lives. We don't have another five years to waste.'
In this world, she was the only person who called me Fei. This seemed like an extremely intimate way to address me.
Ah Yu would only call me Gao Fei, calling me by the entirety of my surname and given name. Even when we made love, she would still call me in this manner, as though she could not help the careful way with which she spoke to me.
I held her in my arms and said, yes, let us be together.
A man should be responsible, just as a woman should possess self-love.
The next day, I went to a jewellery shop and bought a three-carat diamond ring. I thought that it was a little overboard, but everything the saleswoman said rang with logic and persuasion, as though by buying the ring, I would also be buying the entirety of all the happiness and bliss in this world.
So, I let the saleswoman help me wrap the ring up. I thought to myself that Ah Yu had been foolish. If she had changed our white-gold ring to such a three-carat diamond ring, our story might have ended differently.
I went to her condominium. This was the apartment we had lived together five years ago.
I passed her the ring, then bent down on one knee as I knelt on the floor. Without difficulty, I told her I loved her and wished for us to live together.
She was wearing an oversized Winnie the Pooh pyjamas, her hair tousled and let loose. She stared at me in disbelief.
But she immediately cried, and said to me that she was willing.
I removed the ring from its box and slid it over her slender fingers. Her measurements were the same as it had been five years ago, so the ring fitted her perfectly. Till this date, I did not know the measurements of Ah Yu's ring finger, and now that she had taken our wedding ring with her to the grave, in this lifetime, I would never know them.
We held our wedding in a hotel and attracted several well-wishers. When the pastor recited the pledges of our marriage, I saw the tears shining within her eyes, contrasting beautifully with her rosy cheeks, an enchanting image.
Women loved to cry, just like how men loved to smoke. Both were vices. Women used their tears to intoxicate men, then used their tears to drown themselves in their sorrow after they were abandoned by men.
I raised my hand and wiped her tears away. I heard her pour her feelings out by my ears: Fei, I love you.
I nodded and smiled gently. In front of all the guests, I pledged my love towards my wife.
We held our honeymoon in Hainan. We had fun, amused ourselves, and laughed to our heart's content. Two weeks later, we returned from Hainan, and moved into a new house. This was a house we had bought together, and it was incomparable to the luxurious house Ah Yu had spent a large sum of money to buy. But neither was our house small; it was 148 square meters, an extremely auspicious number.
On our new bed, I kissed my bride. I was indecent, but I did not need to be decent. I recited obscene jokes to her, and she raised her slender fists to hit my chest, saying that I was mean and crude.
So, I really did a lot of indecent things to her.
Three months after we wed, slowly, our lives returned to their old days of peace.
***
And ten months after we wed, I began to have an illusion, an uneasy feeling.
I did not know if it were a mere hallucination on my part, but it did happen.
Each time I was around Jiajing, I began to feel a sense of dissociation, as though I did not truly exist in this world.
Unlike Ah Yu, with my wife, I was always the one who took the initiative. I was extremely invested. They were both my wives, but she enjoyed more than Ah Yu ever did. She was the person who was pleasured, but in my marriage with Ah Yu, Ah Yu was the one who took the initiative, and the one who endured. There were only a couple of letters of difference between the words pleasure and endure, but their meanings were worlds apart.
In the past, I used to think that Ah Yu deserved this. If she did not touch me, then she would never have to endure this. I hated her. Even if I did not hate her body, I was still repelled by it.
But I did not expect that each time as I closed my eyes, my hands, wandering across the body of my wife, would transform into Ah Yu's slender fingers as they traced my body. Within the darkness of the night, under the warmth of the blankets, Ah Yu often clung onto me unabashedly as she chattered on and on, just like a small firefly whose light could never be extinguished. Even if I ignored her advances, she did not grow bashful, and made straight for the main topic.
In the year after she died, I often thought of this question: if Ah Yu had never taken the initiative, would I have taken her? After the night we wed, I loathed her, hated the fact that she was a dishonourable person to have resorted to drugging a man.
But I never came to an answer, so I no longer thought about this question.
As the weeks passed, I began to feel less invested, and attributed this to my fatigue. My job had been taxing in recent days, so I made the decision to not touch my wife for two weeks, and only lifted the prohibitions I had placed upon myself the night my company succeeded in closing their negotiations.
It was just as I had expected: I was only exhausted.
That night, the two of us were incomparably harmonious. After my wife was satisfied, she smiled at me, just like a contented little spirit. I pinched her small face and smiled, pleased with myself.
I thought that I should have already forgotten Ah Yu. Even if there was truly something between us, I should have already forgotten them.
When winter finally arrived, something big happened. The place I once lived with Ah Yu had been trespassed.
I was at work when I received the call from the police. They asked if I were the owner of the house. I said that I was not, but as they still insisted for me to make a trip down, I had no choice but to drive my car and head for my old house.
The place had not changed much. It was as quiet and deserted as it had always been, devoid of liveliness.
I parked my car. At the doorway, a few police cars had already arrived. As I walked in, I saw that the antiques and famous artworks which had once decorated the living room were no longer there. The home which had once been carefully decorated by He Yujin had fallen from its days of beauty.
The police asked me how long it had been since someone lived within this house.
I said, nearly four years. There was still one month and seven days before it would be the fourth year since Ah Yu died.
He wanted me to check what valuables had been stolen, and to make an estimation of the worth of the missing items. I surveyed the room, then shook my head at the police officer. I told them I did not know the worth of the stolen items.
The slightly plump policeman stared at me, the expression in his eyes strange as he said in a tone full of disbelief, 'You've stayed here for two years - how could you be unclear of the assets within this house?'
I shook my head. There was no reason for me to lie.
I told them I could give a broad estimation, and the policeman had no choice but to resign himself to fate as he accepted my suggestion. Then he arranged for a much younger policeman to follow behind me as I made a mark of the missing items. There were several rooms within this house, and as I entered them one by one, I thought that this was the first time I had truly observed this house. Of course, I could not say exactly how many items had been stolen.
I stayed the longest at the bedroom. This was the room I was most familiar with. The safe deposit box had already been prised open, and nothing remained within. The young policeman asked me what it contained, and I said that perhaps there used to be jewellery in there. Ah Yu had jewellery, but I had never known where she had kept them. The policeman asked me for an estimation of their worth, but I could only continue to shake my head.
At last, in their powerlessness, the policemen could only depart. Before they left, they said to me that there were few clues in this case, and the perpetrator behind the crime seemed to be experienced, for he had not left any trace of evidence. They were afraid that it would be a long time before they could make headway in the case.
I knew the unspoken meaning behind their words, that they had few hopes in solving the case. Even if the stolen items were resold on the black market, the police would remain clueless, for there was no one to tell them exactly what had been stolen.
I nodded, then sent them off. I thought that this was my fault, so there was no reason for me to make life difficult for the police.
I decided to tidy up the house. After the entry of the policemen and the trespass of the thief, the place now looked a little disorderly. It took me a long time, and I had never known that it would be so difficult to clean a house. After I tidied the entire house, I sat on the sofa and lit a cigarette. Hung high up in the walls across me was a framed wedding photo. This photo was of no value to the thief, for which thief would steal a person's wedding photo?
The photo was extremely large, so large that within it, the people seemed to have been distorted. I wanted to laugh at Ah Yu. We were not blind, so why had she enlarged the photo to such proportions? But I did not laugh, for I seemed to have receive some kind of message.
I walked back to our bedroom. Within the room was Ah Yu's funeral portrait, her smile as bright as it had always been. I was within half a meter of her, and she was within my reach.
I laid on the bed, a little tired after spending a day at work before suffering through the debacle with the police. I decided not to return, to s[pend the night here instead. I made a call to Jiajing, and she said she understood. Her considerate manner was something Ah Yu could never have achieved.
The moment I laid on the bed, I fell asleep, on the side of the bed I had always slept in.
But I did not expect my dreams. I did not know why, but the dream was extremely realistic, as though I had been wishing for it to happen, using the entirety of my lifetime in awaiting its arrival. In the first place, I had only just been thinking that Ah Yu would never be able to understand what it meant to be considerate, but in the next moment, I was thinking of her.
I extended a hand, brushing past the velvet blankets to touch the place Ah Yu once slept.
It was unbearably real. I called Ah Yu. This time, I was really the person who took the initiative, burying my head deep within the blankets as I arched my body over hers, bringing my face close to her waist, and down.
My entire body heated up. I held Ah Yu tightly within my arms. She stared into my eyes, smiling mischievously.
Within the dream, I was floating, my mind in a haze. I knew that none of these were real. Ah Yu had already been gone for four years, her flesh long decomposed beyond recognition, melding into the earth as she faded away. So the body beneath mine could never be real, but still, I did not wake from my dreams.
It had been years since I last dreamed, let alone an erotic dream.
Only, when I woke up the next morning, my fingers brushed upon a cool wetness. I had achieved climax within that dream –
In the fourth year since Ah Yu's death; in the first year of my new marriage.
In that dream, with He Yujin…
