Chapter 6

In a rage, he grabbed a chair and lifted it to smash over my head.

He had no way back.

He might as well give his fury free rein.

I did not move.

I only said coldly, “Have you thought this through? You can’t provide for your sister. You’re a fugitive now, with no income. I’m the only one who can keep her alive.”

He stopped.

Threw the chair down.

Sank to the floor and sobbed.

I knew he had accepted what remained of his life.

…

Before leaving, I tossed him several bundles of cash.

I promised that so long as he followed my instructions, I would pay him regularly.

It was the most I could do to compensate him.

I was certain he would not report me.

Would never turn himself in.

Would never use our plan to blackmail me.

He could only do as I arranged.

Choose a small town and spend the rest of his life quietly.

Unless he could abandon his own sister, he had no other choice.

…

It was afternoon when I left his home.

Sunlight filtered through the leaves, scattering lovely patches of light across the ground.

I looked up.

Beside the brilliant sun, there was a shadow.

I looked closer.

A familiar face, glowing brightly.

A child smiling at me, calling in that innocent voice.

“Dad! Dad!”

I smiled.

Lifting my face toward him, almost as though I could touch his cheek, I whispered, “I’m here. I finally did it.

“Rest now, my son.”

…

The next day, I saw Song Yi onto a long-distance bus and quietly watched it pull away.

I had not felt so relieved in two years.

I calculated the journey in my head.

A day to leave the province.

Three or four days to reach his destination.

A small border town I had visited on holiday.

Green mountains, clear water.

Beautiful scenery.

…

Three or four days later, a friend in the police told me they had identified the high-school student’s killer.

They were setting up checkpoints, searching the city, and putting up wanted posters.

They would not let Song Yi escape.

He sounded so serious.

I could only find it amusing.

By now, surely Song Yi had reached his new home.

I had arranged a place for him in that sparsely populated town near the border.

Once things settled down, I would find a chance to see him and contact a plastic surgery clinic.

Then it would truly be over.

…

On the way home, I began to imagine my future.

At last, I could lay aside my son’s death.

Start again.

What should I do with my new life?

When my wife was better, I would tell her what I had done during those two years, when I had lived as something neither human nor ghost.

She would understand.

I had avenged our son.

Should I ask whether she wanted another child?

We were still young.

After her condition had stabilized, of course.

In a little while, I would go to the provincial capital and collect Song Yi’s sister.

I had already contacted a rehabilitation center in another city.

Its medical care and support were among the best in the country.

They would look after her well.

The more I thought about it, the more I looked forward to it.

The more excited I became.

I could not announce to everyone that I had achieved my goal.

Yet I wanted to tell the whole world.

I wandered tirelessly through street after street.

Full of new energy, I felt as joyful and light as a child.

Wait.

What was that?

My happy steps stopped.

I stood rooted to the spot.

My body began to jerk, then stiffened. Every hair rose.

A terrible pressure closed around my throat.

Song Yi stood in the shadows, looking at me with the faintest suggestion of a smile.

After a long time, he spoke.

His voice seemed to come from hell.

“Buy me some yogurt, will you?

“I’ve had nothing to drink for nearly two days.”

…

Not long after I put him on the bus, he had found an excuse to get off.

I could not understand.

He had escaped danger.

Why come back?

We had an agreement.

I would care for his sister.

He would never return.

Did he no longer want to live?

He said only this:

“Don’t worry. As long as you take good care of my sister, I’ll keep my word. I’m not like you. Even if I die, I won’t betray you.

“But I cannot let my daughter’s death go.”

…

I have always avoided remembering those anxious days.

Even when they came to mind by accident, I turned away.

I dared not think about them.

Just as I dared not meet Song Yi’s eyes when I stood before him.

I could scheme against him.

Make him kill.

Make him take revenge for me.

I could tell myself I was doing it for my son.

That justified anything.

But what about Song Yi?

He was a father too.

Like me, a father willing to do anything for his child.

What right did I have to demand that he abandon it all and spend the rest of his life in empty silence?

…

The city was sealed off.

Both municipal and provincial police had deployed officers to maintain order.

I could not find him a place to stay.

He could only wander and hide.

Each day, I left a few pork-floss buns, bottles of water, and yogurt at an agreed spot.

His favorites.

At least they would keep him alive.

Perhaps he really could get what he wanted.

I did not know.

It was all I could do.

What happened next, I have already told you.

The sky was overcast that day.

A fine rain fell.

It matched the heaviness in my chest, so oppressive I could scarcely breathe.

I had finished buying supplies and was about to take them to him when it happened.

Across from Xinhua Bookstore, a vast crowd had gathered outside the school.

I could not hear what was going on.

With a dreadful feeling, I hurried closer and tried to push through.

Please don’t let it be Song Yi.

Not Song Yi.

If they caught him, what would become of me?

…

My prayers were useless.

I saw him holding a fruit knife to a schoolboy’s throat with his right hand.

His left pointed toward several armed officers, apparently warning them not to move.

I was too far away.

There were too many officers blocking the way.

I could not make out what he said.

For two or three minutes, the standoff continued.

Then he saw me.

Suddenly, he smiled.

He seemed to wave to me.

He said something very brief, then raised the knife sharply, as though about to bring it down.

My heart missed a beat.

Bang!

An armed officer had found an opening.

Every sound stopped.

Song Yi fell into a pool of blood.

His eyes remained fixed on me.

They would never close.

The yogurt bottle in my right hand fell and shattered.

…

Looking back, I was too far away to hear what he shouted.

What he wanted to say to me.

Even the final police report made no mention of it.

But I have always felt he was calling toward me.

Calling a name.

His daughter’s.

Jiajia.

Those long, tormenting days finally passed.

Our little city returned to peace.

Yet somehow, it seemed to have been put on fast-forward.

Now and then, people brought up the story over tea.

All empty speculation.

No one knew the truth.

…

After Song Yi died, I called in many favors to have his ashes buried in a local cemetery.

Beside Song Jia.

I moved his sister to a rehabilitation center with some of the best facilities in the country.

Her intellectual disability meant she did not even recognize her own relatives.

I told them I was her brother.

Every few months, I went to see her myself.

Her features resembled Song Yi’s.

Each time I looked at her, I felt I was seeing him.

…

Ten years later, in 2010, my wife relapsed.

Then she died.

To the end, I never told her what I had done in 2000.

Over those ten years, I had gradually learned something.

The pain of knowing the truth and the joy of taking revenge do not cancel each other out.

They are like maggots clinging to bone.

They burrow through flesh and into every crevice.

Whenever the sky darkens and rain begins, they bring back those terrible days.

Then they take root and multiply again.

Better, perhaps, not to know.

…

A few years later, my parents and my wife’s parents died in turn.

All lived out their natural spans.

My wife and I had no more children in those years.

In the end, I was alone.

I could only bury that mad story deep inside myself.

Lock it away.

…

In 2017, the rehabilitation center called.

Song Yi’s sister was critically ill.

Her congenital disabilities had left her frail.

Even good care could not prevent the decline.

I hurried there.

After weeks of treatment, nothing more could be done.

I could only watch her life slip away.

Near the end, she seemed to have a final moment of lucidity.

Suddenly, her thoughts were clear.

She said she wanted to see her brother.

Just once.

She held my hand tightly and would not let go.

I knew she was waiting for an answer.

I had no idea what to say.

She waited until her last breath.

Closed her eyes without ever getting her wish.

…

In 2019, I turned sixty and reached retirement age.

I declined the invitation to stay on.

With my savings, I began traveling around the world.

I saw the endless sweep of the Alps.

The vast expanse of the Dead Sea.

I crossed mountains and rivers, witnessed other people’s joys and sorrows.

At last, I felt I understood something of the meetings and partings that make a life.

Many people my age envied my retirement.

They thought my freedom, my easy lack of restraint, was something they might never achieve.

Only I knew the truth.

I was running away.

I could not bear the regret and oppression that followed me everywhere.

In dreams at midnight, I saw Song Yi’s face.

His smile.

His despair.

The moment before he died.

Those eyes that would not close.

I could not escape the memory of planning our revenge together.

Then of my own cold betrayal.

Of leaving him without hope.

Whenever I visited his sister, she would clutch my clothes and call hoarsely, “Brother… Brother…”

I could never look her in the eye.

Every one of those things reminded me, wherever I went, that the past had never passed.

It had never even ended.

This was the price of getting what I wanted by any means.

The punishment for my triumph.

The retribution for betraying Song Yi, manipulating him until it cost him his life.

…

I did try to find release.

I learned meditation.

Joined spiritual retreats.

Studied psychology, line by line.

All I wanted was a way out.

Something to ease the pain.

Some redemption.

There was no answer.

Song Yi’s trust.

My own vileness.

The fate of a father and daughter.

How could I repay it?

I carried that curse with me.

Day and night, I lived in unease.

For nearly twenty-five years, it was the knot in my heart.

My nightmare.

…

In a daze, I came back to my hometown.

I had a vague feeling that it might be time to return to my roots.

But do you know how strange the world can be?

When a story has no ending, even heaven seems unwilling to leave the final sentence unfinished.

…

One day, while hiking, I happened to strain my back.

It was nothing serious.

But my friends worried I might have lasting trouble and recommended a woman who provided massage treatments at home.

Lying facedown on the sofa, I caught sight of her.

Such a familiar face.

Yet I couldn’t remember who she was.

“Hello. I’m Su Ranran, therapist number twenty-one. I’ll be looking after you today.”

…

So this was fate.

A debt of life could only be repaid with a life.

…

12

“Do you understand now?”

Wu Cheng slowly stood and came toward me.

I understood.

All of it.

But I could no longer do anything.

I had lost the ability to speak.

Countless thoughts tumbled through my head.

All I could make were inarticulate sounds.

“Do you know? I’m a coward. A weak man. One horror film can keep me awake for a month.”

He lifted me, placed me in a single chair, and secured me.

“That’s why I called you here so many times.

“So many times, I meant to kill you and finish it.

“I watched countless crime programs, trying to choose how to do it. Drugs, knives, a cleaver, a rope…

“But I never dared.

“I could never make up my mind.

“So you massaged me for three months.

“Three whole months.

“I even began to think perhaps I should let it go.”

He turned the chair toward the balcony and began pushing.

“Then, a few days ago, while clearing out the old place, I found bundles of newspapers under the bed.

“More than twenty years old.

“I leafed through them and saw a report.

“Twelve-Year-Old Girl Dies in Fall.

“The photograph had yellowed. I had to look closely before I recognized it.

“A man of about thirty, holding a girl in her early teens.

“Crying too hard to make a sound.”

The chair stopped.

I could not move.

I sat rigidly before the balcony’s floor-to-ceiling glass.

Wu Cheng opened the window as far as it would go.

Whether it was a peculiarity of the design or the building itself, the sill was very low.

So low that the slightest force could send me over it.

“Do you know what I finally understood when I saw that paper?

“I would never escape Song Yi.

“Or rather, I would never escape my own conscience.

“And now…

“It’s time to end it.”

…

The phone rang.

“Hello, 110 emergency police service. Would you like to report an incident?”

“My name is Wu Cheng.

“The case of Song Jia’s fall in 1999.

“Twenty-five years later, it finally has an ending.

“The address is…”

…

I put away the phone and stood at the window.

Below me spread a sea of red flowers.

Brilliant enough to dazzle.

A light breeze blew.

Cicadas sang without pause.

Suddenly, a sparrow landed on the balcony railing.

It cocked its head, looking at me with a playful air, then turned toward the distance.

I raised my hand.

It hopped along my fingers and onto my shoulder, chirping brightly.

That innocent little creature brought back so many moments of warmth.

A boy throwing his arms around me whenever he got a good grade.

An upright man whose eyes narrowed so endearingly whenever he drank yogurt.

A simple girl clutching my clothes, calling hoarsely, “Brother… Brother…”

The images blurred together.

Old, yellowed memories spread through my mind.

I was young again.

Back in those bright days, full of laughter.

In my daze, they all seemed to have returned.

They stood not far away, waiting for me.

Laughing.

Singing.

…

I looked out toward the far side of Xinhua Bookstore.

Leaned forward.

And called as loudly as I could:

“Song Yi!

“I’m sorry!”

The sparrow startled and flew.

Farther and farther, until it disappeared.

My words dissolved into the air.

Left no trace.

Those eyes that had remained open all these years…

At last, they slowly closed.

For nearly twenty-five years, I had owed you a promise.

An apology.

So…

“Did you hear me?”

The End