Chapter 24

I smiled.

“The honest one. If I meet someone I truly want to share ordinary life with, perhaps I’ll marry. If I don’t, I’m happy living on my own.”

She looked at me, then nodded.

“That sounds good too.”

Outside the hotel, a fine drizzle was falling.

We waited beneath the entrance awning for a car.

Zhixia suddenly remembered something.

“Have you ever been back to Elm Hall?”

I shook my head.

“No.”

“Would you like to go back sometime?”

I looked at the rain-softened street. Headlights stretched into bright streaks across the wet road. People hurried past beneath umbrellas, some going home, others setting out.

Everyone had a life of their own.

I considered it.

“If I happen to pass that way, maybe I’ll stop in.”

Zhixia smiled.

“Not afraid it’ll bring things back?”

“It will.” I smiled too. “But what’s wrong with remembering?”

Five years ago, I thought I would never have a wedding.

Three months ago, I finally wore a white wedding gown again, only to be told forty minutes before the ceremony that it was canceled.

I fought to keep that half hour, thinking that entering the hall would finally put a perfect full stop to the past.

In the end, I stayed only nine minutes.

No exchange of rings. No vows.

Nobody took my hand along the flower-lined aisle.

The answer I had searched for all those years had never been in a wedding.

Cheng’an had loved me. Shiye had loved me sincerely too.

One left this world forever. The other stopped cherishing me.

But their departures should not—and could not—be the reason I kept the rest of my life imprisoned in the same place.

The rain eased.

The car Zhixia had booked pulled up. She waved.

“Wangshu, let’s go!”

“Coming!”

I put my phone in my bag and hurried toward her.

This time, nobody waited ahead to marry me.

But there were still so many days before me.

And my life would go on, bright and peaceful.

THE END