Chapter 3

I closed my eyes.

“Mom, don’t cry. I’m just not getting married today. It doesn’t mean I have nowhere to go.”

She went still, staring at me for a long time as though she no longer recognized her daughter.

In the end, she said nothing more.

—

### 4

Word that the wedding was officially canceled spread at ten fifty-five.

By the time I returned to the waiting room, I had more than a dozen unread messages. A relative asked whether there had been an accident. Friends said Xue Shiye was only being impulsive and urged me not to make things worse. Someone else said it wasn’t easy, at my age, to find a successful man willing to marry me.

I didn’t answer everyone. I explained what had happened to a few older relatives I was close to.

When that was done, Jiang Zhixia pushed open the door.

She was my bridesmaid today. She had taken leave especially, and her hair was pinned up without a strand out of place. Now she stood in the doorway holding the bouquet I had left in the side hall.

“Where’s Xue Shiye?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Where is he?”

I couldn’t help laughing.

“How would I know?”

She came over and put the bouquet on the table.

“You really aren’t going through with it?”

“No.”

She looked straight into my eyes.

“You’re not just angry?”

I was silent for a moment.

“Zhixia, I don’t know.”

It was true. When he said there would be no wedding, it hurt so badly my fingers wouldn’t stop shaking. But after I walked away, I wasn’t as devastated as I had imagined.

There was even a strange sense of relief.

At last, someone had said the words I had never dared to say.

Zhixia didn’t press. She sat beside me and straightened my skirt.

“Your mom’s been crying.”

“I know.”

“He’s perfectly relaxed. Sitting with his friends in the lounge, telling them you’re throwing a tantrum and will come back to find him soon.”

I gave a faint smile.

“Let him wait.”

She looked at me and suddenly asked:

“Wangshu, do you still want to stay here?”

I looked up.

“How did you know?”

She said nothing. After a long pause, she asked softly:

“Still because of that day?”

My smile faded.

Her gaze settled on my dress.

“It’s been five years. Remember when we went with you to try on wedding gowns?”

My throat tightened.

How could I forget?

It was my first fitting. For the first time, the years ahead had seemed to take a definite shape.

The weather was beautiful. Xu Cheng’an sat outside the changing room with a bottle of water. I came out in the third dress and asked whether I looked nice.

He stared for so long before managing:

“Beautiful.”

I wasn’t satisfied.

“Can’t you think of anything else?”

He considered it, then added earnestly:

“More beautiful than in the first two.”

I grabbed a bouquet and pretended to throw it at him. He laughed until his shoulders shook.

I had truly believed I would spend my whole life with that man.

—

### 5

Five years ago, I was twenty-five. Xu Cheng’an was a year older.

We had met at university. He studied product design; I studied literature. Money was tight throughout our relationship. He buried himself in design projects while I juggled internships and writing, revising a single piece again and again.

At our poorest, all our money put together wouldn’t have bought a proper dinner.

But I never thought of those days as hard.