Chapter 3

My father suddenly remembered what he had said on the phone that day.

“My wife is a very good actress. No matter what she does, don’t believe her.”

He had said it while bending his head to peel fruit for Jiang Chuyue.

The creditors had followed his instructions.

And so his wife’s life became a “ploy to win his favor.”

Father fell to his knees.

“Wake up.”

“I was wrong. I take it back.”

Mother lay there, motionless.

She was wearing the light gray coat she usually wore to the market.

Her hair was neatly combed.

She had been dignified all her life.

Even in the end, she left this world with dignity.

Her hand was very cold.

Her wedding ring was still on her finger.

It was the ring my father had slipped onto her hand himself, all those years ago.

She had never taken it off in over twenty years.

Last year, on her birthday, Father said the ring was old and offered to replace it.

She refused.

She said it was the first ring he had ever put on her finger.

Back then, Father had smiled and called her old-fashioned.

She was still wearing it when she died.

And during those two weeks, the man she had been waiting for was away choosing a jade bracelet with another woman.

Beneath the second white sheet was my sister.

She loved beauty.

When she was six, she spent two hours standing in front of the mirror because she had a new dress.

Now she lay on the bed, with not a single uninjured spot on her body.

There were fingernail marks on her arm.

Bruises on her back.

A thin, tight ligature mark on her wrist.

The forensic doctor said she had died of an overdose.

No one knew where the medicine had come from.

She had always been so afraid of pain.

She cried for an entire afternoon just to have her ears pierced.

In the end, she swallowed all those pills herself.

My brother rushed over and grabbed her hand.

Her fingers were clenched so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.

It took him a long time to pry them open one by one.

In her palm was a piece of paper.

Crushed and wrinkled, stained with blood.

It was a receipt for a thirty-million-yuan transfer.

The recipient was one of the creditors.

The date was yesterday.

The same day my sister was brought back from the Tang Pavilion.

She hadn’t known the debt was fake.

The debt was fake.

But the money was real.

The thirty million she had traded her life to obtain had gone straight into someone else’s pocket, without a cent missing.

My brother pressed the receipt to his face and wept as if his bones had been torn out.

My sister had been most afraid of losing face.

When she was fifteen, someone laughed at her for buying the wrong dress.

She shut herself in her room for two days.

This time, she had knelt in front of so many people at the Tang Pavilion.

And he had been sitting in the main Su residence, having dinner with Jiang Chuyue.

“Today is my birthday.”

“He ordered a cake for me.”

“It has my name written on it.”

The cake was still in the car.

The box was unopened.

Beneath the third white sheet was me.

They found me first in the bushes behind the house, then carried me into the living room.

My white dress was soaked through with blood.

The forensic doctor said I had fallen from a height and miscarried, then bled to death.

Pei Xun’s hand paused on the white sheet.

It stayed there for a long time.

When he finally lifted it, the first thing he saw was my hand.

My fingers were clenched too.

He froze for a moment.

Then he pried my fingers open.

Inside was a tiny folded slip of paper.

It had been soaked in blood, the writing blurred.

But he still recognized it.

A pregnancy test result.

The date was more than half a month ago.

The very day he flew to Beihai.

On the back of the paper were a few lines in pencil.

Faintly written.

They were my handwriting.

Two names: one for a boy and one for a girl.

I had wanted to ask which name he liked better.

Pei Xun did not cry.

He pressed the paper to his chest, then knelt down.

After that, his whole body began to shake.

The trembling came from deep within his bones.

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

After a long time, he managed to form a complete sentence.

“Either is fine.”

“I would have loved either one.”

He clutched the paper, repeating it over and over.

“Tell me.”

“Tell me which one you liked.”

I stood beside him.

It was the thing I had wanted most to tell him in my life.

It was also something he would never hear from me now.

The house was filled with sobbing.

Only Jiang Chuyue did not come inside.

She stood outside the police tape, waiting.

She still held two suitcases full of souvenirs from Beihai.

Her makeup was immaculate.

Only, it had begun to smudge.

She stared for a long time, then spoke in a tiny voice.

“Brother Pei.”

“This has nothing to do with me, right?”

Chapter 6

Pei Xun turned around.

I had never seen him look at Jiang Chuyue like that before.

It wasn’t anger.

It was something unfamiliar, slowly sinking into the depths.

“You’re saying it has nothing to do with you?”

Jiang Chuyue took half a step back.

“I only wanted them to scare her a little.”

“I didn’t tell them to lay hands on anyone.”

“They did that on their own…”

Pei Xun cut her off.

“What about the thirty million?”

Jiang Chuyue’s voice immediately grew quieter.

“What thirty million?”

“The thirty million my sister got by going to the Tang Pavilion.”

“The money is in their account.”

“Did you know?”