After I get better, I ask for Mingcheng’s portrait back.

Dr. Zhao tells me that after I was diagnosed with amnesia, in order to prevent agitating me again, Mingyi proposed to bring Mingcheng’s portrait back to the Wen family. This proposal was accepted by both families, so it has been kept with the Wen family for the past six months.

As his widow, of course I insist on having him come back after I find out.

The portrait of the deceased is sent by Mingyi.

She hasn’t returned to the place where we lived as children for many years. Next to the Wei family home is the Wen family’s old house. Many years ago, our families often got together. As children, we played on the first floor. From my yard, I can still see the decaying flower branches and grape vines of the Wen family’s small garden.

There are actually several pieces of calligraphy and paintings by my second brother and I on the first floor of my house, but my father’s works have long since disappeared with his passing.

The things are still there, but the people are not.

I lean on the second floor balcony and see her standing in front of the door, looking around as if remembering. She looks for a long time. In the end, she looks steadily at the long-unattended Wen family yard with a lonely and desolate expression.

Probably because she has been standing there for so long, the medical staff on the first floor notice her presence and go out to inquire about her identity.

Only then does she return to her senses, as if waking up.

“I didn’t expect you to ask for his portrait back so early.” She opens a black silk bag and takes out a photo frame also wrapped in black silk, handing it to me along with Mingcheng’s death certificate.

I read the death certificate before slowly opening the black silk wrapping the photo frame.

In the black and white photo, he still looks noble and handsome in life. His features are very relaxed, the corners of his lips are slightly raised, and there is a smile on his face, as if he is looking at me tenderly.

My fingertips shake uncontrollably as they gently touch his face.

“I thought…..you would blame him somewhat.” Mingyi probably hasn’t quit smoking. Her voice sounds lower and hoarser than before.

I shake my head and stand up holding his portrait. “When a person dies, they no longer exist. What else can I blame him for?”

The old Wei family house is also very large. I had cleared out a dark room in advance and put in an altar and an incense burner. After putting Mingcheng’s portrait up, I offer him three sticks of incense.

Mingcheng, welcome home.

His face is blurred by the slowly rising wisps of smoke.

Mingyi stands at the door looking at me, and says in a low voice: “He no longer exists, but your feelings for him exist. A-Zhen…..” She is silent for a moment, and smiles bitterly when I look back at her. “Even though you know he was not as good for you as you thought, that he did many excessive things behind your back, and that it’s even possible that a lot of the pain you’ve endured was caused by him, you…..still love him, right?”

Wen Mingcheng was the lover I knew so well, but I have to admit that I didn’t know him well enough. Perhaps he wasn’t truly a kind-hearted person.

As Mingyi said, maybe some of the things that hurt and scared me were directly or indirectly caused by him. 

I knew the person, but I didn’t know his heart. I was with him since I was eighteen years old, and we slept together for nearly ten years, but in the end, I didn’t know what he was thinking.

But I know that he sacrificed his life to save me at the critical moment.

I actually saw his body when the rescuers pulled us out of the deformed front half of the car. He had borne practically all of the injuries for me. The pressure from the front of the car being squeezed and deformed was all on him, and he was cut to pieces by various fragments. Of course, the most fatal wound was the cut on his neck that severed the main artery.

Blood had spurted all over me.

And if he hadn’t knocked me down, it would have been me whose throat was cut.

It is hard for me to imagine his pain, but no matter how painful it was, he never let me go.

I know that he loved me very much.

So I nod without hesitation: “Yes, there is nothing I can’t forgive him for.”

Mingyi is silent for a long time, then suddenly smiles with a hint of relief: “My brother was right. He always wins.” 

. . . . . . . .

At night, I kneel in front of his portrait and burn some paper money and paper offerings for him in an iron basin.

Nowadays, there are various styles of paper offerings. I bought his favorite hydrangeas and peonies. There are many different kinds, and even some that are made to look like electronic products, such as mobile phones.

These things slowly burn to ashes in the iron basin.

The air smells of fire burning.

I kneel before the altar table, clasp my hands, and speak softly to his portrait: “I’m sorry, Mingcheng. Don’t blame me for forgetting you for so long.”

“I really miss you…..husband.”

When he was alive, he liked me calling him that very much, but I always had a hard time saying it out loud. Now that I call him that way, he can’t hear me anymore.

When I put down my hands and open my eyes again, his portrait is still smiling like that. I look at it silently for a while, and something wet drips down my face into the brazier.

I don’t know when I fell asleep in front of his altar.

Half asleep and half awake, I sense someone standing next to me. I think it’s a doctor or nurse at first, but my biological sixth sense gives me a feeling of oppression and crisis.

I struggle to open my eyes, but I can’t.

I’m conscious, but I can’t move my body at all. Even trying my hardest, I can’t even bend a finger.

Although the person next to me doesn’t make a sound, I sense him lean down, and if looking down at my struggles.

This makes me feel awful, as if darkness is peering into me.

I remember. This phenomenon seems to be called…..sleep paralysis!

Before I can think of anything else, a cold hand touches the skin of my neck. This hand has no warmth at all, like the cold touch of a snake.

It travels repeatedly across my cheeks and neck, invading my skin and ravaging my nerves. I desperately try to open my eyes and get up, but I can only hear my breathing become heavier.

Gradually, the cold snake moves downward against my skin. I can’t stop it. I can only let it get under my collar and creep all over my body…..

. . . . . . 

“Ugh…..” I wake up gasping. A thin layer of sweat has broken out on my body, and the skin of my face is hot. My chest rises and falls sharply with my chaotic breathing, and my waist and limbs tremble uncontrollably.

As a married person, of course I know what has happened to me, and I bite my lower lip in shame and anger.

Mingcheng’s portrait is still looking at me on the altar table, but I don’t dare to look up at him.

“He” is in front of Mingcheng’s portrait.

The lights in the room are not on, and the three incense sticks on the altar have already burned.

The faint scent of incense in the air and the residual smell of burning paper wrap around the black and white portrait on the table and me lying on the floor. 

I hold back my anger and button up my clothes with hands that are still shaking, cursing softly into the darkness.

“Shameless!”

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Chapter 24 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 26