Chapter 76: Forgotten
At the end of October, the scorching summer gradually faded. The desolate and cold wind dragged the autumn to its depths. The clusters of Chinese flowering crabapple trees in the garden downstairs had already withered and scattered on the day they had returned.
The pink and white petals fell in the cold and desolate autumn wind and fell into the dark and yellow mud, defiling the whiteness and turning into nourishment.
It was just dawning, and the cold and pale sunlight was without a single bit of warmth. Through the closed glass window, it shone directly on her pale cheeks. Her long and curled eyelashes trembled, and her eyelids slowly lifted, revealing the hazy and chaotic sleepiness in her eyes. Her pupils were dilated and lifeless in the cold light. After a long while, they finally refocused.
What came into view was the boy’s serene sleeping face. She stared at the high bridge of his nose and moved up, and she was attracted by the gentleness that was furrowed between his eyebrows. She was as obsessed as a firefly chasing a faint light, and she was so immersed that she forgot herself for a moment, and she ignored the sense of strangeness that had arisen the moment she had seen the other party.
She gradually squinted her eyes, and her amber eyes contracted, and a hint of pain from confusion flashed. Her lips, which had been without lip gloss, were as angry and translucent as the cherry blossoms of early spring. She pursed her lips, and after a long while, she opened her mouth. “Su…”
Her voice suddenly stopped, as if a rewinding disk had gotten stuck in a machine. Her memory was raw and stagnant, and her thoughts were blank for a moment, as if a straight and wide road had been dug out from the middle. A huge sense of horror suddenly arose in her heart.
She covered her temples with her trembling fingertips, and the rough texture of the gauze was transmitted to her palm. She vaguely remembered the pain of hitting the edge of the shoe cabinet. Someone had pushed her down…
It was someone who was very important to her, as important as the heart that was beating fast in her chest at this moment. She loved him very much, and she wanted to rub the other party into her own body, so that their flesh and blood would be fused together, and they would never be separated.
She suddenly saw a few strands of sunlight on her forearm. Her fair skin was almost translucent. The sunlight illuminated the darkness in her eyes, and the fleeting memories were rapidly flowing and piecing together something in her brain.
She suddenly covered her head, and the pain forced her to want to scream.
“Xiao Yu…”
It was as if a heartstring had been plucked. Her heart skipped a beat, and the broken memory was instantly connected. She said the other party’s name in a hoarse voice, and she also remembered everything that had happened before she had fallen into a coma. But the fear of the future was like a persistent curse, hidden in the dark side of her thoughts, and she was deeply horrified by it.
How could she suddenly not be able to say the other party’s name? No… she remembered this name, and she also recognized the face in front of her. It was just that she couldn’t match them for a moment. It was as if the memories from the past to the future had been messed up. She had forgotten the way back, and she was lost in an endless maze, and she couldn’t find her own coordinates.
She could accept the pain that the shadow in her brain would bring her from time to time, and she could also accept forgetting everything. But she still couldn’t believe that she had forgotten this name. Even if it was only for a short minute, her heart was as if it were being eaten by some creature, and it was disappearing along with the thing she cherished as a treasure.
That monster was quietly depriving her of what belonged to her. It actually dared to touch her reverse scale. She would not tolerate such a thing becoming a reality at some point in the future.
“No… no. You can’t go anywhere, Xiao Yu. You have to be with me. I will always remember you. I will never forget you even if I die.”
Gu Zhi got out of the blanket, wearing only a thin and loose nightgown. The cold wind was blowing in from the sleeve, but it was not as cold as her heart. She grabbed her dark and smooth hair and made it messy and fluffy. She ran out of this terrifying bedroom and her sleeping lover at her pillow, barefoot.
A circle of gauze was still wrapped around her forehead, and a few bright red bloodstains had seeped out from the white gauze. Her collar was crooked and was on her collarbone. Her steps were rushed and chaotic, and she almost fell when she was going downstairs. If anyone had seen the Gu family, which was so powerful in Qingchuan, being dominated by such a crazy-looking woman, they would probably have their eyes pop out.
“Don’t go… don’t go…”
Gu Zhi was murmuring to herself in a voice that only she could hear. To others, it was a hysterical raving, as if she were a real psycho who had just escaped from a mental hospital.
She went straight to the basement. The white porcelain tiled floor of the dark room was still covered with blood-stained chains. The terrifying disease was forcing her, who had just learned of her condition, to want to keep the boy through hatred. Even if she might die on the hospital bed because of the knife in the boy’s hand, she would not hesitate.
Later, she calmed down. Yes… that was him. Even if she died a miserable death on the operating table, she would never be killed by him.
But besides that, she really couldn’t think of any other way. Who was to blame for her having nothing left? What else could she use to imprison her sunlight?
Her dejected self, in the time when she couldn’t find a way, her condition was still slowly getting worse. The headaches were coming more and more frequently and abruptly, and the painkillers in the drawer were already more than half empty. Gu Zhi could even clearly feel that the shadow in her brain was gradually expanding, and the fear was like a plague, infecting every cell.
A person who had never been afraid of death would actually be afraid of a disease in the end.
How ridiculous.
The few chains had been idle in the corner of the basement for who knows how long. They might have even rusted. She was just stubbornly and naively thinking that she needed them now. If she didn’t do something, she would go crazy. She would definitely go crazy.
The door to the basement, which was always tightly locked, was actually open. The thoughts in her mind were a tangled mess. She rushed in rashly and went straight to the dark room in the back. She suddenly pushed open the door, and she was stunned for a few seconds. She felt that the other party’s face was a little strange. Her instinct prompted her to rush over and snatch the chain from the other party’s hand. She held it tightly in her arms and roared at the other party as if she had lost her mind.
“Who are you? Who let you in? Get out!”
The woman stood in the shadows and looked at Gu Zhi calmly. She sighed heavily. “Sigh, this chain can’t lock him up for a lifetime.”
“What does it have to do with you? This is my own business.”
Gu Zhi’s eyes were wide with anger, and her chest was heaving violently. Her eyes were so red that they were almost bleeding.
The monster seemed to be roaring and howling in her mind again. The pain came a little unexpectedly. She let out a muffled grunt and covered her head. The heavy chain in her hand fell to her feet. She subconsciously squatted down to pick it up, but her calf suddenly went weak, and she fell to the floor.
She struggled for a while, but every nerve was so painful that it was about to break. She hit her forehead hard, but she couldn’t stop the intense pain at all. In the end, she could only lie on the floor, holding the few iron chains in her arms. Her lips, which were bitten until they bled, were dyed a bright red, and she murmured in a low voice.
“I have to go up and tie him up. Xiao Yu will run away. What will I do then…”
“You’ll die…”
Auntie Jing squatted down and held Gu Zhi’s face. Her rough fingers gently brushed away the sweaty hair at her forehead, revealing a beautiful and unparalleled face. She looked at the girl’s pathetic and disheveled appearance, and her eyes were a little wet. “The doctor said it’s already pressing on your nerves. You have to have the surgery as soon as possible. You can’t delay it any longer.”
“Get lost! I don’t want to have any surgery. I’ll be lying in bed for a few months. What about Xiao Yu then? You’re the same as them. Don’t you all want me to die? Stop being so hypocritical here.”
Gu Zhi shook Auntie Jing’s hand off. She endured the pain and shrunk back, staring at Auntie Jing with great suspicion, as if the other party would suddenly attack and kill her in the next second.
“But if this goes on, even if you let the disease develop until you die, you will forget him sooner or later before you die. You won’t remember his name, you won’t know what he looks like. Even if he stands in front of you, he will just be a stranger to you. Is this what you want too?”
“Stop lying to me! How could I forget him? I’ll never forget him even if I die.”
“But do you still remember the elementary school he went to? That’s where you first met.”
She tried to search her memory as if she didn’t believe it, to refute Auntie Jing’s question.
Blank… a large patch of blankness. It was as if… the boy had just appeared in front of her out of thin air. The first half of the bridge to the past was slowly collapsing. Without the support of the past, how long could her future survive?
The crazy obsession on Gu Zhi’s face stopped at that moment, like an old wall. The cracked paint fell off the wall in pieces and shattered on the ground. She was blinded by the dust that was raised, and she wanted to cry a little.
The other party’s calm question had pierced through her self-deception. She had indeed started to forget some things, and she had even noticed it early on. The first time she had walked into the dark room, she had not even recognized the woman’s face in the shadows.
But how could she easily accept such a fact? She had been struggling for so long, and in the end, it was all in vain. She had been easily defeated by a disease. How could she be willing to face all of this!
Her head started to hurt again, but this pain was sometimes sharp and sometimes heavy, and it could not be relieved at all. It was like a cunning snake that had drilled into her brain and was swimming and playing in her nerves, occasionally biting her, and it was so painful that her head was about to explode.
People would always subconsciously press on their wounds to stop the previous pain with a greater pain. Gu Zhi suddenly felt that this seemed to be right. She covered her heart, and she found that her head was suddenly not so painful.
Warm tears came a little suddenly and slid down her cheeks. A few teardrops slid into the corners of her lips, and the taste was bitter and astringent. She seemed to have not cried for a long time. How could a person who had spent the first half of her life supported by revenge cry? Their tear ducts seemed to be naturally without tears, because only weak people would cry, and the weak would be mercilessly swallowed by the enemy.
Gu Zhi hugged her arms and shrunk in a corner of the shadow as if she were escaping. Her hair was messy and drooping, covering her face. For the first time… she felt that she was so fragile and vulnerable, as if she had lost everything, and she had become the little girl of the past who could not do anything.
