XR CH67
Chapter 67: P. Love’s Education
It took nearly an hour for Su Hui to slowly digest this devastating news.
It was as if his sky had always been a sheet of darkness, but he’d been lucky enough to have a few stars shining in it – so his nights weren’t entirely lonely. But now, another star had gone out.
The gardener came by to weed the garden – the last batch of winter weeds. Even with the glass door firmly locked, Su Hui seemed to smell the raw, grassy scent. He drew the curtains and ran to the bathroom to throw up.
Su Hui realized that people could truly vanish from this world with startling ease. His uncle. Ning Yixiao’s mother. Both were here one moment and gone the next — nothing like the movies, with their foreshadowing and warnings. The real world was awful, like a game of whack-a-mole, except they weren’t the ones holding the hammer. They were the frantic moles scrambling to survive one blow after another.
He desperately wanted to escape. He desperately wanted to hold on. But he was just a mole trapped in a hole, forced to accept reality.
For the entire afternoon, Su Hui stayed in his room reading aloud — reading at full volume, using it to fight against the mania and the pain. As the sky darkened, something came to mind. He reached under the bed and pulled out a storage drawer he hadn’t opened in a long time, entered the password to unlock it, and dug through to the very bottom until he found a small box containing some basic tattooing tools.
He’d bought these during a manic episode, full of enthusiasm — but by the time the package arrived, Su Hui had already slipped into a depressive phase and couldn’t muster any interest. After that, he’d simply forgotten about them.
The tools inside were even fewer than he’d imagined. Su Hui unfolded the long instruction sheet and couldn’t stop himself from reading it aloud.
So he gathered everything and locked himself in the bathroom. He took off his shirt, read through the instructions once, then found a spot on his skin that felt right and that he could reach, and sterilized it with an alcohol swab.
Mania was steering his brain. He’d read the instructions, yet he still willfully ignored them — no stencil, going straight to ink, pressing the needle against the skin near his hip bone.
The tattoo hurt more than he’d imagined, and it was far more difficult than he’d expected. With every prick, he thought of Ning Yixiao’s face.
The bathroom heater dried the sweat rising along his hunched back, and across his forehead too. Su Hui’s hand trembled slightly. He’d poke for a while, then stop and rest. It was just one line of English, yet it took him three full hours to finish.
The result was more beautiful than he’d imagined. Su Hui looked at it in the mirror — the faint raised lines and redness on his skin made it feel all the more real. He pulled on his shirt and jacket, then sat cross-legged in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, gazing at the night garden, and began to hum.
Halfway through, Su Hui suddenly stopped — because he noticed that the fish tank in the garden was gone too.
The next morning, a servant opened his door and brought the clothes they had prepared for the funeral. Su Hui was like a compliant doll, letting himself be dressed in a full black shirt, suit, and black overcoat. Finally, Ji Ya’nan — dressed equally in black — walked over and pinned a white satin boutonniere to his lapel. It looked like a white camellia.
Su Hui displayed a quietness utterly at odds with his manic state. Whatever Ji Ya’nan said, he nodded. Due to the complicated family dynamics, only the two of them were attending. Before they left, Su Hui saw his haggard grandmother coming downstairs. He walked over and let her hold him.
“Don’t grieve too much,” his grandmother said, stroking his hair.
Su Hui shook his head. He glanced at his mother, who was on a phone call, then whispered urgently to his grandmother, “Grandma, can I borrow your phone for a moment?”
His grandmother thought for a moment, then agreed.
The moment Su Hui had the phone, he immediately called Ning Yixiao — but no one answered. He didn’t have time to spare; he could only send a quick text message.
[It’s Su Hui. Ning Yixiao, I’m at home right now. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. I’ll come see you soon.]
After sending it, Su Hui returned the phone to his grandmother. Before he could say another word, he heard his mother calling him to hurry outside.
Ji Ya’nan drove while Su Hui sat in the passenger seat. The car was extremely quiet.
The sky was as heavy and overcast as a bloated, rotting sponge — it looked ready to drip without even being wrung out.
Su Hui leaned against the car window, silent, as though the restless version of himself had been cut away and discarded.
Ji Ya’nan spoke, running through the plan: they would stop at his uncle’s house first, pick up his aunt, and then head to the funeral hall together.
Su Hui had no opinion on adult matters.
His uncle’s home wasn’t far from theirs. Su Hui had visited often as a child, so he still remembered the route. But later, his grandfather had forbidden him from going, and his uncle no longer lived there — they had rarely seen each other since.
Sometimes Su Hui dreamed of him. In those dreams, they talked. He felt his uncle must have dreamed of him the same way.
A number of relatives had gathered at his uncle’s house — some familiar faces, some strangers. Su Hui followed Ji Ya’nan and nodded politely at each of them, but said nothing more. Given the solemnity of the occasion, no one was in the mood for pleasantries, and no one minded Su Hui’s silence.
Though Ji Ya’nan was only the Su family’s former daughter-in-law, she had consistently looked after the Su family after taking over her late husband’s business — including Su Yun’s younger brother, Su Jun. She carried significant weight in the family, and many of the Su relatives came forward to speak with her. Su Hui felt out of place and drifted back, standing behind his mother.
“Xiao Hui, go upstairs and ask your aunt to come down,” Ji Ya’nan said, turning to him. “And remember to give her this — it’s the paperwork from the funeral home.”
Su Hui nodded, took the black paper bag from his mother’s hands, and made his way up the stairs, step by step.
He remembered the layout of this house. He remembered that his uncle and aunt’s room was the innermost one on the second floor. All the second-floor bedroom doors were open — except for the master bedroom at the end of the hall, which was closed. Su Hui walked up and knocked.
No response. He tried again. Same thing.
He pressed his hand against the door and noticed it wasn’t locked. It swung open with a gentle push.
“Auntie?” Su Hui watched the door drift slowly open, his field of vision gradually widening — but there was no one in the room, and no answer came.
He called out once more, then stepped inside. The room was immaculately tidy. He walked in and spotted a slip of paper on the bedside table with just a few lines written on it.
Su Hui read it. His hands went rigid — and without meaning to, he let go. The paper, light as a ghost, swayed and floated down to his feet.
It was only then that he noticed the wardrobe door hadn’t closed all the way — a strip of black fabric was caught in the gap.
With trembling hands, he opened the wardrobe door.
Then he sat down directly on the bed — its sheets pulled without a single crease — and gripped the edge of the mattress.
“Mom…” Su Hui forced himself to stand, forced himself to leave the room. He called out for his mother, again and again, louder each time, until the sound of Ji Ya’nan’s heels came up the stairs. She glanced at him leaning against the hallway wall, then strode into the master bedroom.
Su Hui never could have imagined that he would end up attending a funeral for two people.
The police arrived quickly and asked Su Hui many questions, though there wasn’t much he could tell them. They read the note his aunt had left, inspected the wardrobe, and made a straightforward determination.
The funeral hall’s arrangement changed too. Beside his uncle’s black-and-white portrait, they placed one of his aunt’s. Side by side. Both were photographs from their youth — smiling brilliantly, perfectly matched.
Su Hui knelt on the prayer cushion, as though he’d been injected with a numbing agent, his face expressionless.
Everyone assumed he was in shock. One by one they came over to comfort him, to embrace him, to bring him hot ginger tea. Only Ji Ya’nan knew it wasn’t only that.
When the time came for eulogies, relatives and friends stepped up to the microphone and read out their prepared words. The atmosphere grew heavy with grief; people cried softly and wiped their eyes.
Then the aunt’s younger sister stepped forward. She had started reading from her script, but halfway through, she crumpled it into a ball and buried her face in her hands.
“I only wrote something for my brother-in-law… I never imagined my sister would go too…”
Through tears, she said, “When my brother-in-law was first diagnosed, we all urged my sister to divorce him. She refused no matter what. But what does love even mean to someone with mental illness? When he had an episode, he would go into rages, he would hurt people — and when he recovered, he’d hold my sister and sob. I know they loved each other so deeply, but… but…”
Su Hui thought of the note — really just two sentences.
[I always knew this day would come, so I prepared for it long ago. This may seem cruel to all of you, but I love Su Jun. Don’t grieve. This is the best choice.]
She couldn’t finish speaking. From outside came a sound like a heart being torn apart — a raw, wrenching cry. Ji Ya’nan looked over and murmured, “Oh no. Your aunt’s mother is here.”
Su Hui turned too. He saw an elderly woman with white-streaked hair sobbing outside, held back by other relatives, her hysterical cries piercing through the last wall of self-anesthesia Su Hui had built around himself.
“Why did you have to go with him?! My poor daughter… I told you so long ago not to be with him! He was sick in the head, and you were a perfectly healthy, living person! What a sin… what a terrible sin…”
Su Hui suddenly burst into tears. They came in torrents. He dropped his head and tried to wipe them away with the back of his hand, but the more he wiped, the more seemed to fall.
Ji Ya’nan noticed. She wiped her own eyes, then pulled Su Hui forcefully into her arms and said nothing at all — just patted his back.
It felt like a cruelly thorough education in love through death.
As the funeral drew to a close — it was already past noon — someone had invited a Buddhist monk. The monk, draped in saffron robes, performed the rituals that left Su Hui feeling hollow and numb. After chanting sutras for the departed, the monk and his disciple made their way through the room, stopping at each guest to present them with a Buddhist amulet.
When they reached Su Hui, the disciple gave the same speech he’d recited many times already: “This is a consecrated amulet. It brings safety and blessings.”
Ji Ya’nan nudged Su Hui’s arm with her elbow, seeing that he hadn’t moved to accept it.
Su Hui extended both hands and received the amulet from the disciple. “Thank you, Master.”
Just as the monk turned to leave, Su Hui called out again. “Master — how does one make a wish come true?”
Ji Ya’nan glanced at him sidelong and murmured quietly, “Su Hui.”
But the monk paused, turned back, and looked at him with a gentle, benevolent smile — as if the guileless question had softened him. “Young one, all things arise from causes and conditions. When the mind stirs, all manner of things come into being. If you hold a wish in your heart, you plant a seed. But for that wish to bear fruit, you must also tend to the outer conditions — action must meet intention. As the saying goes: sincerity moves heaven. Do good deeds; hold kindness in your heart always; and let your wish live quietly within you each day. Good intentions have a way of becoming real.”
Su Hui pressed his palms together, eyes glistening. “Thank you.”
Ji Ya’nan didn’t understand — she couldn’t fathom why Su Hui had suddenly turned to Buddhism, a faith he had always dismissed. And truthfully, Su Hui didn’t fully understand either.
He had nowhere left to turn. He only wanted something to hold onto. Anything at all.
In this moment, Su Hui — who had always scorned idealism — did as the others around him had done. With genuine reverence, he knelt on the prayer cushion, held the amulet between his pressed palms, and bowed his head to the ground three times.
He decided that from now on, he would pray for Ning Yixiao once every day — as a kind of daily wish, an offering of the heart. He would ask that Ning Yixiao be healthy and happy, that his future be bright.
On the drive home, Ji Ya’nan had Su Hui in the passenger seat. The return trip was less silent. She tried to talk to him.
“Xiao Hui, I know your heart is hurting right now. But there are some things I still need to say.”
“I regret it too — I shouldn’t have sent you up alone to find your aunt today. I didn’t expect things to turn out this way. But honestly, once it happened… I wasn’t entirely surprised. Your uncle and your aunt were each other’s first loves. When they’d just started dating, the four of us — them, me, and your father — had dinner together. Even then I could see it: they were so tender with each other, so in tune. The kind of soulmates you only see in movies, the ones destined to grow old together.”
Her voice caught. “But no one could have predicted that your uncle would develop that kind of illness. The truth is, the symptoms of schizophrenia are terrifying. Once he came to our house for dinner — you weren’t home — and we were all chatting happily, and then without any warning he flipped the table. I remember it so clearly. And how many times did your aunt go through something like that?”
Su Hui’s expression was flat. He held the amulet and stared out the window, unmoving, but he didn’t interrupt her.
“The most frightening thing was his self-harm. He tried multiple times. Eventually there was no choice — he had to be hospitalized, kept in a controlled environment…” Ji Ya’nan paused, gave herself a moment, then continued. “Usually, everyone’s attention goes to the person who is ill. Very few people think about the partner. I told your aunt to divorce him too. But she loved him too deeply. She simply couldn’t bring herself to leave.”
A red light. Ji Ya’nan stopped the car and glanced over at Su Hui.
“I don’t think young people’s love is shallow — I know that. And I know this is your first time loving someone. You love him, and he may love you too. But Xiao Hui — sometimes loving a little less is actually better. What’s terrifying is when the feeling goes too deep. Your father and I are one example: when he passed, I was barely able to pull myself back together. But your aunt couldn’t do it. She couldn’t endure even one more night.”
“Better a sharp pain than a long one — there’s truth in that saying. And I need to say something that might be harsh: you are someone who is ill. You have a responsibility to the people you love.”
Su Hui thought: this day is so long. Like a slow execution that has no end.
And his mother’s words were the final cuts — deep ones, carved straight into his heart.
Ji Ya’nan fell silent. A minute later, her phone rang. She glanced at the number — an important work call. She pulled over to the side of the road and got out to answer it.
She gave Su Hui no instructions. He sat in the passenger seat watching her, then quietly unclipped his seatbelt, gently opened the car door, and without a moment’s hesitation ran across to the other side of the road.
Two minutes later, Ji Ya’nan ended her call and looked back at the empty car. She sighed, lit a cigarette, and stood on the roadside smoking it down to the end in silence before driving home.
