Chapter 83: N. Filling the Wound

After reading all the letters, Su Hui couldn’t help but shed tears.

“When exactly did he sneakily write these…” he murmured, raising his hand to wipe away his tears, followed by an involuntary laugh.

He managed to keep it so well-hidden.

Ning Yixiao’s handwriting was usually very rushed; to save time, he wrote in a messy, flowing scrawl, whether in Chinese or English. But these letters were written stroke by stroke, very slowly, very seriously, with every character distinct and firm.

Even though he was so obsessed with efficiency, he was willing to spend his precious time writing these letters by hand for Su Hui. Every single letter was a response to something Su Hui had written, covering every missed detail from the last six years.

All those “ineffective” letters from the past had wandered in circles, only to finally reach him—and now, they had all been answered.

It was like a puzzle; Ning Yixiao had scrambled the pieces and reconstructed a completely different story. They were no longer a pair of ill-fated lovers torn apart by heartbreak; they were, as Ning Yixiao said, just two people briefly trapped in two incompatible time loops. Their correspondence was the only thread holding them together, a signal transmission that had gone slightly astray, causing them to miss each other for a time.

The Su Hui who had been shattered by those long years now felt whole again.

He cherished the letters deeply, putting them back into their envelopes and packing them into his bag.

[Little Cat: Where are you? I want to see you.]

Before long, Ning Yixiao replied.

[puppy: (Shared Location)]

[puppy: A restaurant Jingming invested in. I just finished a meeting with the project contractors. Have you eaten? Do you want to come over and have dinner?]

The restaurant was very close to Su Hui’s school.

[Little Cat: Okay! I’ll be there right away.]

After replying, Su Hui left the building, ready to ride his bike over. He spotted a little girl selling flowers on the side of the road and, without hesitation, bought the entire large bouquet of champagne roses from her, tucked them into his front basket, and cycled away.

He rode quickly, forgetting to put on a jacket. His ocean-blue shirt caught the wind as he wove through the heavy, rushing crowds like a nimble fish. Loaded with love, all his desolate and lonely days were left behind, never to return.

Inside the restaurant, Ning Yixiao stood up, bowed slightly to bid farewell to his business partners, and glanced out the floor-to-ceiling window. Just then, he saw Su Hui cycling across the road. His white hair was whipped up by the wind, his clean, full face set against the twilight, wearing that blue shirt and carrying the pale gold basket of roses. He looked as free as a mountain breeze.

Ning Yixiao was momentarily distracted, thinking of how Su Hui used to cycle everywhere looking for temples. His thoughts drifted. But in the next second, Su Hui—roses in his arms, backpack on his shoulders—rushed toward him and pulled him into an embrace.

“Ning Yixiao.”

Su Hui tilted his head up, one hand holding the flowers while the other pressed against Ning Yixiao’s back, his voice still a little breathless. “I’m back.”

Ning Yixiao lowered his head, rubbed Su Hui’s hair, and pulled him closer. “Yeah.”

Realizing he hadn’t immediately grasped the full meaning, Su Hui stood on tiptoe and whispered into Ning Yixiao’s ear, “I said, I’ve returned to your side.”

This time, Ning Yixiao understood. He stared steadily into Su Hui’s eyes, his expression softening unintentionally, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He looked as he had in his early twenties, possessing that youthful vulnerability that left Ning Yixiao defenseless.

“You saw them.”

Su Hui nodded. “I saw all of them, every single one.”

He buried his face in Ning Yixiao’s chest, murmuring “Thank you” and “I love you.” It wasn’t until he heard a cough that he looked up and realized there were others around. Jingming was sitting across from them, trying to hold back a laugh, and many nearby tables were also peeking at them.

Su Hui suddenly realized he had been too lost in the moment and immediately pulled away, retreating from Ning Yixiao’s embrace.

“This is for you…” Su Hui said, a bit shyly, thrusting the flowers into Ning Yixiao’s arms.

Jingming laughed. “It’s fine, keep going. I love watching this.” He glanced at Ning Yixiao, who was dressed formally, then back at Su Hui. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were dating a high schooler.”

Ning Yixiao didn’t refute it. Instead, he piled on, “Teacher Su really does look like a little kid.”

He reached out his hand. “Is your backpack heavy? Take it off and put it inside.”

“This isn’t a backpack,” Su Hui whispered in protest. He sat down next to Ning Yixiao, taking the bag off and placing it on his lap.

“What treasure did you put in there? You won’t even let it out of your sight,” Jingming teased him.

Su Hui took a sip of water and whispered something into Ning Yixiao’s ear. Jingming, feeling left out by the couple, was about to make a snide comment when he was shocked to discover Ning Yixiao’s reaction.

His ears were actually red!

What kind of monumental spectacle was this!

“What is it? Let me see!” Jingming was thoroughly intrigued. “What were you whispering about? I want to hear it too.”

Su Hui shook his head, mimicking Ning Yixiao’s signature line: “No way.”

After dinner, the two bade Jingming goodbye and headed home. Ning Yixiao took off his trench coat and draped it over Su Hui’s shoulders, telling the driver not to pick them up. Ning Yixiao pushed the bike while Su Hui walked beside him. Su Hui talked a lot, adding expressive gestures when he got excited. They strolled back slowly, just like any other college couple—and just like they were six years ago.

At a red light, Su Hui asked softly if they could share a kiss. Ning Yixiao didn’t hesitate. As a bus roared past, he leaned down and kissed Su Hui’s lips.

For a fleeting, hazy moment, Ning Yixiao even had the hallucination that this was just an ordinary day in the seventh year of their relationship, that the timeline hadn’t cracked, and that they had never been separated for a single day.

“I love you.” When they parted, Su Hui’s eyes were bright, filled only with him.

In the living room of the high-rise apartment, Su Hui laid all the letters out on the carpet, matching them up one by one like a high-difficulty jigsaw puzzle. Filled with joy, he sat in Ning Yixiao’s lap and kissed him.

He let out sticky, breathless gasps between kisses, repeating Ning Yixiao’s name.

“Ning Yixiao… I will make up for all the love I missed…”

“Okay.” Ning Yixiao’s hand pressed against the curve of his waist, moving through the gradually blending, intensifying sounds of their breathing.

Amidst the sticky kisses, he asked, “Su Hui, did you draw me?”

“Mm.” When lost in passion, Su Hui was always extra honest.

“What did you draw? Just my face?”

“Yeah…”

Ning Yixiao rubbed his nose against Su Hui’s. “Just the face? Nothing else?”

“Um… what else would there be?” Su Hui’s face flushed pink, his shirt coming undone to reveal his rosy chest.

Ning Yixiao chuckled low. “I want it. Give it to me as a gift.”

They devoured each other’s desires, the friction in their palms like lighting and watching a bonfire in the night.

At the deepest point of intimacy, Ning Yixiao looked down at Su Hui’s parted lips and the tip of his tongue showing subconsciously, and he couldn’t resist leaning down to take a bite.

As Su Hui frowned from the dual sensation of pain, he rasped, “Su Hui, this isn’t a hallucination. Remember that?”

“Mm, I remember…”

“Do you remember the secret you whispered in the restaurant?”

“The secret…”

“Say it again.”

Su Hui thought for a moment in the midst of the chaos, then spoke in a husky voice, “…Husband.”

“Good boy.”

After sleeping through the night, Su Hui woke up feeling as if every muscle in his body had been broken, and his throat felt terrible.

There was no note on the nightstand. Su Hui lazed in bed for fifteen minutes before getting up to wash. Walking was difficult; he walked along the wall all the way to the study. Finding no one, he went downstairs to the living room.

Ning Yixiao was in the kitchen boiling chicken breast. Xuegao was spinning around him, barking anxiously; upon seeing Su Hui come down, the dog rushed over and started circling him.

“You’re awake?”

Ning Yixiao took a cup of honey water that had been warming in the oven and handed it to Su Hui.

“Drink a bit.”

Su Hui obeyed; his throat felt much better. “Are you not busy today?”

“Mm, I’m taking the day off.” Ning Yixiao put the chicken breast on a plate for Xuegao, then brought out two sandwiches, adding a thick fried egg to Su Hui’s portion.

“What do you want to do? I can keep you company.”

Su Hui ate slowly, thinking as he ate, staring at Ning Yixiao all the while.

There were so many things he wanted to do. He wanted to see Ning Yixiao’s alma mater, see the giant cactus Ning Yixiao had once mentioned, accompany him to every lecture, visit the seven elephants that had grown up, go climb a glacier in Iceland together…

But all of this was secondary to Ning Yixiao himself. What Su Hui wanted most of all was to soothe the wounds Ning Yixiao could never bring himself to face, to heal his deepest emotional void.

He reached out and took Ning Yixiao’s hand. “I want to help you sort through the things your mother left behind.”

The surprise on Ning Yixiao’s face was obvious. He paused for several seconds, wanting to say something, but seemed to swallow it back with a deep breath.

Su Hui immediately backtracked, “If you don’t want to, we can do it another day…”

Seeing Su Hui’s cautious look, Ning Yixiao couldn’t bear it and smiled. “Let’s do it today.”

“Really?” Su Hui was afraid of upsetting him.

Ning Yixiao nodded. “It’s not good to just leave it there forever. It’s time to bring it out into the sun.”

Everyone else feared the things Ning Yixiao avoided, except for Su Hui. And he hoped that Su Hui would always remain the exception.

Ning Yixiao knew very well that Su Hui’s intention was to help him untie his mental knot. Just as when he was all alone, he would still visit the grave of his mother—whom he had never met—every early December, sincere and selfless, not for himself, but entirely for him.

After finishing his coffee, Ning Yixiao went upstairs and returned a moment later, carrying that old, worn box. He walked over and placed it on the floor.

Seeing the box of mementos, Su Hui’s heart stirred. He left the dining table. “I was worried you’d left it back in the Bay Area.”

“I bought this apartment first, so when I moved, I had them bring it directly here and put it away. It hasn’t been touched since.”

After saying this, Ning Yixiao fetched a pair of scissors and handed them to Su Hui. “You open it.”

“Huh?” Su Hui looked up at him, taking the scissors. “Okay.”

There was still a seal on the box. Su Hui pried it open carefully, his movements light. As he opened the carton, dust danced in the sunlight. Fearing Ning Yixiao’s obsession with cleanliness, he found a wet wipe and wiped the box down. “Do you want to wear gloves?”

“No need.” Ning Yixiao’s expression was calm, his tone indifferent.

Su Hui opened the box completely. A surge of complex emotions welled up in his heart; in a flash, he was transported back to that dark, cold winter.

Back then, Ning Yixiao hadn’t wanted to say a single word, and he hadn’t dared to speak either.

He knew Ning Yixiao still couldn’t face it, but avoidance wasn’t a solution. He hoped he could lead Ning Yixiao past this hurdle so that whenever he looked back on it, it wouldn’t be filled only with pain and sorrow.

There weren’t many things in the box. The first things that came into view were some neatly folded clothes, including the white dress Ning Yixiao had mentioned.

Su Hui took the dress out and laid it on the carpet, stroking the fabric with his fingers before softly asking Ning Yixiao, “Was your mother very tall too? This dress is so long.”

Ning Yixiao nodded. “Mm. Everyone says I inherited my mother’s appearance completely, both my face and my height, except for this mole at the corner of my eye.”

Su Hui looked at him. “No wonder you’re so good-looking. Great genes.”

Ning Yixiao’s lips curled slightly, a faint smile that was hard to tell if it was happy or bitter.

“This is so cute.” Su Hui pulled out a small plastic toy—a little dog with a broken tail.

“This was my only toy growing up. My mom saved money for a long time to buy it for me in town.” Ning Yixiao took a look, memories flooding back. “It moved when you put batteries in it, but some other kid broke it a long time ago.”

Su Hui frowned. “Other kids?”

“Other children living nearby.” Ning Yixiao’s tone was flat. “They didn’t like me much. They grabbed it to play with it, smashed it on the ground, and broke it.”

Su Hui touched the broken tail of the dog, feeling angry, and cursed in a childish way, “How hateful.”

Ning Yixiao laughed, reaching out to stroke Su Hui’s hair in comfort. “It’s fine. I never really liked toys anyway.”

“No kid doesn’t like toys.” Su Hui held the electronic dog to his chest and looked up. “Ning Yixiao, will you give this to me?”

“It’s broken,” he emphasized.

“It doesn’t matter. My kitten doll was broken too, and you still kept it all this time.”

Su Hui gave him a soft smile.

Ning Yixiao couldn’t argue with that. “Alright.”

“Can I borrow your mother’s dress too?” Su Hui asked.

Ning Yixiao laughed again. “What, are you going to wear it?”

Su Hui immediately grew serious. “Of course not! How could I? I want to borrow it to make a piece of art.”

Ning Yixiao stopped joking. “Okay.”

“Do you think your mother would mind?” Su Hui asked cautiously.

“If she were here, she would feel honored,” Ning Yixiao said warmly.

Su Hui smiled and pressed his palms together. “Thank you, Auntie.”

They sorted through the items one by one. Only then did Ning Yixiao realize that every single thing his mother left him was a memory. He could even smell the scent of his mother in these clothes that had been stored for years. These mementos created a massive Proustian effect, pulling him back to his childhood—but it wasn’t just the painful years; it was mostly the times he had spent with his mother.

Perhaps because Su Hui was by his side, holding his hand tightly, facing all of this didn’t seem quite so painful.

“It’s so strange.” Su Hui looked at the items being pulled out one by one. Even the clothes were arranged by season. “It feels like these were packed away intentionally, not just cleaned out later.”

Ning Yixiao was silent for a moment before speaking, his tone very certain. “She must have packed them away in advance.”

Su Hui was puzzled and looked at Ning Yixiao. “Why do you say that?”

Ning Yixiao’s eyes went vacant, looking off into the distance. “I told you before—after I got into high school, I never went back to that village again. And my mom disappeared. She vanished along with that stepfather. At the time, I thought they were hiding from debt collectors, but thinking about it now… although the debt collectors were always hassling me, that stepfather never appeared again. Before that, it was different. When I was in middle school, he was always drunk, blocking me near my school, sometimes even hitting me.”

Su Hui couldn’t imagine what kind of life Ning Yixiao had lived as a child.

“He hit hard; my mom couldn’t pull him off even if she tried.” Ning Yixiao furrowed his brow. “The stepfather’s disappearance was actually a good thing for me—I didn’t have to live in fear anymore. My mom understood me very well. She knew I could never return to that place, and I hadn’t been back in many years. They should have felt the same way. But after her accident, do you remember? The electricity in the old house was still connected.”

Su Hui suddenly understood something, but the truth was too hard to accept.

“Connected… you mean your mother went back before she left.”

Ning Yixiao nodded. “She was always so stingy with electricity; it was impossible she would have left it on, especially since there were still the tangyuan she’d made frozen in the fridge.”

“She knew better than anyone: the only way I would ever return there was if she were gone. Only then, in accordance with the wish she’d mentioned before, would I return to the old home to scatter her ashes in the sea.”

Su Hui felt a chill run through his body.

She had calculated it all. She had prepared everything in advance.

“So that fire…”

“She probably set it herself, disguised as an accident. It was the only way to ensure it wouldn’t impact me.” Ning Yixiao was very calm. In truth, he had guessed as much the moment he stood in the police station.

Especially after the police provided the neighbor’s testimony—that they had been arguing at home, that the stepfather had beaten her until she could barely stand, and in his rage, had uttered threats against Ning Yixiao—it confirmed his suspicions.

“She didn’t want a gambler reeking of evil to remain a threat to me for the rest of my life.”

A profound sorrow welled up in Su Hui’s heart.

To watch oneself be consumed by fire—how painful must that have been? But for her child, she had no other choice.

“Su Hui, do you think there’s an afterlife?” Ning Yixiao asked softly.

Su Hui looked at him, his eyes glistening with moisture. “I didn’t believe in it much before, but now I think there must be.”

Ning Yixiao chuckled and nodded.

Su Hui understood him perfectly. He grabbed his hand and held it tight. “Yixiao, Auntie will be very happy in her next life.”

“I hope so.”

At the very bottom of the box, pressed down, was an A6-sized notebook. The cover was so worn that someone had added a protective book cover to it.

Ning Yixiao was very familiar with it. “This looks like my mom’s ledger.”

Ever since he could remember, he’d seen his mother sit down after a hard day’s work and record her expenses in the dim light. That was why, from the moment he started working, he had learned to keep a ledger himself.

Ning Yixiao flipped through it. The paper had yellowed with age, and the handwriting had mostly faded, becoming illegible. But one could still vaguely make out the poverty and hardship of their life back then.

Tucked into the notebook were some receipts. The amounts involved were pitifully small, but his mother had collected them and written down corresponding records—which shop they were from, who they related to.

The first half was the ledger; the second half looked like a diary his mother had kept. Ning Yixiao flipped through it casually. Most of it recorded things about him and that father who had never appeared—for instance, how he learned to walk, or how he came in first on his exams, or how he caught a fever and had to be taken to the hospital.

His mother liked to call him [Xiao Xiao], but Ning Yixiao had hated his name since he was a child, so he had always refused to be called that.

It wasn’t until Su Hui appeared, calling his name in a sincere and tender way, that the shackles of those two characters were finally broken.

Su Hui leaned against Ning Yixiao’s shoulder, seeing what his mother had written, his eyes sharp. After hesitating for a moment, he leaned into Ning Yixiao’s ear, imitating his mother’s voice, and whispered, “Xiao Xiao?”

Ning Yixiao glanced at him. “Stop messing around.”

“Xiao Xiao?” Su Hui laughed, his eyes curving into crescents. “So cute.”

“What’s cute about it?” Ning Yixiao pinched his chin. “I’m older than you.”

“Just by one year.” Su Hui pouted.

“One month older is still older.”

Su Hui kissed his hand. “Okay, Brother.”

Ning Yixiao hadn’t expected him to be so cheeky, and for a moment, he couldn’t speak. He just lowered his head and flipped through the pages quickly, skipping over the childhood content so he wouldn’t have to look at pages filled with the words [Xiao Xiao].

Su Hui leaned against him obediently, no longer challenging Ning Yixiao’s patience, but his attention drifted from the writing to the notebook itself. Suddenly, he noticed something.

“What is this?”

He pointed to the back cover of the notebook. There was a small, square-shaped protrusion.

Ning Yixiao ran his fingertips over it, feeling like something was sandwiched between the book cover and the notebook. He removed the cover, and an old photograph fell out.

Su Hui picked it up and realized it was a group photo. In the picture, a beautiful woman in simple clothes was holding a one- or two-year-old child, and standing beside her was a thin, tall teenager, about sixteen or seventeen years old.

Ning Yixiao did indeed look very much like his mother; he was recognizable at a glance. As a child, there had been a stubborn streak on his face, his eyes were bright, and the mole at the corner of his eye added a touch of sorrow.

“This is… your mother and you?” Su Hui stared at the person on the far right of the photo. His breathing suddenly hitched. “This person on the right…”

He thought the person looked familiar. The figure made Su Hui think of the person he least wanted to see; the outline of the face was very similar, though the features were different.

Ning Yixiao noticed it too. He took the photo and flipped it over, finding his mother’s handwriting on the back, written in ballpoint pen: [Me, Xiao Xiao, and Guan Cheng], followed by a date: [7.12].

Guan Cheng?

Ning Yixiao’s memory suddenly raced back to the morning after he had stayed over at Su Hui’s house.

Xu Zhi had driven him home that day and had brought up the past, but Ning Yixiao hadn’t remembered it.

[You must have met me when you were a kid, but you were only a year or two old, so you probably forgot. I was sixteen then, and I even held you.]

[If she hadn’t helped me back then, I probably would have jumped into the sea and killed myself.]

[I lived at your house for half a year. Qin Yue treated me like a younger brother, but later I asked her to leave with me, and she didn’t agree.]

Sixteen years old. Him being one or two. Living at his house. All these details matched.

At the time, it had just felt uncomfortable, and he hadn’t noticed anything unusual. But recalling those words now, he realized there were so many suspicious details.

Ning Yixiao remembered that phone call Xu Zhi had made after his mother passed away—a call that seemed to be a memorial.

[I can offer you a little help now. Did your mother leave you any words? If she had any unfulfilled wishes, you can tell me, and I’ll help her complete them.]

“Did she leave any words…”

His intuition had been right back then. He had indeed been probing.

Su Hui heard Ning Yixiao’s self-muttering. “Did you think of something?”

“I’m not sure.”

Su Hui also harbored doubts. He looked at the date on the back of the photo: July 12th. He opened Qin Yue’s notebook once more, flipping through it from back to front, and found the entries corresponding to several dates. From these, he found the diary entry related to [Guan Cheng].

“Look at this.”

[Today, Guan Cheng took me to town. His friend came to visit him and brought a camera. I don’t remember when the last time I took a picture was. I held Xiao Xiao and didn’t know how to pose, so it didn’t turn out very good, but both of them said it looked good.]

[Xiao Guan’s friend is a good person. He seems to have just been admitted to a decent school. Before he left, he even treated us to a meal. I asked the restaurant for a receipt; it was quite expensive, almost a hundred. I’ll have to find a way to treat them back later. I just don’t know when I’ll see them next.]

“Receipts.”

Ning Yixiao searched through the receipts for any related to dining. One of them had a total of 98.5 yuan—very close to his mother’s description.

He flipped it over, and a chill ran down his spine.

[7.12, meal treated by Xiao Guan’s friend, Xu Zhi]