Charity - Chapter 7

I didn’t know whether Jiang Yi had looked for me.

I’d bought a new phone and changed my number. Whether he looked for me no longer mattered.

I spent a week in my hometown. Grandma’s surgery went well, and I stayed another two days afterward to care for her.

On the day my Hong Kong and Macao travel permit arrived, Huo Qishuo and I finally set off. Sitting in her wheelchair, Grandma smiled and told me to live well.

I didn’t really think Huo Qishuo would stay interested in me for long. Perhaps in another two months, I could come back, rebuild the house, and stay with Grandma.

At the airport, our plane took off.

It was my first flight. We passed through white clouds into a brilliant blue sky. The view outside was beautiful.

“What’s so interesting about it?” Huo Qishuo said. Yet he didn’t make me lower the window shade. Instead, he asked whether I wanted to try the airplane meal. “It’s awful too.”

Smiling, I turned to him.

“Huo Qishuo?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you.”

He froze for two seconds. I watched his ears turn red.

“Are you embarrassed?”

“Shut up!” he interrupted gruffly, throwing the blanket over my head. “Go to sleep! You were up making a racket until the middle of the night. How have you still got so much energy?”

“I told you I used to be a factory girl. That job took a lot of stamina!”

Wrapped in the blanket, I smiled at him.

“I mean it, Huo Qishuo. Thank you.”

“Even if we lose touch one day, I’ll pray for you and wish you well for the rest of my life.”

“Aren’t you afraid I’m taking you away to harvest your kidneys?”

“No.”

I’d never set foot in Gang City. But with Huo Qishuo there, I truly wasn’t afraid at all.

I was going to see so much of the world with him.

And I hoped that one day, I too could stand on my own.

(End of the main story)

Jiang Yi: An Extra

When Jiang Yi got home, Li Yan’s things were gone.

She had left cleanly, taking only what belonged to her and the photographs on the cabinet.

In theory, he shouldn’t have been too upset. It had been a deception from beginning to end, after all. His victim had discovered the truth, but Li Yan was so cowardly that she hadn’t even demanded an explanation.

A friend of his had done the same thing before. That woman had shown up at his door and made a scene. It had taken two million to settle the matter.

Jiang Yi sat down on the sofa. For the first time, he found the light in the room a little harsh. He couldn’t help raising an arm to cover his eyes.

When had Li Yan discovered the truth? Why had she been at the club? When had she met Huo Qishuo?

At that thought, he could no longer sit still. He sprang up.

On the streets in the early hours, his speed climbed to nearly a hundred and eighty kilometers an hour. He went to the club and demanded to see the security footage.

The trail led him to Lili.

He knew her: a junior floor supervisor at the club, with a pointed chin and a mercenary face. Apparently, she too had once been a victim of rich young men pretending to be poor.

Smoking a cigarette, Lili faced his questions with an innocent expression.

“Li Yan? Yes, I hired her. But I don’t know her very well.”

“She said she was poor and had no money. Since we’re sort of from the same hometown, I let her work as a waitress.”

“Actually, I think she’s quite pretty. She’d definitely have earned more as a hostess, but she refused.”

“Then a couple of days ago, she suddenly called and said she was willing to be a hostess after all. Something had happened at home, and she urgently needed money.”

“As for how she hooked up with Huo Qishuo, I don’t know. All our customers have a good eye. Li Yan has that pure, innocent look, and beautiful eyes. Of course someone would take a liking to her.”

“Young Master Jiang, there’s really no point making things difficult for me. I honestly didn’t know you and she had anything going on.”

“With your status, you’re telling me she’s your girlfriend? Even if you dare say it, I wouldn’t dare believe it!”

Jiang Yi knew he wouldn’t get anything else out of her. To have come this far, she naturally had someone backing her. She wasn’t someone he could push around at will.

So he went to Li Yan’s hometown instead.

They had been together for three years. Every Lunar New Year, Li Yan asked whether he wanted to visit her family and formally ask for her hand. He knew how much she wanted to marry him.

She’d wanted to keep the baby too.

Perhaps there had been moments when Jiang Yi felt something real. Many times, he’d thought: why not stop? Tell her the truth. Li Yan wouldn’t mind that he’d hidden it.

But with her, even their hard days had been sweet. Instinctively, he’d felt that once he returned to his original place, his original identity, things between them would no longer be the same.

So he had hesitated and put it off again and again. He won the bet, yet grew increasingly uneasy. It was like a land mine buried beneath the ground. He didn’t know whether it would explode, or when. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave, so he’d stayed, living in dread.

Now the mine had finally gone off.

Yet this wasn’t the ending he had imagined.

Even in her hometown, he couldn’t find Li Yan. It was as though an invisible wall blocked his view. Lost and dejected, he was like a trapped animal.

A woman as insignificant as an ant had, from that day onward, truly vanished without a trace.

He knew perfectly well that Huo Qishuo was behind it. But the man moved in different circles. Jiang Yi’s reach wasn’t long enough to extend into Gang City’s business circles.

He stayed in Li Yan’s hometown for a week. In the end, all he could do was board the flight home in defeat.

What he would never know was that one minute before he entered the VIP lounge, Li Yan and Huo Qishuo had just boarded their plane.

The world is small. Some people meet no matter what.

The world is vast. Some people miss each other once and never meet again.

In the second year after Li Yan left him, Jiang Yi married. It was an alliance between families, nothing to do with love.

He felt that something in him had changed. Or, more precisely, something had died.

Sometimes he dreamed of Li Yan. In some dreams, he told her the truth, and they married happily and had a child. In others, she slapped him, angrily condemned his lies, and severed all ties with him.

But in reality, Li Yan had chosen neither. She had simply watched in silence while he acted out his devotion in front of her, then quietly left.

And so Jiang Yi became obsessed.

He wanted desperately to know: did Li Yan hate him? Or did she still love him, even just a little?

When he had time, he went to Gang City and kept asking after her. Occasionally, he even ran into Huo Qishuo at a year-end summit.

But whether he made discreet inquiries or demanded answers openly, Huo Qishuo never gave him the slightest information.

“Who? Li Yan? I don’t know her.”

“Isn’t she your girlfriend? If you don’t know where she is, how would I?”

In the second year after Li Yan disappeared from his world, Jiang Yi was in a traffic accident.

He had seen a woman from behind on the street who looked exactly like her. He followed, running and calling Li Yan’s name. As he crossed the road, a speeding car struck him and sent him flying.

He survived, but broke a leg. From then on, he walked with a limp.

In the fourth year of his marriage, he divorced.

His moods had become increasingly volatile. His wife had married him to unite their families, not to put up with his temper.

The divorce sent the company’s shares into turmoil, wiping out a large part of its market value. Huo Qishuo fished in those troubled waters and captured a fair share of the market.

At times, Jiang Yi felt an urge to lay his cards on the table with him.

How much would you have to gain before you’d tell me something about Li Yan?

In the tenth year after Li Yan left, Jiang Yi finally met her again.

He was visiting a seaside hotel to assess it. Li Yan stepped out of the elevator wearing sunglasses, holding a little girl’s hand. The child skipped alongside her, looking up and talking as they walked.

Li Yan’s smile was still the gentle one he remembered. It was as though the years had left no mark on her at all.

“Yanyan!”

In that instant, Jiang Yi forgot everything else. He even forgot that he was leaning on a cane. Limping, he wanted only to run to her, regardless of anything.

Li Yan looked over in surprise. Their eyes met. Jiang Yi was close to tears, his voice already choking.

“Yanyan…”

He didn’t really understand where his fixation came from. Perhaps she’d left so suddenly that he couldn’t let it go, could only brood over it endlessly.

“Mommy, who’s that man?” the little girl asked, looking curiously at him.

Jiang Yi remembered the child he and Li Yan had lost. If that child had been born, if Li Yan hadn’t left, if…

So many thoughts ran through his head.

But Li Yan only looked at him calmly and nodded.

“It’s been a long time, Jiang Yi.”

As though they’d never loved each other.

Perhaps they never really had. How could something that began with a lie claim to be love?

“You’re married?” he asked shakily. “Your child… how old is she? Does he treat you well?”

Li Yan smiled and nodded. “I’m married. He treats me very well. She’s six.”

“Mommy, I want to play in the water.”

A child had no interest in adults’ love and hatred. Her head was full of digging in the sand and splashing in the water.

“Daddy said he’d build me a castle. Maybe he’s already finished!”

“We’ll be going, then.” Li Yan nodded to him. “Goodbye.”

“Wait!” Unable to help himself, Jiang Yi reached out to catch her.

But Li Yan simply stepped back, frowning. Her manner was still gentle, but she had long since ceased to be timid.

“Mr. Jiang, please behave yourself.”

“I’ve looked for you for years.” His voice was hoarse. “Huo Qishuo kept hiding you. I owed you an explanation back then. I’ve always wanted to explain everything…”

“You don’t need to explain anything to me. It doesn’t matter.”

“All those years we were together—don’t they matter to you either?”

Her voice was quiet. “No. They don’t.”

“So please stop looking for me.”

“Ashuo wasn’t hiding me. I simply didn’t want to see you.”

“Do you hate me?”

Li Yan smiled at the question. She picked up her daughter and walked away without looking back.

Jiang Yi wanted to follow, but stopped when he saw Huo Qishuo.

Huo Qishuo had seen him too. He gave him only a cold glance. Turning to Li Yan and their daughter, his expression became tender.

He took their daughter in one arm and held Li Yan’s hand with his other.

They were a happy family of three. Beside them, Jiang Yi looked like a pitiful dog.

He knew this was their ending.

But it shouldn’t be.

It should have been him standing beside Li Yan, holding their daughter and her hand.

The more he thought about it, the more wrong it felt.

He thought he was dreaming. This was a nightmare, he told himself. He had to find a way to wake up.

He had always had trouble falling asleep. That night, though, he slept unusually deeply.

In his dream, he returned to the real world. Li Yan lay in his arms, her eyes full of love, and told him it was their tenth wedding anniversary.

Later, Jiang Yi lost his mind.

He rambled to everyone that he was married and had a daughter. His wife was called Li Yan, he said. Their daughter was ten, and they were a happy, loving family.

On the day he was committed to a psychiatric hospital, he saw a delivery rider passing by on an electric scooter, wearing a helmet.

He screamed and shrieked wildly that the rider had stolen his life.

He rushed at him. Unable to swerve in time, the scooter carried Jiang Yi with it into the grass.

A stone struck him squarely on the back of the head. Blood poured out.

His eyes open, Jiang Yi gazed at the blue sky, a dazed smile on his face.

His hand still clutched the rider’s helmet in a death grip.

“Yanyan, I’m home. I bought you some lovely fried rice today. With an extra fried egg.”