Sunshine Filled with Thoughts

I caught a whiff of the most loathsome smell of disinfectant. Have I already been taken to the hospital? What a cruel irony.

I felt my child plummeting downward. Is he coming out? How wonderful. I truly hope he grows up healthy. If I were to die, wouldn’t that allow me to catch up with Na Xuan? I really miss him. Why did he have to vanish from my life like this?

I have no idea how much time has passed. All I hear are the sounds of hospital machines beeping and the busy footsteps of doctors and nurses. Someone is holding my hand; I can almost feel that it is An Jinmo’s hand, but I just don’t have the strength to pull away.

How much I hate him…

I thought to myself as I lost consciousness amid the pain.

When I woke up again, I felt my body still weak and aching. An Jinmo was sleeping beside me. The room was very quiet, just the two of us.

I didn’t see the baby. Is he still alive?

Suddenly, I didn’t want to know anything about the child. That child was the main reason I left Na Xuan in the first place. If not for him, even if I hadn’t been with Na Xuan, that wouldn’t have led to tragedy in Australia, where he died away from home.

Child, I poured so much love into you, yet ended up with this result. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to see him.

Perhaps my movements startled An Jinmo awake. He lifted his head and looked at me, still a bit drowsy.

“Do you feel unwell anywhere?” he asked.

I stared at him coldly without replying. In the dimly lit room, An Jinmo’s expression fell, looking somewhat defeated.

I remained silent, and An Jinmo turned and left. After a while, the nurse wheeled in an incubator. I saw my child, my little one, eyes closed. That is my baby. In an instant, all my soft emotions surged forth. The sharpness I felt towards An Jinmo dissipated completely.

I couldn’t hold him because of my mistakes; now he had to sleep in there for quite a while.

He was so small, looking tiny in the incubator. His eyes didn’t open. He seemed so fragile. If he were in my arms right now, I wouldn’t dare to hold him. I was so overwhelmed that I almost cried, but I held back.

After a while, the nurse took the baby away. An Jinmo returned to my side and said, “Linlin, I’m truly sorry about Na Xuan…”

This was the first time I heard him apologize. He rarely showed such humility. This An Jinmo was nothing like the one I knew. Wasn’t he supposed to always be above everyone else, seemingly capable of manipulating their futures with just a snap of his fingers?

It was truly ironic. Wasn’t he capable of murder? How could he care about Na Xuan? Na Xuan was important to me, but to An Jinmo, he might as well have been a blade of grass-something so insignificant it could be trampled without a second thought!

My anger surged within me, but on the surface, I remained completely unresponsive. I still didn’t speak, having made up my mind to never say another word to him. My resentment for him would never fade.

I buried myself under the blankets, refusing to acknowledge him.

Later, my parents came to see me, and Momo often stayed by my side. Sometimes the nurses would bring the baby over for me to see. But my attitude towards the child grew colder. There were even times when I knew he was there but just wouldn’t get up to look at him.

Gradually, An Jinmo noticed. He would question me when no one else was in the room, but I ignored him as if I were determined to oppose him at all costs.

Every action that could hurt him became something I wanted to do.

The baby needed to be breastfed, but I refused. When the nurses placed the baby beside me, I would turn away. Even when he cried, I wouldn’t respond. Hearing his cries shattered my heart, but I really didn’t know what strength kept me treating my own flesh and blood this way. An Jinmo paced anxiously by my side, but we remained in a standoff in that hospital room. This deadlock seemed to turn into a war between me and An Jinmo.

I regretted it for a long time afterwards, and I questioned why I chose to hurt my own child in such a way.

I truly felt like the worst mother in the world.

My parents tried to persuade me, and Momo said so many things to me, but I didn’t hear a single word. It felt as if I had died, leaving behind an empty shell. My soul seemed to have died along with that man so far away in Australia.

In the end, An Jinmo stopped visiting my hospital room, and the baby was taken away to be raised on someone else’s milk. After more than ten days, I was discharged. Back at home, An Jinmo hired a postpartum nanny to take care of me but never appeared in front of me again. I had no way to take revenge on the hatred in my heart. Each day felt incredibly stressful.

Before long, I was diagnosed with postpartum depression. Both my child and An Jinmo had vanished from my world. I wasn’t sure if it was because my parents and Momo had allowed it, but now I was living alone in this villa. For a long time, it was just me. I became increasingly withdrawn, speaking less and less. After the postpartum nanny left, other caretakers came to look after me.

My life became simpler day by day-eating, sleeping, and staring into space.

An Jinmo seemed to keep me imprisoned, as if I were a madwoman. He began visiting me once a month, but each time, I would lash out at him with harsh words, pushing him away. Although it hurt, he would frown at me, unable to finish listening to my words, and then leave without saying much.

Time passed in my life like this. During the first six months, I was in a deep slump, but afterward, I started to teach myself university-level courses. I suddenly remembered that long ago, when I was only fifteen or sixteen, I had promised Na Xuan that I would go to study in Brisbane after taking the Gaokao. I had broken that promise. Now, I was eager to go. To Australia.

I completed all my university courses in the shortest time possible. A year later, when everyone graduated, I returned to my alma mater. That day, I sent my application materials and TOEFL scores to the University of Queensland.

Life felt like a drama. When I received the acceptance call, I was calm because I knew where I would be studying, as if I had known it long ago. I would become the person most in love with Na Xuan. And we did indeed achieve that.

I just guessed the beginning, but not the ending.

How could An Jinmo allow me to go to Australia? He had a thousand ways to ensure that my visa wouldn’t get approved and could find countless methods to convince the president of the University of Queensland to call me, telling me that I couldn’t be enrolled for various reasons.

With a sense of irony, I tore my acceptance letter into shreds. My hatred for An Jinmo deepened even further.

I stayed in that place for two whole years, and time flew by. For those two years, I felt like I was living in an alternate world.