Is there?
No?
A young girl in the prime of her life, favored by a boy like Han Shu, though he was unreasonable, though he was irrational and ridiculous, yet also pure. If it weren't for the sordid memories of that night in the small hotel and the boundless desolation in court later, would Ju Nian recall him with a hint of a smile? And "Let me look at you," wasn't that the very phrase she silently recited to the little monk in her heart? Han Shu looked at her, but she looked at the little monk; how could she possibly turn around? And yet, who was the little monk looking at?
Now, Ju Nian often gazes at Fei Ming's face after he falls asleep, hoping to see the reflection of her own longing in his face. However, she is disappointed time and time again, and this disappointment grows stronger as the child grows older.
Fei Ming looks too much like her biological mother.
She is beautiful, competitive, daring, stubborn, and vain.
Ju Nian couldn't find any familiarity with Fei Ming. Instead, through that small face, another beautiful face was revealed. The owner of that face held back her tears and gritted her teeth, saying: "We agreed to go together. He promised, and he can't go back on his word!"
The power of heredity is truly astounding.
As a prisoner, there are two moments I look forward to the most. One is when superiors come to inspect or outsiders visit. At this time, the guards will ask everyone to put down what they are doing, to watch TV, participate in recreational activities on the playground, or read in the library. The inspectors or visitors will then remark with satisfaction: "Prisoners' lives are actually quite humane these days." And the prisoners do indeed steal a moment of peace. The other is prison visits. For a prisoner, a visit is something they both look forward to and fear being hurt by. On the one hand, it means seeing their relatives or friends, a welcome relief in the midst of a life of darkness; however, on the other hand, visits often bring devastating news such as death, divorce, or breakups.
For three years, Ju Nian didn't expect any visits. Her parents wouldn't come; she knew that her actions had brought Xie Maohua and his wife an indelible shame. To be honest, if her parents actually appeared before her, Ju Nian didn't know how to face them. She'd rather be an ostrich. Since meeting would only cause embarrassment and pain for everyone, it was better not to see them at all. She'd rather pretend they were dead. Perhaps that's what her parents already thought.
Those who requested to visit Ju Nian included Prosecutor Cai, Han Shu's classmate Fang Zhihe, and she even received a strange wire transfer containing a considerable sum. The prison guards asked her to sign it, entrusting the prison with temporary custody of the money, but Ju Nian refused to sign and refused to see any of the aforementioned individuals. She only accepted one visit—in her second year in prison, when Chen Jiejie requested a visit.
Ju Nian didn't sleep a wink that night. She didn't want to see anyone in this world, but Chen Jiejie was different. Putting aside the reasons for love, hate, and grudges, Chen Jiejie was a witness to that period of time. By then, Ju Nian had been in prison for over 700 days. In the darkness, the past seemed like a dream. Countless times she reached out, only to grasp emptiness. She needed Chen Jiejie alive and well before her, to confirm the reality of those experiences. Just like when Ju Nian once picked up the scissors in the library, wanting to cut out the remaining two people in that photo of four people, leaving only her and Wu Yu. But in the end, she didn't do it. She couldn't cut off those gazing eyes, couldn't cut off the tightly clasped hands in the unseen places, couldn't cut off the intricate entanglements behind the photo.
She wanted to see Chen Jiejie. Because many times, she suddenly felt that Chen Jiejie was her, and she was Chen Jiejie; they were two sides of the same coin, contradictory yet interconnected.
Chapter Three is a promise, and it cannot be changed.
"We agreed to go together, and he can't go back on his word!"
As Chen Jiejie spoke, she sat in the visiting room of Changping Women's Prison. As usual, she sat with her back to the closed door, facing Ju Nian at opposite ends of a long, green, peeling-painted table. The female prison guard in charge of guarding them idly played with her fingernails. Two girls of the same age, who had once spent their school years studying together at the same desk, yet separated by the overly long table and two years of time, they recognized each other at first glance, yet still felt a sense of estrangement.
Chen Jiejie didn't ask, "How are you?" Perhaps she had already sensed the hypocrisy in those words, or perhaps she knew that she should be sitting on the other side of the table, that fate had arbitrarily changed their positions. How could things be good if their prime years were wasted behind bars? But now, neither of them had the ability to rewrite their lives.
“I begged him. The train was about to leave, just two hours... In two hours, we could run away together. He said he would take me to the place where his ancestors lived, and he also said that he would give me a new life there. He promised me, how could he go back on his word?”
Chen Jiejie was in a backlit position, and Ju Nian, who had been silent all along, could only see a thin, emaciated shadow.
"How far do you think you can go?" This was the first thing Ju Nian said to Chen Jiejie, and it seemed like she had been saying the same thing all along.
"I don't care!" The figure sitting opposite her suddenly leaned forward, almost startling the prison guard beside her. "I don't care how far we go, a mile or a thousand miles, as long as he takes me away, I won't blame him for the outcome. But what about him? He said, 'Jiejie, I have to see Ju Nian one more time; I owe her a promise.' When that time came, he still recklessly walked back, just to say goodbye to you. He kept his promise to you, but what about me? What about his promise to me?"
Ju Nian slowly lowered her head, savoring the final confusion, sweetness, and bitterness the little monk had given her amidst the memories Chen Jiejie had stirred in her. Although neither she nor Chen Jiejie could ever know what the promise between the two girls truly meant to that departed boy.
“I cried and begged so desperately not to take the risk, to stay with me, to stay with our child. But he still left. He said he would come back as long as he had a breath left. I sat in the corner of the waiting room, waiting foolishly, one hour, two hours. The train arrived, the announcements came, the whistle blew, the train drove away, and I kept waiting and waiting, but he didn’t come back. It got dark, then it got light again… I stood there like a fool until I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I saw my parents’ faces. From that moment on, I began to hate him!” Chen Jiejie’s voice was icy as she spoke, but Ju Nian knew that she was shedding tears on the other end, tears that were still warm.
“Do you hate me, Ju Nian? Hate me for taking him away. But except for the last day, I never begged him for anything, never begged him to love me, never begged him to take me away. After I went back, my parents didn’t give me any more chances to escape. I didn’t go anywhere except my room. The whole world shut me out. No one told me what happened afterward, but I know that Wu Yu died. He could risk his life to say goodbye to you, but if he had a breath left, he would have come back to me. My mother brought me food to my room every day. At first, no one knew about the child. Later, my belly started to show. I knew better than anyone that I couldn’t keep my child either.”
Ju Nian glanced at Chen Jiejie subconsciously. Besides being thin, she was still incredibly thin. She had laughed at herself for being foolish then; two years had passed, and regardless of whether the child was alive or dead, how could it still be in the womb? Chen Jiejie's parents, that couple who loved their only daughter to the point of obsession and madness. Ju Nian found it hard to forget the memory of the courtroom scene. The couple's eyes held boundless doting and protection for their daughter, yet when they looked at her, they were so cruel and rational. She would never forget the bone-chilling coldness of that moment; it was the final straw that pushed her into the abyss. Perhaps in her lifetime, she might never be able to repay them in kind, but that memory would stay with her, never fading. She also knew that once the Chen couple found out about the "bastard" in her daughter's womb, there was nothing they wouldn't do. They would wipe out anything that could potentially destroy their daughter—Ju Nian, and the child, too.
“They wanted to kill my child. It was too easy for my parents. In their eyes, she wasn't their grandchild, but the last sin Wu Yu left on me. But this was also the last memento Wu Yu left me. My child, I couldn't protect her…”
"The child... is gone?" There was a hint of shock in Ju Nian's voice.
Chen Jiejie clenched her hands tightly on the table, then slowly loosened them. Ju Nian, using the light from the window, noticed that those once beautiful hands, covered in nail polish, now only had bare, ugly nails.
Chen Jiejie chuckled, a laugh that sounded so abrupt in the cold visiting room.
"I only said one sentence to my parents: if the child dies, their daughter dies too... If I give birth to her, then... then they can take her away from me, and I will never see her again for the rest of my life... My child, I swore a solemn oath to my parents that I would never see her again, as if she had never come into my life... As long as she lives, as long as she is still here, if I break this oath, may I never have a good end in any of my lifetimes, may I never know the taste of happiness. My parents know me; I am not a good daughter, but even with a thousand flaws, I am still a person of my word. Later, I gave birth to a child, a daughter. I never saw her once; I only know that she was born on the last day of January, and that she was born with congenital epilepsy. I abandoned her, but at least she was alive when she left me; this is the last thing I could do."
"And now, or in the future, have you ever thought about getting her back?"
Chen Jiejie's answer was only one word: "No."
"I've been on leave from school for the past two years. It wasn't until shortly after my child was born that I received fragmented news about Wu Yu, and about you... I don't know what to say. I guess nothing I say can undo it. I can't compare to you. In the end, I'm still a selfish person. You can hate me, you can look down on me, but if I could, I would switch places with you..."
"Where was he buried? Who buried him?" Ju Nian ended the conversation. She wasn't a priest and didn't accept anyone's confession. She was more eager to find answers to her questions, questions that outweighed all confessions and tears.
Chen Jiejie shook her head. "My parents have relaxed their attitude towards me a bit, but it's only been recently. I heard that because no relatives or friends came to claim him, the government arranged for his burial. I heard from the prison that you received a reduced sentence. What are your plans for the future?" Chen Jiejie was indeed smart; she knew her position all too well, so every word she uttered was difficult.
Ju Nian said softly, "This is my business."
Chen Jiejie forced a smile and said, "My parents found me a university in Shanghai, and their business will gradually move there as well. My parents are not even fifty years old yet, but their hair is almost all white. I don't know who I owe them for being their daughter. I promised them that I would live the life they want me to live and love the people they want me to love..."
“Also, forget what they want you to forget…” Ju Nian said.
Chen Jiejie put her hand away. "Yes, that's fine too. I told Wu Yu a long time ago that if he hadn't made a promise to me, then I would wait for him, which was something I was willing to do. But if he promised me and then broke his promise, then I wouldn't wait for him anymore. At least not in this lifetime."
She wanted to calmly finish saying what she needed to say, but she choked up at the end, "I'm afraid of a separation without a time limit."
Ju Nian said, "Do whatever you want. But you should know that you can leave when you want and turn back when you want, but Wu Yu is different. He only has one path. If it doesn't work, then it's the end."
"Actually, I've thought about it. If he really took me away, maybe one day I'd blame him, turn back, and continue living like an ordinary woman. He'd get married and have children somewhere else, and we'd forget each other. It would be no different from the rebellious phase many people go through in their youth. Not knowing where to go, not knowing why to run away, just wanting a feeling of being carried away. After a few years, everyone gets tired of it. Others can turn back after their youthful recklessness, but Wu Yu is dead, and I..."
She never finished speaking. Later, Ju Nian thought that Chen Jiejie might be right; wasn't she the same? Chen Jiejie saw Wu Yu as Romeo under the window, but Romeo died beside another Juliet; while Ju Nian thought the one running in the wind with her hand was her own chivalrous hero, Xiao Qiushui, but she didn't realize she wasn't Tang Fang. They both unwittingly placed their girlish dreams on Wu Yu, but in reality, Wu Yu was nobody; Wu Yu was just Wu Yu, a frail, pale boy.
His stay in this world was too brief, like a mark wiped away by a hand on a fogged window. Perhaps many years later, only two things will prove his existence: the warm memories of Ju Nian and a girl named Fei Ming.
Chapter Four: Observing Without Being Clear
Fei Ming's name, derived from the ancient proverb "To be overly discerning is not true wisdom; true wisdom lies in knowing when to observe and when not to observe. To be certain of victory is not true courage; true courage lies in knowing when to win and when not to win." Long ago, Fei Ming used this saying to enlighten a pale, melancholy-faced boy. In fact, she had always tried to take it as her own life motto: to refrain from arrogance and competitiveness, to embrace simplicity and honesty, to be content with one's lot, and to embrace a rare kind of blissful ignorance. Later, after much reflection, she realized that such beliefs were mostly not for the wise, but rather for the self-comfort of the weak. Fei Ming always considered herself to be this kind of timid person, and precisely because of this timidity, perhaps it was better not to see things too clearly.
Is the other side of black white? Is the other side of love hate? Is the other side of death life? It's all a confusing mess. The first thing Ju Nian did after being released from prison was to exhaust all her energy searching for Wu Yu's burial place. This had been her only hope, the driving force that kept her going through the long, dark nights in prison, the motivation for her to play the role of a model female prisoner—to get out of there quickly, just quickly, so she could return to his side, even if he was already buried deep underground. She didn't know what the point of that one glance was, yet it minimized the torment within those high walls.
The day she was released from prison was rainy. Her fellow inmates and familiar guards offered her fitting blessings: rain washes away all past grime and filth, heralding a new beginning. But Ju Nian, wearing the same clothes Cai Yilin had given her when she first entered prison, slowly walked out of the rusty iron gates of Changping Women's Prison. Outside, there was no one, only the endless curtain of rain merging heaven and earth. She didn't know where the road was; perhaps she could only blame the rain for blinding her.
Her parents had long since disowned her, and she could never go home. The only person in the world who cared about her was somewhere, peacefully resting, waiting for her visit. Clutching her release certificate and the 262 yuan she'd earned in prison, Ju Nian couldn't find a bus route back to the city, so she repeatedly tried to flag down the occasional passing taxi. Without exception, the vehicles roared past her, water droplets forming countless winding streams from the ends of her short hair. After her initial anxiety, she gradually realized the absurdity of it all—what driver would stop to pick up a woman soaking wet at the prison gate?
The world is vast and desolate, yet a person has nowhere to settle down.
Only then did Ju Nian see the woman hurrying towards him in the rain with an umbrella.
It was Pingfeng. She was wearing the most gaudy red dress, burning like fire in the rain, sweat beading on her forehead, and muttering casually, "I'm late. The last guy I picked up was like he was on steroids, damn it..."
Those crude words flowed smoothly from Ping Feng's delicate lips. After a moment of surprise, Ju Nian embraced this genuine and warm feeling of worldly life.
For a while afterward, Ju Nian stayed temporarily in Ping Feng's cramped and messy rented room. Ping Feng was released from prison six months before Ju Nian and, unsurprisingly, returned to her old ways to make a living. She didn't say many heartfelt words to Ju Nian, always busy. At that time, Ju Nian was struggling to find a job, and her limited money was quickly running out. She knew that without Ping Feng, she wouldn't have survived those days. Besides keeping Ping Feng's doghouse-like rented room tidy in her spare time, Ju Nian couldn't do anything else.
Pingfeng was young, beautiful, and alluring, considered top-tier among her peers, and her business was always booming. She was usually not home at night, and for Ju Nian's sake, she never brought her "guests" back to her residence. With Pingfeng's support, Ju Nian tirelessly inquired about the whereabouts of Wu Yu's remains, traveling to many places and enduring many hardships before finally getting her wish.
As Chen Jiejie knew, Wu Yu was buried by the government in the suburbs because no one claimed his body. Unlike some death row inmates, he wasn't sent to a medical school laboratory, which Ju Nian considered a stroke of luck. Based on a vague directions from someone in the know, Ju Nian vaguely found the desolate place. Because of the long journey, it was nearly dusk when she arrived. Standing before the wild grass, facing the setting sun, the last glimmer of the afterglow almost blinded her. For a long time, her mind was in a daze, unable to distinguish whether what she saw was real or an illusion. From one edge of the city to another, from one forgotten corner to another—was this Wu Yu's life? Was the silent person inside really him?
Ju Nian stood until her legs were numb before leaving, urged on by Ping Feng. Before leaving, she numbly buried the "best loquat leaf" that Wu Yu had given her in her second year of high school in the soil. He had said it before: pomegranates and loquats, Wu Yu and Ju Nian. Let this familiar scent accompany the one who sleeps forever.
Surprisingly, throughout the entire process, Ju Nian didn't shed a single tear. Not only was Ping Feng worried that she would become ill from holding it in, but Ju Nian herself thought she would break down at this moment. However, she didn't; nothing happened. It wasn't that she forgot to cry because of heartache; she just felt lost and alienated, numbly completing a ritual she had longed to perform for so long, as if devoid of emotion. Was it the permanent separation and years of solitude within high walls that dulled her profound longing?
Pingfeng chewed gum as she walked back with Ju Nian, but there was a hint of worry in her eyes. Ju Nian's calmness and indifference gave her the creeps. Just as she breathed a sigh of relief after leaving the cemetery, Ju Nian, who had been by her side the whole time, stopped.
As if ignoring Pingfeng's calls, Ju Nian rushed back to where she had been. Without a word, she bent down and began frantically pulling at the still somewhat loose soil with both hands. Pingfeng was startled, fearing that Ju Nian might do something shocking, but Ju Nian simply unearthed the withered yellow leaf that she had buried not long ago.
"What's wrong?" Pingfeng asked, arm in arm with Ju Nian.
Ju Nian held the leaf in her hand, then suddenly laughed at Ping Feng and said, "I'm so stupid, how could Wu Yu be here?"
Yes, how could Wu Yu be here? How could that lifeless skeleton beneath the yellow earth be Ju Nian's little monk? Whether he was buried, cremated, or dissected to pieces in a hospital laboratory, it wasn't him; it was just a discarded shell.
"But they clearly said... so where is he?"
Ju Nian smiled without saying a word, then pulled Ping Feng away.
She didn't say anything, afraid that Pingfeng would think she had gone mad. But she knew she was perfectly clear-headed; she had never been this clear-headed since she watched Wu Yu stumble and fall right in front of her.
Her little monk never died; she was always there, watching over her from where he couldn't see her, just like the day he left his aunt's house, watching Ju Nian leave under the pomegranate tree. He didn't speak, refused to look at her; perhaps he was just taking a nap. One day, he would open his eyes, turn around amidst the gentle breeze and whispering flowers, and smile brightly at her.
With her worries resolved, reality confronted her again: to survive, she needed to find a way to make a living. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, those three years in prison were an obstacle to earning a living. She could say she didn't care, but she couldn't pretend it didn't exist. Job seekers were as numerous as fish in a river, and what employer wouldn't choose someone with a more clean record?
In her most desperate moment, even the usually optimistic Ju Nian fell into a long silence, exhausted and disappointed. After all, she wasn't one of those lucky ones in a fantasy world who fell to the bottom and learned unparalleled martial arts; on the contrary, she had nothing and was utterly ordinary.
Pingfeng returned at dawn, and without even taking off her shoes, she lay down next to Ju Nian, knowing that the person next to her couldn't sleep.
"or……"
"No, Pingfeng, no..."
Before Pingfeng could utter that suggestion, Ju Nian resolutely refused. She realized in a panic that she was not speaking with righteous indignation, but rather that she was terrified of her own wavering.
Pingfeng remained silent for a moment, then let out a barely audible cold laugh.
"That's right, of course you'd say no, you're different from me. I'm dirty, you're still clean, I shouldn't drag you down into the mud."
Ju Nian could easily hear the sarcasm in Ping Feng's words. She turned to the side. "Dirty, clean? What's the difference between you and me? But who's dirtier? Ping Feng, I just think there will always be other options, there must be." She tried to make her words sound less uncertain. This was for Ping Feng, and also for herself. "Ping Feng, maybe we'll both find another way out."
"Really? I'm sleepy..."
Pingfeng remained silent, seemingly having fallen into a deep sleep, while Ju Nian closed his eyes in silence. However, the same question still lingered.
Are there other options and solutions?
Perhaps there was a way out. This "way out" might be insignificant to those accustomed to the easy path, but to those in need, it was enough to offer a glimmer of hope. Thanks to her good behavior in prison over the years, an official from Changping Women's Prison learned of Ju Nian's plight after her release and stepped in to help. They finally secured her a job doing odd jobs at a local welfare institution. The monthly income wasn't much, but it was enough to make ends meet. Ju Nian was grateful and worked diligently, as expected.
The welfare home is a place of care, but also a place of abandonment. It houses elderly people without support, and children who lost their parents after the New Year. Ju Nian assists the staff, cleaning and washing sheets daily, keeping herself busy, but no one seems to care much about her past. She's just afraid of the eyes of the dying elderly, and even more afraid of the abandoned children who come and go. Every time she sees those small figures, she can't help but think of Chen Jiejie's words about children she'll never see again.
However, fate has its own wondrous ways. After working at the city's welfare home for over half a year, one afternoon, while mopping the corridor floor, Ju Nian overheard a conversation between a caregiver and a visiting benefactor about a pitiful child. It was a three-year-old girl, whose parents were reportedly unknown; she had been adopted at birth. When she was around two years old, her adoptive parents noticed she suddenly developed bluish-purple cheeks and convulsions in her hands and feet while being fed. Initially, they thought it was accidental choking, but after taking her to the hospital, she was diagnosed with congenital epilepsy. The adoptive parents were devastated and took their child to various hospitals, but were repeatedly told that there was currently no effective cure. Although the disease didn't flare up frequently, its existence was like a ticking time bomb. Due to their own limited financial resources, the adoptive parents, after much consideration, decided to give up and, though reluctantly, returned the girl to the welfare home. Afterwards, although other couples who wanted children considered adoption, they all backed down upon hearing about the disease.
Ju Nian didn't know how many times she had mopped that corridor that afternoon, from one end to the other, and then starting over again. It wasn't until the dean walked by and kindly reminded her, "Xiao Xie, this floor is so shiny you can see your reflection in it," that she stopped and realized how incredibly tired she was.
A three-year-old child suffering from epilepsy who was abandoned.
Ju Nian told herself, "Haven't I seen enough pitiful examples in the past six months at the orphanage? What does this have to do with me?" But after putting down her cleaning tools, she somehow found herself walking into the children's afternoon activity room.
At that moment, a couple who were planning to adopt an orphan happened to be present. The staff of the orphanage organized all the children who could walk to form a semicircle and sing nursery rhymes, waiting to be chosen. No one gave Ju Nian any guidance or hints. She saw a child in the distance. She was the smallest in that semicircle, with sparse hair, thin and weak. If it weren't for the color of her clothes, it would be almost impossible to tell her gender. She clapped and sang along with the other children, occasionally hitting the wrong beat. Her eyes had the emptiness that was common among the children here.
The young couple ultimately chose an eight-month-old baby, a child at this age with limited memory and easier to bond with. The children who weren't chosen scattered, some chasing and playing, others playing on their own.
Ju Nian stopped the staff member looking after the child, hesitated, pointed at the child, and asked, "Sister Wang, is that the child who was returned because of epilepsy?"
The woman called Sister Wang nodded, her words filled with pity: "It's quite pitiful, the child is over three years old but looks like she's only two, and she's a girl."
Ju Nian didn't know how she got to the child's side. The child was sitting on a small wooden stool, not saying a word, staring straight at the person next to her with a pair of big eyes that seemed to take up too much space on a small face.
Ju Nian's outstretched hand trembled the whole time. Countless moments, she tried to convince herself to avoid such a touch, just like before, when she was happily riding her old bicycle in the wind. Don't look back, never look back. Without a beginning, there would be no ending.
Now, all the turmoil has gradually subsided and cooled down. She no longer dreams every night of her own slowly opening palm in the bloody light. Where has the hand that once held her gone? She can't hold onto anything, only the lonely lines on her palm remain.
Is this the child? The child who changed half of her life but whom she had never met?
Ju Nian's hand landed on the child's sparse, soft hair. The child didn't move, just looked at her. The eyes were unfamiliar.