NB Chapter76

Zhang Mingsheng is sometimes a terribly dull person. He doesn’t hum in the shower, nor does he listen to the radio; he has no sense of brevity, leaving me sitting outside alone to space out.

I went through all of Auntie Yang’s belongings one by one; they were nothing but ordinary items, disposable, replaceable, and of little sentimental value. I couldn’t understand how Zhang Yaonian had once flaunted these things before a young Zhang Mingsheng, displaying them with such ostentatious pride. They seem like nothing more than a thin layer of dust from her life.

Yet Zhang Mingsheng has kept them for so long.

I turned my head toward the bathroom; the light was on inside, and the frosted glass door emitted a hazy glow.

For some reason, after kissing Zhang Mingsheng, a sense of relief and sorrow I had never felt before welled up in my heart. Things I thought I would never attain in a lifetime have suddenly barged into my life after I’ve already died once.

Even though I constantly speculate and deliberate, I still cannot be certain why Zhang Mingsheng changed his attitude. But it is precisely because of his change that I am even more reluctant to change myself. My life has been wasted for too long, though the culprit has paid with his own life as well.

Zhang Mingsheng is not invincible. The moment he exposed his weakness, his distortion, and his confusion before me, he once again handed me the gun that could take his life.

I suddenly felt a strong urge to sigh.

It seems difficult for a balanced relationship to exist between Zhang Mingsheng and me.

If I am weak, I cannot escape my reliance on him or the torment of my self-perception. He would stuff me into a cage; one where I am seemingly well-fed and spared from thought, while simultaneously cutting me with a knife, forcing me to wake up in exhaustion time and again, to open my eyes and recover, for a few seconds, my former vitality and impulse.

If he were the fragile one, I would be unable to avoid facing the depths of his inner darkness and pain, witnessing his confusion and tentative probes, and watching his life accelerate; just like that car accident, reckless and unbridled until he slammed himself into the terminal point of destruction. In the end, I would look like just another piece of the world that abandoned him.

Is this mutual love?

Is all affection in this world like this? Must it always be a rise and fall, a life-and-death struggle?

I don’t know; my experience is too meager.

The bathroom door creaked open, and I quickly lowered my head, plunging my hand into the mess and fumbling through it in a hurry. Suddenly, my finger brushed against a round, hard object deep in the box. It was wedged in a corner, perfectly positioned to defy my neatly trimmed nails.

By the time Zhang Mingsheng approached me with a bath towel wrapped around his lower half, I finally managed to drag it out by pressing down with my fingertip. I held it in my palm to take a look and found it was a dark red button.

“What’s this?” I brought it closer and held it before my eyes.

“What’s what?” Zhang Mingsheng suddenly leaned down. His hair was still soaking wet, dripping water; his torso was bare, and with just a slight glance, I could see everything.

His physique in his youth was actually less mature than in his thirties; his muscles looked much leaner.

Zhang Mingsheng had always lacked a sense of shame. He stared nonchalantly at my fingertips for a few seconds before saying, “I think that’s a button.”

“Hey.” I leaned back a bit to put some distance between us, clutching the button hidden in my palm. “Please put some more clothes on.”

“Why?” He straightened his body slowly.

“Does that even need a ‘why’?”

“Are you going to take secret photos of me and sell them to the paparazzi?”

“Of course not!”

“Then why? Should I worry that you’ll upload my face to some gay dating site?” He grabbed the dry towel draped around his neck and began to rub his hair.

Suddenly, I was at a loss for words.

There are many times when I feel as though Zhang Mingsheng’s brain and mine are in entirely different galaxies.

I took a deep breath and spoke, “Actually, we should consider ourselves broken up.”

The reason I put it that way was because the titles of “perpetrator” and “victim” are very solemn; using them to debate whether or not someone should be shirtless in front of the other seemed absurd. I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

Zhang Mingsheng’s movements came to a visible halt. He looked at me and said nothing. It wasn’t until his eyelashes fluttered slowly once more that his hands resumed their motion.

He said, “Sorry. I apologize for making you look at your ex-husband’s naked body.”

The atmosphere seemed to drop to the floor in an instant; the room suddenly felt like a silent vacuum.

Before I could react, he added, “And for kissing you just now… my apologies.”

He spoke with such sincerity that I couldn’t tell if he was actually being sincere.

Zhang Mingsheng owes me many apologies, but I felt as though I were sitting on pins and needles listening to his regret at this moment.

I lowered my head, not wanting my eyes to betray me, and continued to fiddle with that uniquely colored button. I feigned indifference, bracing myself to ask, “Do you truly feel sorry?”

“For before, or for just now?” Zhang Mingsheng asked.

“For everything.” I replied.

“Truly.” He answered quickly.

“But you don’t regret it?”

“I don’t regret what I just did.”

I looked up and saw him smiling with his eyes narrowed.

At this point, I couldn’t be bothered to pay him any mind, so I focused all my attention on the button.

After he finished drying his hair, he sat down beside me to look at it together and asked, “What exactly is so special about it?”

“I don’t know either.” I stared at the button, such a small object; if you look at it long enough, you unconsciously drift away. “I just feel as though I’ve seen it before.”

“Perhaps it was from a piece of clothing she wore, and you just happened to remember it.”

I let out a sigh and tossed the button gently back into the box. “Perhaps.”

“Don’t sigh.” Zhang Mingsheng said calmly.

I didn’t argue with him for the right to sigh. I stuffed the box back into his arms and used my crutches to push myself up. “I’m leaving.”

“I’ll have someone take you.” He said, remaining seated.

“Fine.” I didn’t refuse; I hadn’t even refused the medical expenses. I considered it all a debt he owed me.

I made my way laboriously toward the door. Just as I was about to step out, I heard him say, “Actually, I really want to know why you came today.”

“You invited me.” I paused and answered him.

“I wanted to see you.” Zhang Mingsheng said.

For a split second, I even forgot that a person needs to breathe and to blink.

I forced down the rising tide of emotion, my lips parting slightly as they opened and closed a few times before the words finally came out, “Actually, I wanted to ask if you know how I died. After I shot you, someone shot me as well.”

“It’s more than once.” Zhang Mingsheng said.

I turned my head in astonishment and saw that he was still smiling, immersed in a faint sense of helplessness and sorrow.

He said, “Weren’t you asking me why I tremble?”

I looked deep into his eyes.

“Besides the pain of bullets entering my body and the terror of being on the brink of death, I had to endure the feeling of losing you forever.” Zhang Mingsheng said, looking back at me with absolute earnestness.

“I heard the gunshots and understood that you were being tormented right before my eyes, and there was nothing I could do. I knew I would be dead soon. You were the one who sent me to my death, but I was the one who forced you to kill me.”

It was a complete mess of debt.

I gripped the handles of my crutches, gritting my teeth for fear that if I let my strength slip for even a second, I would collapse onto the floor.

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