On the floor of the empty bedroom, the little girl found a ring. “Mom, this is yours. ”
Gu Xizi didn’t take it. “It isn’t mine.
Things that were never meant for me aren’t mine. ”
She told the housekeeper to throw everything away—the letters, the diaries, the keepsakes she had guarded for five years. “Burn them. Throw them out.
I don’t need a past anymore. ”
She booked flights for herself and her daughter, Tang Ke, to country S. Her friend Shivan came to drive them. “You’re really leaving after twenty years?
”
Gu Xizi looked at the city one last time. “There is nothing here worth remembering. ”
At the airport, Tang Ke doubled over with stomach pain. Gu Xizi called for a doctor, but the hospital director on duty had just resigned.
“I’m coming,” she said, because she was a doctor even now. She was lifting her daughter into her arms when an old servant rushed up to a man standing in the terminal. “Sir, you finally came back. We waited for you for five years.
The young miss is sick, and the lady is leaving Xingcheng forever. ”
The man turned. He was a stranger to himself, known to the woman who controlled him only as Li Ze. The servant pressed a worn diary and a wedding ring into his hands.
“Where is she? ” he asked. He opened the diary. Page after page, in a girl’s handwriting: “The first time I saw Tang Yusheng, I decided I would be his wife, no matter how hard it was.
”
He read his own name as if it belonged to someone else. Then fragments came: a woman saying, “Marry me, please,” and another voice answering, “Good morning, Mrs. Tang. ”
He collapsed at the gate.
When he woke, a man was calling him brother. “You fainted at the airport. You’re still as clumsy as a child. ”
“I’m not your brother.
”
The man told a story about a lake, a boy who fell into water less than half a meter deep and floundered like a duck. “Brother, you remembered, didn’t you? ”
Then he gave him the truth: his name was Tang Yusheng, president of Tang Medical. He had disappeared in a plane crash five years ago.
No body had ever been found. Li Gou came in. “Brother Ze, don’t listen. You’re Li Ze.
I found you on a beach at West Village. I saved you. I’ve been with you for five years. ”
But he had a memory he could not let go.
“You found me at Nimura. Why did you lie about where we met? ”
She paled. “You’re confused.
”
The doctor told him about Dr. Gu, the brilliant nephrologist who had treated him. “She resigned yesterday and went abroad. It’s better this way.
If they never meet, he will never remember. ”
Later, Li Gou stood alone in the corridor. “Gu Xizi, you’d better be gone for good. If I find out you made Brother Ze remember, I won’t forgive you.
”
His younger brother persuaded him to return to the Tang mansion. “You will recover your memory faster if you live among familiar things. ”
He agreed on one condition. “Bring Xixi to me.
”
“I don’t know where she is. ”
“Then find her. ”
Li Gou followed him into the mansion. She climbed the stairs and claimed the master bedroom—Gu Xizi’s room, the room no one had touched for years.
“You can’t live there,” he said. “You can’t protect her forever. I am the mistress of this house now. ”
She tried to throw away the diary and the ring.
He took them back. “These aren’t yours. ”
More memories surfaced. A teenage girl rolling her eyes.
“Not accepting a compliment? Do you want a scolding? ” A wedding dress. A proposal.
A child’s laugh. Then a photograph arrived at the house: Gu Xizi with a little girl. The child was around four years old. Li Gou saw it and pounced.
“So cold and pure, your wife? She didn’t even wait until your body was cold. The child is at least four—soon after your accident, she fell into another man’s bed. She ran away because she was afraid you’d discover the truth.
”
He slapped her. “Shut your mouth. ”
She touched her cheek, eyes bright with hatred. “You hit me for her.
”
His brother came later and told him the real truth. “That child is yours. Your wife was pregnant when you disappeared. She gave birth alone.
She had a hemorrhage and almost died on the operating table. She raised your daughter and ran your hospital. Tang Ke grew up without a father and was mocked for it. Your wife put your photo on the wall and told her, ‘That is your papa.
’ That’s why she calls you daddy. You don’t get to accuse her of anything. ”
He took the next flight to country S. He stood outside Hospital H and told the guard, “My wife lives here.
”
Gu Xizi came out. “We have nothing to say to each other. ”
He blocked her. “I know everything.
Ke Ke is my daughter. I’m not Li Ze. I’m Tang Yusheng. ”
She stared at him, dry-eyed.
“Your name doesn’t matter. Five years ago, our fate died with that plane crash. You belong to Li Gou now. ”
“I don’t.
I remember everything. I love you. ”
“No. You love the past.
And if we go back to it, Li Gou will kill us. She has already made that clear. I won’t risk my daughter. ”
She walked past him.
At the hospital, a patient’s family insulted her, accused her of buying her position, of being too young and too beautiful for her credentials to be real. When one of them lunged at her, Tang Yusheng grabbed the man’s wrist. “Touch her again, and I won’t let it go. ”
Then he turned to Gu Xizi.
“Marry me. Give me one more chance. I’ll spend my life making it up to you. ”
He followed her out.
Finally she stopped. “You want me to forgive you? Then die for me. Would you?
”
He was silent. She laughed bitterly. “See? You wouldn’t.
The great Tang Yusheng is still a selfish man. ”
“I would,” he said, too quietly for her to hear. Li Gou appeared in the city. She cornered him.
“You came to find her after all. I warned you. I already did something to her brakes. If you go back to her, she won’t live to see another morning.
”
“You’re insane. ”
“Yes,” she said. “And I will not let you remember. You’re mine.
”
He looked at her and saw the whole trap: five years of lies, the stolen name, the stolen life, the threat hanging over his wife and daughter. He thought: If I’m gone, she has no reason to hurt them. That night he called Gu Xizi’s phone. She didn’t answer.
He left a message. “You asked me if I would die for you. I will. It’s the last thing I can give you and our daughter.
In the next life, I’ll love you properly. ”
The next evening, the news broke. Tang Yusheng, president of Tang Medical, had died in a car accident. Brake failure.
Police arrested Li Gou for tampering with the car. His younger brother called Gu Xizi. “It was Li Gou. She’s in prison.
She’ll never get out. ”
Gu Xizi hung up and went to her daughter. The little girl looked at her. “Mom, was that Papa calling?
”
Gu Xizi knelt down. “No, baby. That was your uncle. You only have one papa.
His name is Tang Yusheng. And he loved you more than anything in this world. ”
Tang Ke nodded. Gu Xizi pressed her hand to her chest.
“The real death is being forgotten. I will never forget him. So he is not gone.
”
