Ch14 - Either way, I’d die

Two days before the eve of Chinese New Year, my mother fell into a coma, and the doctor said that she may never wake up again.

As I wasn’t sure when her last moments would be, I could only be by her side all day. Apart from the few moments when I left the hospital ward to take a breath of fresh air, the rest of the time I would not take a single step outside of her room. 

Just in these few days, I had forced myself to learn how to smoke. Good habits required daily perseverance, however with bad habits a few minutes was all that was needed to become intimately familiar, to the point where you would suspect whether you were some kind of heaven splitting genius with an aptitude for it.

After I learnt how to smoke I realised that the taste of the smoke wasn’t completely bitter. The white wisps of smoke would enter my lungs and come back out my nose and mouth, and a burning as if I had just drunk vodka would spread throughout my body, the fumes and the haze immensely relaxing and intoxicating.

 

 

It was only when I was breathing in these puffs of smoke, that was when I could completely empty myself of thoughts about the past or the future, and to block out the occurrences of aging, illnesses and death.

“Look at me, didn’t I shoot that super far!” 

“I also shot it far, look at mine…”

 

I stood under one of the willow trees in the garden, swallowing clouds and blowing out fog. Not far away were two young boys, aged around seven or eight years old, playing with their water guns near a pond. There were quite a few patients taking a stroll near them, but no one looked like they were the parents of these boys.

Do they have too little homework to do, to the point where they were bored out of their minds so they had come and play with water in the middle of winter?

I pinched the cigarette between my fingers and blew out a billow of mist, staring at the dying lotus leaves on the surface of the pond, and suddenly remembered that I actually also had reckless moments like this.

 

That was when I first attended elementary school and the school was organising a spring trip. All the students went on buses to an amusement park, and once we arrived we were allowed to go off on our own.

After everyone separated from each other, myself and a few other classmates went to explore together and went on some rides, but they weren’t exhilarating enough to satisfy ourselves so we wanted to go on the boats on the lake.

The homeroom teacher had reminded us specifically before we all dispersed to not head towards the lake, in case something happened to us. However, our hearts longed after the thrill and were unable to heed the warning given, and we ended up still heading towards the wharf regardless.

 

Yet, when we really did play around there, the experience was just so-so. 

The four of us were on a small swan boat, and were rather unaccustomed to rowing as we clumsily rowed and inched forward in the emerald waters, often spinning in circles in the same spot. I found it quite dull, so I put down my oar and returned my sights to the banks, just so happening to see a familiar shadow passing.

“Ge Ge!” I disregarded the fact that I was on a boat, and leapt up in excitement.

Sheng Min Ou in the distance was with a few of his friends in his more senior grade and after hearing my shouts, they all unwittingly turned to look towards me.

At that time, Sheng Min Ou and I attended the same primary school, and when I was in the first year of primary school, he was in his fifth year, but we didn’t share classes in the same building, so apart from returning home with him I almost had no interaction with him during the day. 

Sheng Min Ou looked at me and didn’t move, nor did he make any response to show that he heard me. A moment ago he was still animatedly conversing with his friends, yet in an instant the expression on his face had become a lot more distant. He was always like so, faced with my earnest gazes or my zealous calls, he would always behave like a bystander. Cold, detached, and even slightly on guard.

The small rowboat started rocking and alarmed, the other three boys started yelling almost frantically, each of them reaching out to make me sit down.

I pointed at the shore, “Let’s row over there? I want to go find my older brother!”

I directed them as we vigorously rowed towards the banks. Afraid that Sheng Min Ou would get impatient waiting and walk away, I waved both arms continuously like a windmill, and called out for him to wait for me, saying that I would be there right away. 

The waters near the show were filled with lotus leaves that had begun blooming, and we used all our effort to part through the lotus leaves but there was still a distance between us and the shore.

I wasn’t sure whether or not it was because I had asked him to stay, but Sheng Min Ou really did not leave, but he also did not make a move to get closer. I dropped the oar and stood up, holding out an outstretched hand to him.

 

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

“Ge, I’ll come with you guys, pull me up.”

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I splashed around in the water, the green of the lotus leaves entangled around me. I grasped the stems surrounding me, as if clutching on to my last straw.

Shocked and horrified screams for help echoed above as ice cold water surged into my nasal cavity and choked me. In my shaking vision, I could see Sheng Min Ou standing by the shore and looking at me with downcast eyes, calm to the extent it was like the person who fell into the water wasn’t his younger brother, but an obstreperous frog. He knew that nothing would go wrong, so he would also not need to be worried over the incident.

Soon after, a passerby leapt into the waters and saved me. Honestly, the lake wasn’t even that deep, it was only around two metres in depth, and the bottom of it was filled with lotus roots. However, for me who was only 1.2 metres tall at the time, this was synonymous to a fatal incident. 

After being rescued and brought on shore, my whole body shook uncontrollably as I sat on the floor, completely drained of energy as I found myself unable to stand.

By my ear were various buzzing sounds as a crowd of people surrounded me. Adults recapitulated my dangerous actions whilst children boisterously asked whether I was okay.

I blankly looked all around me, trying to search for Sheng Min Ou’s figure amongst the crowd of people.

Suddenly, a warm sensation spread across my back, and a jacket with lingering body heat covered my head and shoulders. Seeing the familiar garment, I immediately turned back and Sheng Min Ou at that time also lifted his eyes to look directly at me. 

In an instant, my highly strung emotions burst out uncontrollably and I couldn’t hold back anymore as I threw myself at him and clung on to his waist, letting out loud, wailing sobs.

“Ge… I was so scared…” I kept calling out to him as I let out my worries.

His body remained rigid for a long time, until his thin T-shirt had become completely wet from me, before he moved one hand and slowly pressed it on my back.

“It’s fine now.” 

At one time, I suspected whether the first person I saw when I was born was Sheng Min Ou, and the imprinting effect happened like what occurs with chicklings, so as a result each day I would follow behind him and chirp incessantly. Otherwise, it was honestly hard to explain why I was so fondly attached to him and why I never wanted to part from him from when I was young until now.

I finished reminiscing, and the two children were still holding up their water guns, pointing it at the centre of the lake as they continuously shot water from it.

I finished smoking my one cigarette and planned to head back, however I hadn’t even taken more than two steps from where I stood when suddenly a dull splashing sound was heard from behind me, accompanied with the shrill shriek of a child.

What did I say? It was because they had too little homework to do. 

I closed my eyes briefly, then quickly turned around and raced towards the edge of the lake. Though there were two children by the waters originally, now there was only one.

Quite a few people heard the same commotion as I did and hurried towards this direction, and someone had seen the entire sequence of events happen from faraway.

 

“A kid fell into the water, he didn’t have a proper foothold and slipped…”

“Quick quick quick, save the child!” 

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I wasn’t sure what was happening to the child in the water, he might have been shocked or frozen by the cold, but he was going under. The one remaining on the shore started crying at a loss of what to do.

Afraid of wasting another second, I only had time to throw my phone on the grass before diving into the lake.

The bone chilling water soaked through the fabric of my clothes and the glacial cold was contagious, snaking its way to my extremities and wrapping around my whole body, numbing me until my teeth started chattering uncontrollably.

I reached out and grabbed the back of the child’s collar in one go, dragging him with me as I reached back for the shore. He continued resisting, like a deranged animal. Luckily, the place he fell wasn’t far from the shore, about one metre away from it, otherwise from how fiercely he fought back it would have definitely been a strenuous effort to save him. 

The people standing on the shore all offered a hand and pulled the child up and then swiftly returned to also hoist me up.

The hospital staff heard of the news and quickly came over, placing a bed sheet each over me and the reckless child.

Soon after, a panicked couple hurriedly made their way over, dressed in the uniform that the hospital cleaners wore.

“How could you be so careless… you’re going to scare us to death!” 

“Told you to not go towards the lake and play with water, now something’s gone wrong hasn’t it?”

The onlookers started vividly describing the heart stopping events that had just occurred, pointing at me and saying that if it wasn’t for a kind hearted person like me, then no one would be able to guarantee how their son could have ended up. The couple was more afraid after hearing their words and were also ashamed, as they repeatedly bowed to me and expressed their gratitude.

I waved my hand, “It’s fine, it wasn’t anything hard to do.” Cocooned in the bedsheet, I was cold to the point where I was still inadvertently shaking, “Ever since I was younger I liked helping others.”

The hospital staff saw that my face was turning almost blue from the cold, so they hurriedly asked me to enter the building to warm myself up and to also take a hot shower. They then handed me a clean patient garment for me to change in, in case I caught a cold. 

I walked halfway to the hospital when someone hurriedly ran out the doors and headed towards me. Once I fixed my sight on them to determine who it was, I recognised her as the nurse who was taking care of my mother.

My heart erratically skipped in my chest, as a foreboding sense grew uneasily in me.

As I thought, the nurse panted as she ran towards me, shouting while she continued coming my way, “Mr Lu, Lin Laoshi is awake, you… you must quickly return.” She leaned over, holding onto her kneecaps, and continued, “She’s awake, and she’s able to speak, she’s been asking for you.”

I startled, then abruptly understood the meaning behind her words. 

When the soul was about to depart from the physical body, there would be a sudden burst of energy in the final moments, that was the twilight of life. However, more people referred to it as the ‘final radiance of the setting sun’, the final flash of lucidity before someone passed.

I stumbled forward a few steps before finally sprinting, the biting wind howling at my ears, my cheeks feeling as if they were being sliced by knives as pain throbbed intermittently there.

 

I used the fastest speed I had ever ran in my life to race there, in the middle of it I found the bedsheet to be in my way, so I bunched it up and threw it to one side. My lungs expanded to the point where it felt like it was going to explode, and my throat was filled with a heavy scent of blood. When I finally reached ward, I came to a stop immediately, without barging in.

Appearing as I did right now, I honestly would look like a very sorry person. 

I recovered my breathing and wanted to roll up my sleeves which were drenched, but once I saw the bandages around my elbow, I suddenly remembered that my knife wounds were not recovered yet, and there were still a few days before I could remove the stitches.

I clicked my tongue and had to roll down my sleeve on the other side, then tidied my hair before I carefully opened the door and stepped in.

The nurse propped up the pillow so it was higher, and my mothers eyes were half closed as she looked outside the window, before hearing a noise and turning to see me.

“You came back?” She appeared to not notice anything off about how I looked as she extended a hand out to me, “Come, let mum take a good look at you.” 

My body continued dripping water, and I walked like this from the entrance of the ward to her bedside, leaving drops in my wake.

In the room the heater was on, and gradually my body temperature started rising again, but I still felt cold.

“Mum, how do you feel?” I clasped onto her hand, finding that her hand was not warmer than mine by much, reaching a conclusion even more clearly in my heart.

“Pretty good, I feel as if these few days I don’t have much energy anymore. Why is your hand so cold?” She wrapped both hands around mine and rubbed it, attempting to warm me up. 

When I was younger, these pair of hands had held me, accompanied me, fed me clothes and changed me, it had done everything a mother should do. Yet now, they were shriveled and dried up, like a branch about to break, so that even with my one hand I could not bear to wrap around them.

“I went outside to take a walk.”

“It’s so cold outside, why would you venture outdoors.” She said, patting the back of my hand as a way of scolding me, with her lips forming a bitter smile at the end. “A-Feng ah, mum might have to break her promise here. Luckily it’s a few days earlier and didn’t coincide with Chinese New Years Eve, otherwise you wouldn’t even be able to have a good New Years.”

“Mum…” My throat was dry, and the scent of blood from sprinting still hadn’t completely faded. 

“Not being able to see you form a family and establish your career, is mum’s only regret. Lu Feng, you must promise me, you have to get married.” As if she was scared that I didn’t hear her, she repeated her words once more, “You have to get married.”

I swallowed thickly and gave a hollow laugh, “If I find the right person, I will.”

Although my words came out like this, I knew that I probably would not be able to find that someone.

Hearing my equivocal reply, my mother’s tone became more vehement without warning, 

“No! You must promise me, you must swear… you will get married.” She clutched both hands around mine, her strength startlingly different from a patient who was about to pass, “Lu Feng, this is your mother’s final wish.”

“….Mum?”

 

I didn’t understand why she so stubbornly insisted on me getting wed, to the extent where she made it her final dying wish. It was almost as if… almost as if she knew I would never get married.

But how would she know? 

This thought was acutely terrifying, and in an instant my blood went cold, yet the next words that came out of her mouth corroborated my guess.

“You must promise me, you have to get married…” When she said those words, her eyes were wide open to the degree that it looked horrifying, “Never… never again to see Sheng Min Ou!”

Sheng Min Ou these three words came down to me like thunder, shattering my world.

She knew. 

The feeling that I could never use words to express, the perverse love I felt for my own step brother, she had known since long ago.

In that instant, it was as if I was sunk into a murky depth, a quagmire with no bottom in sight. Every breath I took, the lethal black mud would submerge my body under further. It crept past my chest, engulfed my neck and covered my nose and mouth, bringing forth a slow but painful death.

I wanted to scream to escape, but the black mud chained at my hands and feet, so I could only stand and despairingly watch as my body became slowly engulfed and dissolved by it.

I tried to open my mouth, but I found that I could only let out a hoarse and mangled noise, as if there was a piece of red hot iron, wedged in my throat, burning through my vocal chords, so that I could never speak as I wanted to again. 

It was as if I was walking on a narrow wooden bridge, to my left and right was an abyss, and both sides in front and behind me were collapsing.

Either way, I’d die.

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