I looked at Leyao, the confusion filling my mind tugged between asking and not asking. In reality, I understood: my current indecision already indicated that I was gradually coming to believe that the child she had once been pregnant with was mine… But what would be the point of confirming it now? We would soon drift further and further apart due to the marriages we each had to face. Perhaps, as she had said, I was destined to owe her for the rest of my life.
Leyao and I locked eyes. She tucked a strand of hair, blown into disarray by the strong wind, behind her ear and asked me, “Why are you so quiet?”
“Besides thanking you, I don’t know what else I should say. It feels too sentimental to speak out loud… Silence feels more genuine.”
“What are you thanking me for? For agreeing to star in my short film, or for getting married soon, so your life will have one less troublemaker?”
“The former.”
“Hehe, don’t you think I’m a troublemaker at all?”
“Not most of the time, although sometimes you were pretty troublesome… Let’s not talk about this anymore, okay? Or should we leave now?”
Tears filled Leyao’s eyes, yet she wore a painful smile as she said, “Zhaoyang, if we hadn’t terminated that child of ours back then, he or she would have already been born by now. Maybe by this time next year, he or she would already be calling us Daddy and Mommy… But why did I have to terminate him or her?… What was I thinking back then? Can you tell me? Please tell me…”
Her hands tightly gripped my arms, her nails digging into my leather jacket, making a “squeaking” sound. My heart, too, seemed to be thrown onto the ground and trampled upon by that grating sound, aching unbearably.
“Leyao… Snap out of it, please snap out of it!”
My plea had no effect on her. She had already burst into uncontrollable sobs: “Zhaoyang… Zhaoyang, tell me, if I hadn’t terminated that child, would you… would you have become a responsible father?”
“…Yes!”
Leyao sobbed heartbreakingly: “I was so foolish… You were such a failure back then, and I was so afraid that if we had that child, we wouldn’t even be able to support ourselves… I should have gone to find Xiao Rulin (Leyao’s father) long ago… Why did I insist on being so stubborn!! Why did I set my heart on developing my career in the entertainment industry!! Why did I believe you would eventually fall in love with me… Thinking we would have another child… But then you fell in love with another woman who came later… Out of all these choices, if I had just made the right decision once, things wouldn’t… wouldn’t have turned out like this… Who should I blame, who should I blame? Tell me… tell me!”
“Blame me. It’s all my fault.”
Leyao’s emotions had already reached the brink of collapse due to this topic she had dragged up. She looked at me with hatred in her eyes and finally raised her hand. On this rooftop, closest to the sky, she slapped me with the greatest force she had ever mustered in her life.
I tasted the metallic tang of blood at the corner of my mouth. Dizzy, memories of those absurd years resurfaced in my mind, and one hypothetical scenario after another, like scenes from a movie, began tormenting my fragile nerves at this moment.
Perhaps, if Leyao hadn’t chosen to terminate that child, we might already be married now, and Mi Cai, who appeared later in my life, wouldn’t have existed in my world…
It turned out that perhaps what determined our fate wasn’t who would fall in love with whom or who wanted to love whom, but a single choice made between reason and irrationality. I was at a loss for words, feeling empty from the gusts of wind blowing past me. I couldn’t even feel the pain on my face, but my heart was in agony. Though I stood on this high-rise, my heart had already sunk to the bottom of the sea. I didn’t have the courage to recall that I had once had a child during those most absurd years.
A pair of cold hands gently touched my face, and only then did I feel the stinging pain. I looked at Leyao somewhat dazedly as she wiped away the blood from my lips with her hand. Her eyes still brimmed with tears until she stopped sobbing and said to me, “That slap just now has already vented my hatred… If you also hate me, if you think I took the initiative to terminate our child, you can slap me too… After you slap me, we can wish each other well right here!”
I continued to stare at her stiffly, unable to feel any control over my body or soul.
Without any warning from Leyao, she grabbed my hand and slapped herself with all her might. The intensity of the slap was only possible under extreme emotional distress. On her flawless face, five red, swollen finger marks immediately appeared.
“These two slaps are for that innocent child. I hope he or she will forgive me… I regret it deeply, but it’s too late to change anything. I also love you, but you already have a girlfriend… A person can’t possibly give up a marriage they must face due to age and family pressure for a love that can never come true… Maybe, I really am a spoiled and insatiable woman, which is why I never look at what I have possessed, but only think about what I have not obtained… Now, it’s time for me to grow up, so I’m going to get married… Give me your blessing now, preferably a magical blessing that will make me forget everything and become a happy woman from now on!”
I had no idea what kind of blessing could possess such magic to make her a happy woman. After a while, I said to her, “The word ‘happiness’ has been mentioned by countless people, yet truly happy people are few… However, I will always remember that you and I once made a pact to be masters of life… We may not be very reliable people, but I believe this pact is reliable because the day you spoke of it, you didn’t smile—you were serious. When I agreed, I didn’t smile either—I was even more serious… So, this definitely wasn’t a joke or a mere dream; it’s something we need to realize… Therefore, no matter how unreliable we may have been in the past, if we can just be reliable this one time, we can truly master our lives…”
Leyao nodded, then turned and stood by the railing, gazing at this endless city. I stood beside her, and thus the bruises on her face highlighted our loneliness at this moment. Soon, we would be even lonelier because we wouldn’t stay here for long. Perhaps in a few minutes, we would be at the foot of this building, carrying with us the promise to be masters of life, walking in opposite directions… From then on, perhaps there might still be some intersections, but our lives would have been torn apart and no longer connected.
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