Mo Xing Zhi dawdled for a week before coming to seeing me, his "good friend".
In that time, Yin Li hadn't warmed up to me at all and remained both aloof and courteous. All of my meals, clothing, and various other needs were handled very thoughtfully, but I could sense that in his heart he was completely indifferent to me. Despite the slow progress of my leg's recovery, he was so unbothered that I knew he didn't actually care about whether I could regain use of it or not. In any case, he was wealthy enough to let me pass the rest of my days peacefully in a wheelchair at his beautiful house.
This all made me increasingly irritated, yet I had nowhere to vent because he was truly too tolerant, or to put it another way, he truly didn't care about me. All of my different moods might as well have been a fist punching into cotton1. And after he seemed to have gotten the sense that I had settled into my new life, Yin Li gave up the pretense of dutifully coming around to check on me. From then on, I spent the majority of my time by myself. Alone, I sat in my wheelchair and watched sunrise, then later, sunset.
As a result, Mo Xing Zhi's appearance was both timely and a huge relief.
Actually, that week he didn't have any easier of a time leaving the house than I did.
The crowd of news media and the head of the Mo family took turns harassing Mo Xing Zhi, but to my surprise, after recovering from his hangover Mo Xing Zhi had stoically regarded the drawing splattered on the wall outside his house and actually felt that it was quite stylish; unexpectedly, even drunk he could create something with such an artistic air of abstraction. On the spot, he firmly decided to preserve it intact.
Consequently, every time Yin Li came or left home, at the intersection he would inevitably encounter on the wall that eye-catching, bright red painting of an upright middle finger. Perhaps, this was another reason why his visits home happened more and more infrequently.
This time when Mo Xing Zhi showed up, he seemed to have a much more arrogant and haughty attitude, giving off exactly the feeling of the so-called "young master returning from overseas"2. But that atmosphere was destroyed the moment he opened his mouth.
"Whaaat?! Are you joking? You're saying you're an amnesiac?! And can't even remember your own name? Absolutely can't recall anything? No past, no idea what to do in the future? But Yin Li still said you were his fiancée?" After I had introduced myself, Mo Xing Zhi stared at me with a ridiculously shocked look in his eyes.
I sighed: "To be honest, I'm skeptical about the fiancée part. You see, Yin Li and I don't have any chemistry, moreover he's such a distinguished and wealthy elite, currently holding the rank of number one most desirable bachelor in the magazines. Getting engaged to someone like me should have been a huge scoop; how is it possible that no one managed to dig it up? But you should already know, with my current injuries like this I have no choice but to live with Yin Li, and in any case there must have been some connection between us in the past."
Mo Xing Zhi had continuously looked me up and down as I talked, and now he rubbed his chin thoughtfully and spoke: "En, I'm also suspicious. Even though I don't like Yin Li, I admit he certainly should have higher standards."
I shot him a glare.
"I surrender I surrender! Yan Xiao, don't look at me with such a bloodthirsty expression! Just kidding!3 I only felt, I guess, you and Yin Li are from two different worlds and don't seem like the type to ever interact. I mean, look at how interesting you are and how boring he is. Men like Yin Li are most suited to those brainless, obedient, and well-bred young ladies that orbit around him."
Suddenly he changed the topic: "You don't believe Yin Li, right? That's why you have no intention of depending on him to figure out your past, and don't trust anything he tells you?"
I glanced at Mo Xing Zhi and didn't respond.
Sure enough he lost his composure: "If you don't ask me anything how am I supposed to help you?" Then he continued on, deflated, "Ai, so troublesome, I like it the most when people beg me for help but you're not satisfying at all. Alright I'll help you out; after coming home from overseas it's so hard to come across any interesting people, especially one that hasn't been deceived by Yin Li yet. I've actually been thinking that your car accident was probably part of some big conspiracy."
After that Mo Xing Zhi asked for photos so that he could help me post a "searching for this person" announcement, and ended up taking a couple of pictures of me, including a selfie together. Before leaving, he warmly encouraged me to speed up my rehabilitation, and added that he hoped I could quickly regain my memories and the use of my leg.
Every person has their own circumstances; in the end he was unable to come by often. Thereafter, I returned to my solitary lifestyle. Seeing that the sky was beginning to darken, I decided it was time for my daily physical therapy.
1 In Chinese, the idiom 拳头打进棉花里 literally means "a fist hitting into cotton". According to my mom, it's often used to describe when there's a one-sided argument where one person is getting super angry and emotional, but the other person doesn't react/respond to them. I imagine it feels pretty pointless and frustrating for the first party. (rip our MC Yan Xiao)
2 "young master returning from overseas" probably refers to the practice among China's wealthy upper crust of sending their kids to receive education/college education at elite overseas, usually American, institutions. Y'all might have heard of these rich kids running around on college campuses with their massive iPhones, shiny cars, and designer clothes ...looking for a rich young master to sponsor me ;__;
3 This was spoken in English so I don't really have an equivalent language to change it into haha...
To be honest, every time I entered the rehabilitation room, I felt depressed and gloomy.
I was convinced that I had never been as helpless as when my two legs no longer felt like my own. It was that panicky fear of losing control of the path one stood on.
After the car crash, I had persistently hobbled around with the help of the rehabilitation devices, I stretched my muscles, and I ate lots of protein according to the doctor's advice. Yet, despite my body appearing recovered and healthy, my leg muscles had atrophied into soft, useless tissue that could no longer support me, no longer push me forward.
The doctor had prescribed me twenty minutes of physical therapy each day, so every morning an assistant helped me complete the simple exercises. But I wasn't satisfied. These basic, gradual movements led to few results. Everyone thought it was already a miracle that I had survived, so no one had any expectation or optimism that I'd one day stand and walk again. Therefore, their heart wasn't in it.
Since last week, I had taken advantage of Yin Li's absence from the house and secretly began to increase my rehabilitation load. It reached the point where I was adding an extra twenty minutes of rehab in the afternoon. However, that was my limit. I still needed to support myself with equipment to stand up.
But today that would change. I would end my dependence on the equipment. I wanted to walk unaided, even if all I could manage was a single tiny step. I knew in my heart that I had no one to rely on but myself so I had to be able to freely walk forward on my own strength.
When I first relaxed my hold on the handrails, my body wildly wobbled back and forth before I found my center of gravity. Then finally, I could take both hands off the bar and remain standing. It felt exhilarating. With a sudden courageous impulse, or you could say, hubris, I then attempted to take a step forwards.
An excruciating pain tore through my body.
My mind was ready to walk but my body wasn't. As if moving forwards on a knife's edge, I sweated profusely with each little motion. In the mirror, my pained face warped into that of a ferocious, crazed demon. I glared at my reflection, in which I was gasping for breath like a burdened old cow. I clenched my teeth, put my right foot forwards, and felt pain flare up in my knee and ligaments. My legs were like the broken-down gears of a machine and any minuscule motion created friction between the cogs. It was so painful that I could faint. The five-meter distance between myself and the support felt immeasurably vast.
Sucking in a breath of air, I proceeded to inch my left foot forwards. In my mouth, I could taste the faintly metallic tinge of blood from where I had already bitten through my lip.
As I put my left foot down, I already felt a sense of foreboding. When my heel touched the ground, my leg felt limp and painful, a sensation which was immediately followed by a heart-rending and lung-splitting1 agony. Drowning in the pain, I fought to keep hold of my center of gravity, but I was defeated.
My ears registered the sound of my body crashing heavily to the ground. Really very painful.
Despite being exceedingly careful, I still managed to slip and fall.
In this deserted rehabilitation room, I was actually quite frightened, or you could say uneasy. Every step was so unpredictable, and in any moment I could tumble to the ground again. I was someone who was scared, really scared of pain. And furthermore, all of my fear and suffering was for the sake of this frustratingly slow, extremely difficult progress, was for such an unseemly and inelegant struggle to take just a single, petty, little step.
Only when I fell did the tears brimming in my eyes flow down my face. Lying on my back, eyes raised to the ceiling, I cried silently.
Struggling back up was more even more painful than falling down. The fall and the subsequent pain are instantaneous, but getting up was an endless torment, a bitter misery. By the time I finally managed it I was drenched in sweat, the saltiness of my perspiration flowing from eyebrows to eyelashes. From time to time droplets of sweat landed in my eyes, burning stronger than my own tears.
I messily wiped my face, thinking that just one battle to stand seemed to already exhaust my vitality. But at this moment I was gambling with rest of my life. Each fall only increased my fear of the next, because truthfully in my heart I was a cowardly weakling. If I ever retreated, I knew with certainty that I would never regain the courage to stand back up again.
I inched my left foot forwards again, making an infinitesimally small step, all the while feeling the tremors running through my leg.
When my left foot finally stabilized on the ground, I remembered how to breathe and my heart trembled with emotion. I needed to keep going like this, walking forwards one step at a time, until the day I rediscovered what it was like to to run.
In those five meters, I fell eight times. In that quiet room, one figure tumbled to the ground again and again, and another figure silently crawled back up amidst sweat and tears. There was no audience to applaud at my perseverance, no bouquets of flowers, no spotlight—there was only my loneliness.
When I fell for the last time at the end of those five meters I felt liberated. Even my nerves seemed dulled to the pain. I knew I might have reopened the wound on my lower leg from the way I could feel a warm wetness there and from the faint taste of iron in the air when I inhaled, but I didn't care at all because I felt like I had finally regained control of my life.
I huddled on the floorboards, curled my arms around my head and silently began to cry. The emotions I had been holding in broke free in that moment and gushed out—the desperation and helplessness I'd felt previously when I worried that I'd never walk again, the fear and dread of facing an unfamiliar world after losing my memories, the disappointment and bitterness when I discovered that no one in the world needed my presence, the false bravado and carefree attitude I masked my panic and weakness in, the discomfort of not knowing how to approach my present and future—all of these feelings poured out of me along with my tears.
I lay on the ground like that, simply crying with whatever strength I had left in me, loudly wailing at the top of my voice. Like I was fighting a battle with myself, I wrestled with all the grievances and fears I had no one to share with and finally defeated the coward in me.
1 In Chinese the phrase "撕心裂肺" translates literally to "heart-tearing, lung-splitting" and is used to indicate extreme pain; grief; etc. I guess an English equivalent might be something like "heart-breaking" or "heart-wrenching" but those are usually more commonly associated with emotional pain, imo.
TL: ALSO we have a bit of a dilemma. I personally enjoy learning Chinese idioms which is why I leave them in somewhat of a literal translation. Niang Niang disagrees with me though and thinks literal translations ruin the flow...what do you guys think??
Niang Niang: Also what do you guys think of having the translation note at the end of the paragraph instead of at the very bottom of the chapter? I imagine the back-and-forth scrolling can get pretty cumbersome.
Those five meters and all the blood, sweat and tears they represented were a badge of honor. I felt a kind of gratitude. I would surely stand up one day. No. More than that. I would run and jump like any healthy, normal person. I could do it.
However, having bottled up everything for such a long time, once the floodgates burst open it was impossible to shut them again. I didn't know whether it was tears of joy or pain coming out of my eyes; I could only prop myself up on the floor and cry. By the time my eyes began to dry, I was wheezing for air and hiccuping.
Now feeling uncomfortable, I made an attempt to get off the ground but couldn't summon up the strength to do so because I had already exhausted all my energy. Hiccuping, I flailed my four limbs around on the floor a couple times before giving up and deciding to just lay there a bit longer. While flopping around I had noticed the mirror, and now I tilted my head to look into it.
My reflection had puffy red eyes, a mixture of snot and tears smeared everywhere, hair tangled in a mess, and ruddy cheeks. Really hideous-looking. But staring at my appalling state, I couldn't resist cracking a smile.
Then, I was unable to smile anymore.
In the mirror, I saw Yin Li standing in the doorway. His face was obscured by the shadows, so I couldn't make out any expression on it, and I didn't know how long he had been silently standing there and how much he had seen.
Noticing that I'd detected him, he finally walked out of the shadows. I couldn't stop myself from automatically scooting into a corner. He gave off a strong, oppressive aura that always made me tense up with a faint feeling of dread. Yin Li possessed no goodwill, only good manners.
He walked right up to me, crouched down, and stared at me with a penetrating look that gave me goosebumps. Still hiccuping, I shrunk my neck back as short as possible and subconsciously shut my eyes.
Then I felt a hand very, very gently, softly and carefully, pat me on my head. And then, this hand traveled down the back of my head to my back, and lightly encouraged me to take a breath.
I hiccuped, raised my head, and looked at Yin Li with an astonished expression. He wasn't looking into my eyes, so I only saw the bottom of his eyelashes.
He spoke: "You will be fine."
I felt irritated for some reason, and responded in a gruff voice1: "In this situation shouldn't you say, 'It doesn't matter if you're unable to stand, because I'll be your legs'—some dramatic lines like this? 'You will be fine?' Before Jing Ke left to assassinate Emperor Qin, Prince Dan also said he would be fine."2
I only said this to keep up my false bravado, not because I hoped Yin Li would give me any meaningful response.
But unexpectedly, after a period of silence, he lifted his head and gave me a unfathomable look: "I won't be your legs, because I know you'll stand up again, Yan Xiao."
A sudden feeling of resentment flooded me, which I could faintly tell was because I felt like he had somehow peeped into my innermost thoughts. Even though I had no idea how long he had stood in the doorway, I was certain that he had heard the sound of my tragic wailing.
And the thought that a man would be able to quietly stand there with no reaction to such bitter tears gave me chills all over.
Yin Li truly didn't love me.
However, his actions right now could be interpreted as affectionate. He pulled up the hem of my pants, exposing the purple bruises and smeared blood.
That was just my lower leg; once Yin Li cut apart the trouser leg with a pair of scissors, the true spectacle was the horrible bruises on my knee and its surrounding area. As more of my leg was exposed Yin Li's gentleness vanished, his movements instead taking on a hint of ruthlessness.
I grabbed the hand he was using to inspect my wounds, causing him to tilt his head back up at me. In his eyes swirled some dark emotion. I had only wanted to mock him so I quickly withdrew my hand and meekly lowered my gaze: "More gently, it hurts."
Afterwards, Yin Li and I no longer spoke. The private physician started treating my cuts and bruises, and the physical therapist, orthopedic specialist, and general practice doctor all crowded around my bed. When they'd confirmed that I had no major issues, they followed Yin Li out the door in a synchronized exodus. As I lay in bed I could hear the sounds of them passionately arguing over something outside my room, and from time to time I could hear someone shout: "Absolutely not, this program is too extreme." Despite hearing sentences like this again and again, I couldn't be bothered to piece together the topic of their conversation.
There wasn't a single muscle in my body that wasn't loudly proclaiming its distress, yet I felt satisfied and relieved. Turns out that pushing a rusty machine to its limit could eventually return it to its normal operation.
I closed my eyes, curling up the corners of my mouth.
When Yin Li stepped back into the room I vigilantly popped my eyes back open, but was unable to fully relax my facial muscles. Probably distracted by the sight of me grinning foolishly at the ceiling, he stared blankly for a second.
Then as expected, he instantly restored his aloof composure.
"Yan Xiao, I'll give you two months. During those two months I'll be in Europe, and if by the time I return you can stand, I'll prepare the paperwork to enroll you in H University this fall."
Before I could reveal my ecstatic expression, Yin Li left the room. I only caught a momentary glimpse of the side of his face. Elegant, and truly a thousand miles away.
Ai, I'll never know what Yin Li is thinking about.
Author Note:
Weakly want to say.... Everyone, have you all forgotten, forgotten that our Yan Xiao is handicapped! Even though she's very happy and carefree, in reality she's a very happy and carefree handicapped person TT
Ok then, happy happy handicapped child~ this chapter is very sufficient! I'll be more diligent, rolling around begging for praise~~persisting another day~
1 The original Chinese text used 声音瓮瓮地 (sheng yin weng weng de). I'm a bit unclear about the meaning of 瓮 when attached to sound but found on Baidu people asking about the phrase 瓮声瓮气 (weng sheng weng qi) which apparently means sounding hoarse, deep and low, and/or muffled. Therefore I'm assuming the author was referencing that...
2 Jing Ke was the famous would-be assassin of the King Ying Zheng, aka the future Qin Shi Huang, first emperor of China. Prince Dan was the one who commissioned the assassination attempt. Jing Ke not only failed to kill his guy but also died in the scuffle. You can read more about Jing Ke at Wikipedia page.
Candle: ALSO EVERYONE, I hope you enjoyed the author note!! What a cutie hardworking author we have. I debated whether I should bother to translate it too or not but personally I love reading author notes, gives you a lil insight into their perspective on the story, so maybe I'll continue... rolling around begging for your praise to persist another day~~
Niang Niang: we finally meet THE KING OF THE DOORWAY!
In the mirror, I saw Yin Li standing in the doorway. His face was obscured by the shadows, so I couldn't make out any expression on it, and I didn't know how long he had been silently standing there and how much he had seen.
Imagine Yun Li being swole af and filling up a solid 80% of the doorway and just standing there for eons. If that ain't King of the Doorway, I don't know what is.