Once I'd arrived at school, I still wanted to be left to my own peace and quiet. Yet I didn't expect that upon entering the classroom, everyone's eyes would sweep over in my direction. Among them, Su Lin Lin's gaze was the harshest. At first, I didn't know what was going on. Thankfully, it wasn't long before the professor entered. The lesson was French speaking and conversation, so everyone quickly quieted down.
But after the professor had gone over a few key points from the homework last time, he suddenly changed topics. He asked, "Isn't today a particularly happy occasion?" Then he squinted at me. Only then did I discover that everyone had begun to stare at me with varying expressions. Meanwhile, I started to get the feeling that something was off.
"Félicitations pour vos fiançailles!"1 This professor, who loved sentimental things, congratulated me in French while looking at me with a somewhat envious expression.
1 Congratulations on your engagement
At this, my classmates all raised a clamor as well, repeating the same phrase in French and clapping excitedly.
Faced with this kind of situation, I was struck with a feeling of confusion as if I didn't know what night this night was.2 But my blank expression probably ticked off Su Lin Lin. In between classes, she came over and said to me in a biting, sarcastic tone, "In the future, should I address you as Madame Yin? The dogs that actually bite don't bark. I really didn't see you as the sort of person to not only latch onto Yin Li, but also move so quickly to have him agree to put engagement notices in the papers."
2不知今夕何夕 or 今夕何夕 ("Don't know what night this night is" or "what night is this night?") comes from a Song dynasty poem. Sometimes it's used to express frustration/confusion (like "What year is this?") or a feeling of regret ("How time flies!").
"Engagement notices?"
"What are you still playing dumb for? It's on the headlines of pretty much all the papers today. Even if I don't want to see it I can't avoid it." Saying this, Su Lin Lin reached into her bag and pulled out a newspaper, slapping it down on before me. "Just look at it yourself, the fact that Yin Li is willing to take this step really makes people's eyes fall out in shock."
Su Lin Lin's movements were very dramatic. The newspaper fell open before my eyes, revealing a corner of the headline story. Above a row of large red letters was a photo of Yin Li hugging me to him, taken just as we were smiling happily at each other. Yin Li carried my school bag and we walked hand-in-hand. The whole scene looked very intimate.
I unfolded the newspaper to see a vivid and lively tale.
"Crown prince" Yin Li's Engagement, fiancée Yan Xiao's smiling face.3 Insider reveals that the two have already been living together for a while. Expected to marry soon, suspecting a shotgun wedding after pregnancy.
3 There's actually a play on words here with Yan Xiao's name, 颜 (Yan) meaning "face", 笑 (Xiao) meaning "smile". It was written as 颜笑笑颜 (Yan Xiao xiao yan) meaning something like "Yan Xiao's smiling face".
And then, next to this description was placed a couple of photos. There was one of Chen Qing Yan and one of Yan Ge, and their photos were all edited to be black-and-white. Not only that, there was also a torn effect like they'd been ripped. Only the photo of Yin Li and I was in color, and with this in addition to the article, it gave off the feeling that I was completely flushed with success.
At this moment Wu Mei also came over, her entire face brimming with curiosity. "Turns out the person you brought to eat hotpot was filthy rich. Oh that's right, Yan Xiao, before classes today a crowd of reporters came to ask us for interviews.
During this break in between classes, I'd been completely surrounded by throngs of curious busybody classmates who wanted to come over and check me out. Then after classes ended, even more classmates came over to tell me that the main entrance of our university was packed with reporters.
This news made my mind totally distracted, my thoughts in complete turmoil.
Yin Li had announced our relationship at the party after he'd recovered from that car accident, and he and I had never hid from anybody that we were living together. The reason that there'd never been any news about us in the papers until now, had merely been because he didn't want there to be. He'd felt that the timing wasn't right, so he didn't want other people to know about me. Now, all of the mainstream media had abandoned their previous silence and reported uninhibitedly like it was some sort of publicity campaign, until they'd practically established things as facts, once again slapping the label of "Yin Li's fiancée" onto me.
I originally wanted to ignore the conversation between Yin Li and Yin Xuan, also ignoring the little doubts I'd felt before. Yin Li only needed to give me enough time, he only needed to have enough patience to nicely act out a harmonious relationship with me so that I could continue to foolishly muddle by. But now, it instead was like he'd run out of time and could only close the net. This really an intelligent action, it completely wasn't like something that Yin Li would do.
The feelings between us had already become complicated, he should have given me time to slowly recover my emotions. But these insensitive and high-handed actions, for the sake of making me make a decision, forcibly shoved me forwards. These methods all made me feel helpless and painful. I loved Yin Li, but now I increasingly could not trust him.
He didn't know how much determination I had to summon in order to endure those feelings of terror and curiosity, in order to cut myself off from my past and, with my own hands, conceal the truth that was right before my eyes. The feeling this gave me was akin to as if I'd erased and rejected my very own past self. No one could understand these feelings of self-conflict and unease, as if even though the ground you currently walked on was stable, the very next step could plunge you off a cliff. But I could understand this kind of terror very clearly. Uncertain of the future, afraid of the past. For a few nights I couldn't even sleep, my appetite so weak that I had to force myself to eat, but I still tried with all my might to comfort myself. That everything would be alright.
I needed him to that much, needed him to bolster the confidence of such a silly and stubborn person like me so that I could even more so foolishly indulge myself at this time. But his stride had instead gone awry.
This made me start to want to know about those things that he didn't want me to know. I had always possessed a kernel of curiosity, and now it could no longer be contained by reason.
However, mysteriously, it was as if fate had made its own plans. After classes ended, because the front entrance was surrounded by reporters, I'd planned to slip away using a small, abandoned door in the back of the school. There was no way I could have predicted that I'd run into that foreigner, Frank.
Upon seeing me, he smiled. "I saw your face in the papers today. The entire front entrance is full of reporters, so I thought you might try to leave from this door. I've waited quite a while for you." Then, staring at me, he continued, "Although personality-wise you and that person are truly as different as night and day, your faces are still unable to convince me that this is just a coincidence. Even though last time, I'd already convinced myself to let go of this matter, when you cursed at me in French as you ran off, it instead made me feel that maybe I wasn't just having a bad dream."
He had already switched into French to say this last line, his voice trembling emotionally. "I know you can completely understand what I'm saying. I've done some investigation; you're in the French department, your French pronunciation is comparable to a native's. I feel that this can't be a coincidence. Could you let me take a look at your ankle and heel?"
My heart was full of doubts, but this time I in the end pulled up the hem of my pants, took off my socks, and stretched my foot forwards for him to see.
My foot had always been unsightly, almost as if it was slightly deformed. My heel was a bit wide. You could even describe it as "thick" and "broad". Sure enough, this foreign man before me stared at this foot in amazement, so I couldn't help but explain, "It's because of a car accident. The injuries probably caused some deformities. Even now there are a lot of shoes that I can't wear, so I have no option but to have them custom-made."
He snapped his head up to stare at me, then looked back down at my foot, and the expression on his face completely transformed. In a tone that could be described as fanaticism, he exclaimed, "Yes! I wasn't just dreaming! Yes, it's you! It was you all along! Thank God, you're still alive! My beloved Alicia!"
Then he finally calmed himself down. "No, Darling, how could your foot be ugly, in this world, these are the most beautiful feet I've laid eyes on. Your scars are all representations of your glory. These deformities aren't due to a car accident, these are a pair of feet that dance ballet!"
Thinking back to Yin Xuan's ballet practice room, I suddenly felt that some details were forming connections in my mind. Instinctively I retorted, "Impossible, this is impossible. I know nothing about dancing."
But Frank only pressed closer to me. "I recognize your foot, I can even identify you with only your ankle. As a part of the audience below the stage, I've watched you for ten whole years, sitting in the front row every time. You've danced in those ballet troupes for ten years, so I've also watched for ten years. All this time, I've been filming for a ballet documentary, following your growth, and in those ten years you have been the best, most promising ballet dancer I've seen." Then in a fluster, he took out a package. "You can take a look at this, inside is all the footage I've ever taken of you, plus some of your photos and news clippings about you. You are Alicia. This can't be a mistake. You absolutely don't belong here, when I saw the headlines today, I immediately felt that things can't be as simple as they seems!"
I didn't dare accept that package, my entire head was a mess. It was as if, right after I'd finally accepted the Yan Xiao that had manifested after that car accident, after I'd been set up as an ordinary French-major university student, a group of people suddenly rushed over to reveal, "We played a joke on you. You aren't actually you, you come from a different world," and then wanted to install me in a different identity.
Frank could see my resistance and said, "After you've looked over all this information, if you can still completely discard all your suspicions, then I won't disturb your peace anymore. But I hope that no matter, what you won't let yourself down. Your past self's biggest dream was to dance ballet. Not to mention that your disappearance a year ago was extremely suspicious."
I vaguely responded, "I don't understand ballet dance, I had a car accident here and injured my leg, ended up bed-ridden for over half a year."
"No, you're wrong about yourself. I don't know who told you this, but in the alley in front of your apartment in Paris, we found a large pool of your blood, yet couldn't find either you or your body, so in this year we had no choice but to declare you as a missing person. A lot of people already believe that you died, but not I. I know how strong of a girl you are. You wouldn't throw away your dreams to just die so casually." A light flashed in Frank's eyes, "You shine the brightest among all the dancers I've ever seen. Our lives were going so smoothly. I planned to film you for my documentary, all the way up til the day you could dance no more."
Once he again presented the package to me with a solemn look on his face. "You are her. I will also immediately send notice to Paris, to your instructor and the police. Mrs. Taylor is even more familiar with you than I am, she can tell you everything. And the police department keeps your blood and DNA in storage."
"No, please wait. Please give me a little more time, right now I still also have my present life." Saying these words really took all of my strength, because the package I held in my hand was so heavy it seemed to weigh a thousand kilos. It was as if it pressed heavily on my chest, weighing down on each and every pulse of my heartbeat, such that I could barely breathe.
Frank nodded his head. "I've seen the announcement of your engagement in the news, your life right now seems to travel on a completely different track. But Darling, let me just give you a single reminder. I don't know who fabricated your current identity, but if you really are her, then these deceptions wouldn't be a coincidence."
He looked me deeply in the eye, his words relentlessly pressing on. "This would be attempted murder."
The look in his eyes shook me to my core. And in my heart, I felt distraught and helpless. Indeed, if what he said was the truth, then all of this wouldn't just be some big ruse, it would be attempted murder. A careful and meticulous construction, with the purpose of killing my life's art, killing the ballet dancer I once was. And furthermore, they'd succeeded.
I'd originally believed that my life was like a straight and smooth road. Even after losing all my memories, I still had Yin Li. I'd planned to live an ordinary life, but it was like fate didn't want to make things easy for me. From the time that painting had appeared, to the argument between the Yin siblings, up until now with Frank's confidence about my true identity, everything overlapped messily.
What a joke. I'd returned to that time a year ago, to the circumstances I'd faced when I regained consciousness after that accident. The world was still strange, unfamiliar, and frightening. When Yin Li was extremely untrustworthy, such that I took him to be my enemy. When I didn't even know who I was, so I could only wait for strangers to insert me into an unfamiliar role in society.
But in my heart, I knew that the world was already completely different.