Chapter 116

Walking along the quiet, tree-lined path, Yan Yiming’s footsteps on the gravel were somewhat hurried, even though she had resisted coming to this place for a long time.
Hidden in the outskirts of S City, the small villa was remote and tranquil. Pushing open the familiar yet time-worn door, Yan Yiming was greeted by an aunt trimming the plants, whose eyes crinkled into a smile at the sight of her. “A’Ming, you’re here.”
The tone was as warm and familiar as if she visited every few days, but for Yan Yiming, everything here felt as though she hadn’t seen it in eight years.
“Ah, I’m here,” Yan Yiming replied, momentarily at a loss for words, her response a bit clumsy.
The aunt, assuming Yan Yiming was still reluctant to come as before, smiled understandingly without surprise and picked up her scissors again. “Madam is inside. She should have just woken up.”
Yan Yiming nodded. From where she stood, she could faintly hear the sound of a piano coming from inside.
This villa was specially built for her mother’s recuperation, a sunlit retreat with excellent air quality and exceptional quiet, complete with a therapeutic hot spring. The walls were made of highly transparent glass, offering a lush, green view from inside.
The open scenery and abundant sunlight always lifted one’s spirits.
Just like Mother Yan, sitting quietly at the piano now. The piece she was playing was called “Vanessa’s Smile,” a lighthearted melody she only played when in a good mood.
Yan Yiming watched her back, still dressed in an elegant, dignified long gown, her hair meticulously styled as always, though her figure seemed slightly thinner than in memory. Yan Yiming didn’t disturb her, sitting on the nearby sofa and watching intently until the piece finished. Then, she gently applauded and said, “It sounded beautiful.”
Mother Yan paused slightly, her pale face lighting up with unconcealed delight at the sight of Yan Yiming.
She wanted to stand up and walk toward her daughter, but she remained motionless, still seated before the piano. Her still-elegant face now carried a hint of hesitation and timidity.
Yan Yiming’s heart ached suddenly.
Even though the mistake had been made in a moment of confusion, it had left her increasingly sensitive and fragile. Yan Yiming suddenly felt a strong urge to wrap her thin, delicate frame in her arms.
She thought it, and she acted on it.
Yan Yiming stood up and walked over, despite her mother’s somewhat flustered expression. She gently wrapped her arms around her from behind, her voice soft and patient, no longer filled with the fear and impatience of the past.
“It sounded really beautiful,” she said. Yan Yiming could feel her stiffen momentarily, and she suppressed the bitterness in her heart as she spoke gently, “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard you play. Could you play another piece?”
“Of course!”
Her mother answered almost instantly. Her slender, graceful fingers settled on the keys, her voice tinged with a pleading tone that was easy to detect. “Would ‘A Maiden’s Prayer’ be alright?”
“I was just thinking of that piece too,” Yan Yiming released her and sat down beside her, smiling. “We really are mother and daughter, sharing the same heart.”
Her mother’s hands trembled slightly on the keys, and she didn’t dare look at her daughter’s face again. After a moment, only the gentle sound of the piano filled the air.
Sunlight filtered through the green leaves and the windowpane, casting a warm glow on her face. Yan Yiming suddenly felt the urge to cry.
Such a quiet, peaceful afternoon, she had truly missed it for far too long.
Her parents’ meeting had been an unfortunate twist of fate from the very beginning, a genuine, pampered young lady from a wealthy family had fallen madly in love with a young man whose family had fallen into decline, forcing him to return to the country. The marriage that Yan Yiming had always resented as a compromise began from there: one side was wholeheartedly devoted, while the other was merely going through the motions.
Their start was far from beautiful, and even her mother’s almost pitiful efforts later on couldn’t salvage the marriage.
Yan Yiming had once heard her grandfather say that her arrival had brought the couple a rare period of happiness, but it hadn’t lasted long. In the more than twenty years since Yan Yiming had grown old enough to understand and remember, she had never once seen her father show even a hint of care toward her mother.
Resentment had accumulated slowly over time.
They never argued because her mother always gave in, but they drifted further and further apart. Her father began staying away from home intermittently, and her mother grew increasingly silent. Yan Yiming often saw her shut herself in her room, sitting there for entire days.
At that time, Yan Yiming was only twelve. She couldn’t understand her father’s indifference or her mother’s persistence. She confronted her father, asking why he never came home. He patted her head and told her he was busy, that there was no other reason.
But her mother still cried. Yan Yiming called her father, urging him to come home, only to be met with the sweet voice of his secretary, who said Mr. Yan was busy.
Still too young to hide her emotions, Yan Yiming felt an overwhelming surge of anger for the first time. Without telling anyone, she went to her father’s company to see what he was so busy with. No one dared to stop her as she pushed open the door to his office. There, she saw the same secretary who had just told her over the phone that her father was busy, standing behind him, gently massaging his temples.
She might have been leaning down to say something to him. Her father wore a smile on his face, one he had never shown in front of her mother. The two of them spoke like lovers, until she appeared.
The moment she saw them, the secretary hastily stepped back, and her usually composed father, for the first time, looked flustered and at a loss.
That was the beginning of all her nightmares. Yan Yiming felt a disgust she had never known before. At that time, she was still young and didn’t know how to control her emotions. She glared at the two of them with the most venomous look before running home in tears.
She wanted to tell her mother what she had seen, but when she got home, she happened to run into her uncle, who was visiting. He smiled and asked her what was wrong. Rubbing her eyes, Yan Yiming told him everything she had witnessed. Her uncle’s expression instantly changed, followed by a look that the young Yan Yiming couldn’t understand at the time.
He told her not to tell her mother. When she asked why, he said it was because her mother was already very sad.
Back then, she thought “sad” just meant feeling down. It was only later that she realized what her uncle really meant was that her mother was already living a difficult life.
She kept the secret. That day, as she cried in her room until her eyes were swollen, her father finally returned home. The mere thought of the smile he had worn earlier made Yan Yiming feel sick to her stomach again. She didn’t want to say a word to him, so it was her father who broke the silence. He told her that the secretary had already left.
Yan Yiming sat up from her bed. At such a young age, she had already learned to speak with a cold sneer. She said, “I wish she were dead.”
Looking back now, it all seemed so ridiculous. Human emotions are always selfish. Back then, she wished for that woman to die, never realizing that her father was even more unforgivable.
Her father apologized to her over and over again, and it seemed she forgave him. After a long while, she told him, “I didn’t tell Mom.”
Her father fell silent for a long time before saying, “Thank you.”
All the filth was swept under the rug. Her father finally returned home, and Yan Yiming thought everything could go back to the way it was. But less than half a month later, the most unbearable thing still happened.
Her mother attempted suicide. When Yan Yiming rushed frantically to the hospital, she stood at the corner and overheard her uncle and father talking. It was then that she realized the truth, her mother had never been kept in the dark. She had known all along.
Her mother was eventually saved, but the final examination revealed that she was suffering from severe depression, so severe that she had contemplated ending her life.
Yan Yiming discovered the writings her mother had penned day and night, hidden away in her room. In them, her mother lamented the beginning of this love, regretting how she had allowed her grandfather to use certain means to secure this marriage. She said it was all her sin. On the last page, she wrote that her father had found his own love, so she chose to let him go.
And so, the brief thaw between Yan Yiming and her father vanished without a trace.
After waking up, her mother refused to acknowledge her illness and adamantly opposed treatment or medication. The family had no choice but to arrange for more people to care for her and keep an eye on her. She still smiled, gently asking Yan Yiming about her studies and what had happened that day, just like a normal person.
Another three years passed in the blink of an eye. She had not attempted suicide or self-harm again, but on the day Yan Yiming returned from high school, she saw her mother kneeling alone on the floor, murmuring the familiar confessions from her diary.
Yan Yiming approached with a sense of dread and asked her what she was doing.
Her mother turned to her with a smile and said, “I'm talking to your father.” Then, her gaze shifted to the sofa beside her. “Ah, he's gone upstairs.”
A chill ran down Yan Yiming’s spine, and she was seized by an unprecedented fear.
Because from the moment she had entered the room, the sofa had been completely empty.
Her mother was hallucinating. Her mind had quietly slipped into turmoil once again.
The family no longer dared to let her continue like this. Since she refused to go to the hospital, they had to bring a doctor to the house for treatment. But she adamantly denied that anything was wrong with her. She screamed hysterically, demanding the doctor leave, and wept as she clutched her father’s sleeve, insisting she wasn’t sick.
She refused to take her medication, and even if she did, she would vomit it all out. She locked herself in her room, barring anyone from entering.
Yan Yiming, overwhelmed, stared at the night sky before walking downstairs. There, she saw her father sitting alone on the sofa, the room filled with smoke. Father and daughter exchanged a glance in the darkness, but in the end, not a single word was spoken.
At that time, Yan Yiming had not yet developed a fear of her mother. She still held onto the hope that her mother would recover completely, so she remained entirely unguarded.
On her mother’s birthday, when Yan Yiming was eighteen, her father stayed with her to celebrate. Yan Yiming, feeling unusually relaxed, fell asleep. She woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, only to open her eyes to her mother’s pale face illuminated by the moonlight.
Yan Yiming was startled, then sighed in relief and asked why she was there and if she wanted to sleep with her.
Her mother stared at her in silence before suddenly raising her hand. To Yan Yiming’s shock, she saw a gleaming knife in her mother’s grasp. Trembling and weeping, her mother pointed the blade at Yan Yiming’s neck, saying she was her father’s sin, and as his daughter, Yan Yiming was too.
“You are the original sin,” she said. “You were born guilty.”
Panicked, Yan Yiming pushed her away and screamed. In her frantic struggle, her mother grew more agitated and slashed Yan Yiming’s arm as she tried to block the knife.
Her father rushed in upon hearing the commotion and, horrified, quickly pulled her mother away. The knife clattered to the floor, and the night fell into a dead silence among the three of them.
A doctor bandaged Yan Yiming’s wound, and her mother, sedated, fell asleep. Yan Yiming, clutching her injured arm, went downstairs and encountered her father. He, usually so stern and unemotional, had tears in his eyes that day.
Years of emotional neglect had ultimately caused irreparable harm. He truly regretted it.
The next day, when her mother woke up and saw Yan Yiming’s bandaged wound, she asked in shock what had happened. Remembering her mother’s words from the night before, Yan Yiming instinctively flinched and avoided her. Her mother stood there, bewildered and pitiful, with no recollection of what had transpired.
Even if it was due to illness, even if it was unintentional, the damage had been done. That year, Yan Yiming was admitted to university. She left S City and went somewhere far away.