ALL NOVEL Chapter59
Fu Ziyu & Han Yumeng’s Side Story
‘One Day’ (Part 2)
At this time, Fu Ziyu suddenly looked up and looked all around him. His face changed, and he asked the customer service assistant beside him, “Where’s the young lady who came with me?” He had not noticed Han Yumeng was behind him. She immediately came forward and said, “Ziyu, I’m here.” Fu Ziyu’s expression relaxed when he saw her. The assistant lowered her head to smile as she walked away. He held her hand and said, self-mockingly, “I was afraid you’d left again.” Han Yumeng was briefly silent before she replied, “How could I do that? I don’t ever want to leave you again.” Her voice was too flat. Fu Ziyu dropped the clothes he was holding, turned, and hugged her.
The shop assistants remained silent, and the passers-by continued hurrying by. They embraced for a long, long time.
——
It was dark. As the twilight closed around them, Fu Ziyu stood at the ground floor of his apartment block, watching her drive away in her unremarkable black car. A day had passed. A once-in-a-lifetime day, when he had been blessed with her presence next to him once again, had ended. He wanted to smile, but he found his eyes were already full of tears. He turned and went upstairs. Each step felt as if he was walking in the wilderness.
He got home and turned on the lights. The entire apartment was silent and grey. He pulled open the curtains and stood in front of the window for a long time, as if he was likely to stand that way until the end of time.
Han Yumeng returned to a hidden location. The interior was dark, and that man was not sitting quietly by the window waiting for her, as was his usual practice. She felt her entire body go weak, and she almost collapsed. The many shopping bags in her hands fell to the ground.
Suddenly, someone grabbed her in a chokehold from behind. She felt cold all over, but she still had to keep up the pretence of being calm and keep on smiling, as if she were enjoying herself.
“You stayed with him for the whole day,” that man hissed into her ear.
She laughed lightly. “Wasn’t that your plan? Lure him, deceive him, and, in the end, sink him together with Simon King?”
“Yeah.” That man abruptly let go of her, and threw her onto the floor. Han Yumeng struck her head on the wall. In the darkness, fresh blood flowed and blurred her vision, and she could no longer see clearly.
——
“Ziyu, please believe me. I would never deceive you.”
“I know.”
“We have to wait for the right time, then we’ll escape together to some faraway place.”
“Ok.”
“You’ll have to leave your friends because of me. Are you willing to?”
“ . . . I’m willing.” He smiled faintly as he said, “Jinyan already has Jian Yao. So, even though I’m going with you to some place far away, I can be at ease.”
. . . . .
“I’m sorry, Ziyu, how much do you have to lose for my sake?”
“But I’ve got you.”
“You are really . . . willing to trust me?”
“I trust you.”
“Why?”
“Because you are my one true love.”
……
On the day of their escape, everything initially went smoothly. She ‘abducted’ Fu Ziyu as per the masked killer’s plan, but, in front of him, Han Yumeng removed the monitoring device behind her ear. At that time, a grey mist flashed across his eyes.
After that, it was a series of escape plans set into motion.
She managed to lure away* the sniper stationed in the opposite building.
*T/N 调虎离山计 (diao hu li shan) – lit. to lure the tiger away from its mountain domain; fig. to lure an enemy away from his territory
She employed a crafty plan to leave no traces behind*, changing to an identical car which, however, did not have the explosives planted in it by the masked killer, and drove off in exactly the same direction.
*T/N 金蝉脱壳 (jin chan tuo qiao) – lit. the cicada sheds its carapace; fig. to vanish leaving an empty shell; a crafty escape plan.
She was certain that the masked killer was presently west of Beijing, in the direction of the animation industry park, so she headed north with Fu Ziyu, planning to disappear into the wilds of the Mongolian grasslands before reappearing. Not even the masked killer could track the whereabouts of a bird in the icy vastness of Siberia.
Originally, everything was going smoothly.
They were driving at high speed along a straight highway when twilight approached. She whispered, “Ziyu, I’m sorry, I tricked you! The masked killer was controlling me all the time, his power and influence far surpasses your expectations, and he is even stronger than Xie Han, whom Simon King captured. I have been waiting for this opportunity. Let’s flee far away, and he won’t be able to threaten or hurt our friends any more!”
Fu Ziyu held her hand gently and said, “Ok. When you’re tired of driving, trade places with me. My driving is not bad.”
Han Yumeng was thoroughly taken aback. It was only then that she realised that he actually knew everything, and had known it for a while.
She turned her head to look at him. Out of the blue, her tears fell. “Why didn’t you ask me anything these past few days?” You just happily followed me.
Fu Ziyu simply looked at her tenderly, with his usual gentle expression on his bright, handsome features.
“Yumeng, I also considered if I should tell Bo Jinyan,” he said. “But, I know, whether or not you’re still under the control of the masked killer right now, in these past few years, your hands have been stained with blood. Jinyan, he detests all that is evil. If I told him, not only would it make things difficult for him and Jian Yao, you would also definitely be sent to prison. So, I decided to be selfish and just think of myself first, just this once. I didn’t tell him.”
“I knew that it would be dangerous to leave with you. I also knew that we would have to keep moving from place to place from now onwards. The first day that you returned, I thought for a long time. I thought about the life that I have remaining, and what I cared about. I care about Jinyan, and I care about my friends. However, they can still live happily without me around. I care about my relatives, but, in truth, from the time you disappeared, I drifted apart from our relatives on both sides. I care about my work as a doctor, but, if I go with you to Siberia, even in that land of ice and snow, I can still open a little clinic and treat the locals there. That would be wonderful.”
“For many years, I thought that I had been living well. I took care of Jinyan, I helped many patients, I had a lot of girlfriends. However, on looking back now, I’ve realised that I was dead from the time you left me. The empty shell* that remained was calm and even-tempered, and lived each day smoothly and steadily, thinking that it was living energetically.”
*T/N 躯壳 (qu qiao) – the body which houses the soul
“You’ve said before that the standard by which we should measure happiness in life is not by length, but by whether we have always loved each other. It is only now that I truly understand the meaning of these words. I want to be with you; wherever we go, however long we live, whether it is for a day or two days, no matter the danger, all that is not important. I love you, and nothing has ever changed nor will ever change my love for you. As long as I am with you, even if it is for one minute, or one second, I have already been blessed beyond measure.”
……
When the sky turned dark, Fu Ziyu took over the driving. Han Yumeng leaned slightly against the seat, looking at his profile in the darkness. This was the happiest moment of her entire life. She knew he felt the same way.
For just a random second, Han Yumeng looked up at the white poplar trees lining the road.
Vaguely, she had a blurred impression of a mask amidst the trees.
She once again saw that sinister, ash-grey clown mask.
In a flash, her heart was gripped by an icy sensation and her entire body trembled slightly. She slowly turned her head and looked at Fu Ziyu by her side. He was completely unaware of this situation; the corners of his mouth were still upturned in a warm smile. When he noticed her looking at him, he once again held her hand gently.
How could he appear here? How could the masked killer appear here? She had definitely confirmed, had seen it herself, that he had gone to the west of Beijing today. Where on earth had she made a mistake?
However, there was already no way of finding out.
When they pulled Fu Ziyu from the car, Han Yumeng snatched out the gun from under the seat and let off a burst of frenzied shots, but she could not pinpoint their enemies. She raised the gun to her temple and shut her eyes.