Chapter 5 (1/2)

Five

This year, spring seemed to have arrived particularly early. It was not even March when the leaves on the trees begun to sprout.

As my condition steadily deteriorated, I was forced to do something every wealthy person had to do - write my will. I did not wish to write my will, for within my last words, there would only be five words: Gao Fei, I love you. I thought that I would be the first and the last person in this world who would write such a will.

In my letter, which was the only way I could continue to convey to Gao Fei my feelings after I died, I wanted to tell him that I loved him. Except, I still had a responsibility in handling my a.s.sets. In my father's lifetime, whether it was from legal or shady dealings, he had succeeded in ama.s.sing a sizeable fortune. I did not know exactly how much my inheritance was worth, but if one were to set about calculating my worth, perhaps I would rank among the wealthiest people within this city.

In the end, I left the entirety of my father's corporation to a young man my father had been grooming before he pa.s.sed away. His name was Chu Yun, and he was a person my father had personally selected from tens of people to be my husband after he learned of my illness. Chu Yun held the doc.u.ments within his hands, but did not accept them. I was already exhausted, so I did not say anything else.

Chu Yun was an upright person. If I had never crossed paths with Gao Fei, perhaps I would really have married him.

I said to Chu Yun, 'This is not simply a fortune which fell from the skies. After you have taken control of it, you must put your heart into maintaining it. You will be forced to think through your every word and action, for your life will no longer belong to you, and you alone. You will become the life of this corporation. If something goes wrong, you will be the first to bear the brunt of it. If you crossed the law, you will also have to bear the consequences. I have never thought of this inheritance as a blessing.’

I believed that not only did this sum of money guarantee a lifetime devoid of financial worries, but it also bought a person's freedom. Back then, I had chosen to abandon this inheritance for this reason.

I also left to the orphanage a sizeable amount of money, but of course, it was impossible for them to depend solely on me. As a charity organisation, the orphanage also sought aid from other organisations. Though it was my creation, it had long transcended into something which no longer belonged only to me.

Other than that, what remained were the two mansions of my family. One of them was my ancestral home, the house my father had lived in when he was alive. The other was the house Gao Fei and I currently lived in, a house which was devoid of warmth no matter how I tried to transform it into a home.

I thought that I should leave the house my father had lived in to Gao Fei's parents. No matter how they dealt with it in the end, whether they would choose to rent it out or sell it, at least, it would ensure that the two of them would live the rest of their lives without financial worry. And this would be the last gesture of sincerity I could give to them as their daughter-in-law.

As for the home I was living in, I could not bear to give it to anyone. Even if this was a house as cold as the wintry seas, it was still the home I once shared with Gao Fei, a place with memories I treasured. In the end, the only person I wanted to give it to was Gao Fei, but I understood his temper all too well - he was a proud and stubborn man, and he would never accept this.

So, I would let our house remain standing. Even as it fell into dilapidation with the pa.s.sing of years, it would continue to exist as an eternal testimony of the days I had once spent with Gao Fei, an undeniable witness to the relations.h.i.+p we once shared.

Later, I decided to pay a visit to my parents-in-law, so I made a trip to the supermarket where I bought a lot of things. In my two years of marriage, I had only seen them twice. The first was when my father released them, and the second was during my wedding with Gao Fei.

When the both of them saw me, the trepidation and fear which rose within them could not be masked, as though they were a mouse that had seen a cat, or an evil spirit that had seen Sun Wukong, its vanquisher. Before I entered, I tried my best to adjust my att.i.tude, and said to myself, He Yujin, good luck, smile nicely.

As I removed my shoes, I smiled brightly, my voice cheery as I shouted towards the living room, 'Father, Mother, I'm here to visit you.'

I was sure that my voice exceeded seventy decibels, because both my parents-in-law immediately froze in place. My father-in-law's hands, clutched around his presbyopic gla.s.ses, stilled in mid-air. For a long moment, he did not move.

Beaming, I walked in, kneeling down as I helped him put on his gla.s.ses. I laughed, then said, 'Do you want to read the papers?'

Then, like a dutiful daughter-in-law, I handed to him a few newspapers which had been placed atop the coffee table.

Turning, I said to my mother-in-law, 'Mother, I've brought many groceries over. I'll help you put them into the fridge.'

I acted just like any other ordinary daughter-in-law. Completely ignoring the stupefaction of the two elderlies, I continued to carry out this play all by my oneself, devoting myself to becoming the best daughter-in-law, as though nothing was out of the ordinary, and that we were like any other family.

I filled the fridge to the brim with groceries. Then I set about cleaning the house. I spent the whole afternoon cleaning their entire house, which was not large. Carefully, I mopped the floors twice, washed all the blankets and bedsheets, then headed for the kitchen where I cooked five dishes.

I held the plates stacked with food as I beamed at my parents-in-law. When I smiled, others often said that I looked beautiful, and that my smile was able to brighten the spirits of the elderly. Without batting an eyelid, I continued to act oblivious to their unchanging faces.

After dinner, I filled a basin with hot water to wash my father-in-law's feet. The basin which I filled was neither large nor small. On the curve of my elbows was a towel.

I said to Gao Fei's father, 'Father, I'll help you to wash your feet.'

My father-in-law exchanged a glance with my mother-in-law, and my mother-in-law looked at me, wanting to know exactly what I was playing at.

Because that year, the methods I had used to obtain Gao Fei still left them afraid.

My father-in-law was old in age and as he had spent a long time bound to the wheelchair, his muscles had long been atrophied. The weather was cold, and I was afraid that the water would not be warm enough, hence the water which I had filled in the basin was extremely hot.

Slowly, I helped him wash, thinking to myself that this man gave to me Gao Fei, the person I most loved, so I was immensely grateful to him.

Yet such a man had only endured much sufferings in life because of me, so I was also indebted towards him.