At this moment, Zhao Xunxun had no desire to ask Chi Cheng where he had taken her. She once believed that the small home she built with Xie Pingning was the most secure refuge, only to discover it was all an illusion. Xie Pingning’s heart was like an empty city with gates left ajar – now wide open on all sides, where only Shao Jiaquan could freely come and go as she pleased. Xunxun lived inside, watching and waiting, trapped in a city of sorrow.
“Smile if you’re not angry anymore,” Chi Cheng tentatively said.
Xunxun obliged him with a slight twitch of her lips.
“Never mind, you’d better not smile. You can cry if you want, or you can hit me a couple of times. I know you want to punch me.”
“This has nothing to do with you,” Xunxun said woodenly.
“Then it must be about Xie Pingning!” Chi Cheng crossed his arms over his chest. “Is he so important to you that you can’t live without him?”
“He’s my husband.”
“A husband whose heart belongs to someone else!” Chi Cheng emphasized.
Xunxun spoke as if to herself. “I could overlook many things. Him insulting my dignity was one thing, but now he even insults my intelligence.”
“I feel like he’s been insulting your intelligence all along.”
Xunxun responded to Chi Cheng’s interjection with a murderous glare.
Chi Cheng shifted his position, sat up straight, and asked her: “Xunxun, can you honestly tell me why you married Xie Pingning?”
Xunxun thought for a long time. “Because I couldn’t think of any reason not to marry him. My mother strongly advocated for us to be together, and he wanted to marry me. Xie Pingning didn’t have any major flaws, and I always believed he was the best choice for a stable lifelong partnership.” She mocked herself, “Back then he was still a doctor, and I thought if I ever had a medical emergency, having someone with medical knowledge by my side would increase my chances of survival.”
Chi Cheng satirically remarked, “I studied pharmaceutical science, and my family sells medicine. If you had married me, your chances of taking the wrong medication would also be much lower.”
Xunxun ignored this.
“I am quite foolish, but all I wanted was the simplest life possible. I didn’t need him to be madly in love with me or go through fire and water for me – just give me a home. Was even that asking too much?”
“It’s not too much,” Chi Cheng said, “but often, it’s precisely because you ask for too little that people end up giving you nothing at all, leaving you with nothing in the end.”
Xunxun lowered her head, “I don’t understand what you mean.”
He sneered, “Of course you understand. You’re the most skilled expert at playing dumb I’ve ever met.”
“If I were an expert at playing dumb, how could you see through me?”
“Because I have eyes of divine discernment, specifically meant for seeing through experts who play dumb. In that sense, we’re quite compatible.”
“Of course we’re compatible. If I’m a pencil, you must be a pencil sharpener, born to wear me down.”
“I like that metaphor.” Chi Cheng’s eyes sparkled with amusement, while Xunxun remained expressionless.
“Has anyone ever told you that you have innocent-looking eyes?”
“Thank you.” Though she wasn’t in the mood, she decided to accept the compliment.
Chi Cheng replied politely: “No need to thank me because I only said ‘looking,’ and it wasn’t meant as a compliment. When you’re silent, your eyes are empty. Most men like that bewildered look in women’s eyes, and I’m no different – it always seems delicate and pitiful, awakening the desire to protect. But now I suspect your bewilderment isn’t because you don’t know anything, but because you know everything.”
“Is that so? I wouldn’t know.”
“See, you’re playing dumb again. People who know too much often overthink and hesitate to act because they’re too aware of the consequences.” Chi Cheng rambled: “Do you know why most soldiers are hot-blooded young men? They’re young and don’t understand the preciousness of life or the terror of death. Once they understand, they become seasoned soldiers and aren’t much used anymore. The more people understand, the more cowardly they become, that’s why the elderly fear death the most. Courage isn’t a virtue, but a moment of ignorance and blankness. If someone remains clear-headed, it can only be because something is covering their eyes, making them temporarily forget the consequences.”
“Don’t you think too much as well?” Xunxun said.
Chi Cheng smiled mysteriously, “Not at all, this is what an old friend once told me. Besides, I’m younger than you, more foolish than you, and braver too. That’s why I dared to leave Shao Jiaquan when she loved another, but you don’t dare!”
Xunxun said glumly: “I am a fool, I deserve to be walked all over.”
“Don’t try to fool me. You knew about everything between Xie Pingning and Jiaquan. I don’t think you love your husband that much. Your patience has little to do with being virtuous and understanding – you’re just afraid that if everything falls apart, you’ll be left with nothing.”
“So what do I have now?” Xunxun was once again provoked by him, unwilling to hear such an unflattering portrait of herself from others.
“You got the comfortable life and stability you imagined!” Chi Cheng mercilessly exposed her again. “Marrying someone you don’t love just for the life you want is essentially legal prostitution, so you don’t dare criticize your patron. Even knowing he’s walking all over you, you still deceive yourself by playing deaf and dumb. How is that fundamentally different from a prostitute who lets others use her after taking their money?”
Xunxun immediately got out of the car, slamming the door hard. He had already examined her exposed parts, yet still unsatisfied, he insisted on lifting her skirt and undergarments for arbitrary criticism – this was utterly intolerable.
“Haha, angry because I hit a nerve? Looks like I was right.” Chi Cheng leaned back against the seat, smug.
“What’s wrong with wanting a comfortable and stable life? Any woman can ask for these things. A young master like you has no right to judge me from some moral high ground.” Xunxun coldly addressed the person in the car: “Don’t think you understand everything just because you’ve scratched the surface. Some things aren’t yours to judge. I’ve had enough of not knowing what tomorrow will bring! Moving repeatedly from one rental to another, spending money whenever they had it – one meal all meat, the next meal nothing but wind! Every holiday, we dreaded creditors coming to collect; every time we got something nice, I worried it was something my father had swindled from someone else. They divorced, I stayed with my mother, and she went through men one after another. She even slept with the academic affairs director to get me into a key middle school! When courting her, men all said they would marry her – only she believed them, but it was all bullshit!”
Chi Cheng followed her out of the car, standing not far from her, watching as Zhao Xunxun paced back and forth like a trapped beast, her face flushed red.
“In the first few years after my mom got together with my stepfather, whenever uncle came, she would make me sleep in the outer room. Afraid of his legal wife finding out, they were always extremely careful when meeting. My mom changed apartments three times a month, wishing she had eyes in the back of her head, yet when they were having their affair, they would forget to even bolt the front door. I remember one night, it was raining heavily, yes, raining! They were rolling around behind the curtain, I was asleep, and someone sneaked in from outside – later I learned it was a thief. The most valuable thing in our home was my mother’s dancing dress, we didn’t even have a decent sofa, yet somehow thieves still had their eye on us! He rummaged everywhere, I didn’t dare open my eyes, afraid that if I made a sound, he would kill me and the people behind the curtain. I just kept my eyes closed, kept them closed until dawn was almost breaking. There was a broken cleaver left by the thief next to my pillow – one move and I would have been dead. But they knew nothing about it, nobody knew!”
Chi Cheng witnessed her anger and felt he had gone too far. He walked over and patted her shoulder, “That’s all in the past now, and besides, it’s not that no one knows – I know now!”
“Bullshit!” Chi Cheng dared not laugh out loud.
Xunxun completely ignored him and his presence, not caring whether her choice of words was proper, continuing to speak. She wasn’t confiding in Chi Cheng, but speaking to herself, to the Zhao Xunxun still trembling in fear inside her body, just as she had done day after day for years.
“My mom got lucky, Uncle Zeng ended up marrying her. She was overjoyed, but the entire Zeng family hated her. Uncle Zeng had one son and two daughters, the older ones had already left home. My mom thought she had won, but she didn’t know Uncle Zeng never stopped thinking about his son and daughters. If he ever softened his heart at one of their threats, my mom and I would be back in that rental room the next day. Zeng Yu used to oppose me in everything, and I couldn’t afford to offend anyone. I had to be a good child, an obedient child, smiling at everyone, being polite to everyone, just to please my mom and maybe get a piece of candy from the Zeng family relatives. After I turned fourteen, I never worried about food or clothes, living in that big house, but I knew very clearly that not even a single cup in there belonged to me. From childhood to adulthood, nothing has ever truly belonged to me!”
Xunxun grew tired of speaking and leaned against the car door, her tone becoming calmer.
“You can say I sold myself to Xie Pingning, or that I’m calculating – my greatest wish is just to wake up every day and find that everything is the same as yesterday, that everything is still there, that nothing has changed.”
Chi Cheng also leaned against the car like her. After a while, he seemed to think of something, hurriedly retrieved something from the back seat, and pulled Xunxun toward the stairwell. The elevator from the underground parking lot to the upper floors was closed at this late hour, so he dragged her toward the emergency exit. Xunxun refused, but Chi Cheng threatened: “If you stay here alone, aren’t you afraid a thief with a cleaver might appear again?”
He made as if to leave, and Xunxun hurriedly called him back, returning to the car to get her cat carrier. Everyone knows to seek advantage and avoid harm – she couldn’t leave a living creature in a dangerous place.
Upon reaching the ground floor, Chi Cheng wasn’t satisfied and continued running up the winding stairs. At the seventeenth-floor passageway, they both stopped to catch their breath.
Chi Cheng said between breaths, “Your stamina is pretty good, you kept up with me.”
Xunxun, still carrying the weight of a cat, could barely straighten her back. “Without good stamina, how could one survive? Even when you gave up, I didn’t!”
Chi Cheng put the cat carrier on his own back and said, “Don’t make me carry you on the way down!”
Before dying of exhaustion, they pushed open the door to the thirty-first-floor rooftop and staggered to the railing’s edge, both collapsing onto the ground.
Xunxun’s first words after regaining the ability to speak were: “Please give me a good reason why we came up here.”
Chi Cheng just smiled without speaking. Xunxun struggled to her feet and looked around. Referencing the surrounding landmark buildings, she seemed to regain some sense of direction. This wasn’t some remote wilderness, much less an illusion conjured by fox spirits at midnight, but rather the center of an emerging urban district that Xunxun had passed through more than once. The building they were in primarily housed a shopping mall and hotel, and had been one of the city’s tallest buildings a few years ago. Built on a slope, it gave the illusion of “standing atop the highest peak” when viewed from above.
Chi Cheng gestured for her to come over and lean against the railing to look down like him. The iron railing was neither new nor old, and Xunxun worried about its stability, refusing to approach until Chi Cheng pulled her over forcefully. Being afraid of heights, she gripped the handrail tightly and peered down through squinted eyes, immediately feeling dizzy and unsteady.
“Although I’ve been complaining, I absolutely, absolutely won’t jump down!” she retreated and solemnly declared to Chi Cheng.
“Come on, getting closer won’t kill you.” Chi Cheng reached out his hand, “Give me! Money!”
“What for?” Without explaining, he reached into her bag to find the stack of bills he had just returned to her earlier.
Xunxun exclaimed in horror: “If you want to rob me, why come up to the thirty-first floor?”
Chi Cheng handed her the box he was holding, “Give me the money, and this becomes yours.”
Xunxun confusedly accepted it, opening the carefully packaged box lid to find a complete set of fine bone china teaware. In the night light, it showed a soft, luminous white color – a quality item, but she didn’t need it.
“I picked out this tea set for myself this morning. Now, money for goods, I’m selling it to you. It’s yours to do with as you please.”
“What would I do with this?” Xunxun held the tea set box blankly, not understanding his intentions.
“Whatever you want to do.” Chi Cheng picked out an elegantly shaped beauty teapot from the box, admiring it briefly, “How about I demonstrate?”
With that, he forcefully smashed it onto the rooftop’s cement floor before Xunxun’s eyes, instantly shattering the white porcelain.
Xunxun was heartbroken and pushed the wasteful person, “How can you destroy things like this? Aren’t you afraid of being struck by lightning?”
Chi Cheng said, “It’s my thing, I can do whatever I want with it, even the Thunder God can’t interfere… of course, now it’s yours.”
He picked up a teacup and forced it into Xunxun’s hands. She refused, trying every way to return it to him. “I won’t join your madness, it’s too late, I need to go back.”
Chi Cheng stepped back with his hands behind him, teasing: “What happens if you go back late? Who’s waiting for you at home? Even the cat is here with you. Right now, Xie Pingning doesn’t care where you go. In his heart, you’re no different from this teacup, just a decoration.”
The porcelain cup in her hand felt cold and exquisitely smooth, but she didn’t like it.
“I’ll say it again, my life has nothing to do with you.”
He shamelessly blocked her path with his body.
“Let me guess again – even at this point, you still want to follow the rules, avoid giving anyone ammunition against you, and not give your in-laws anything to criticize. That way, even if you divorce, you can get more property settlement and won’t lose out too much! Am I right…”
In a moment of heat, Xunxun hurled the cup at that hateful face without thinking.
Chi Cheng tilted his head, easily dodging it.
Xunxun heard the crisp shattering sound and stood dazed. What had been so perfectly intact moments ago was now just fragments on the ground.
He applauded from the side: “Looks like you do have some spirit after all, that’s more like it!” Before Xunxun could react further, Chi Cheng guided her hand to pick up another cup.
“Didn’t you say you never had anything that belonged to you? Well, this does! As long as it’s not illegal, no one can constrain you. Keep it if you like it, smash it to pieces if you don’t – no one can restrict you, you have the right to decide your matters!”
Xunxun closed her eyes. In the quiet night, each heavy smashing sound was accompanied by an echo that made one’s heart jump.
At that moment, she didn’t even think about whether their crazy behavior would attract the building’s security.
These were her things – even if she destroyed them all, even if she acted out of character just this once, tomorrow would still come.
When only one cup remained, Xunxun raised her hand and then lowered it.
“Not going to smash it?” Chi Cheng was still excited.
“No more smashing. This is the last one, I can’t bear to – otherwise, there would be nothing left.”
She rubbed the smooth rim of the cup with her thumb, standing at the edge of the rooftop. The lights below gave an illusion of flowing in the distance and dizziness, making the entire city seem to float without foundation.
“Have you been here before?” Chi Cheng asked.
Xunxun shook her head. “I haven’t been to many places.” The old cat in her bag impatiently twisted its body in the cramped space, meowing.
She softly comforted it. “Alright, alright, we’re going back now.”
“Keep meowing and I’ll let you become a stray since you’ve already caused trouble,” Chi Cheng threatened menacingly.
Xunxun said: “Cats are animals that place extreme importance on having a sense of belonging. They don’t need a large territory and are content living in a small world, but they must be certain that territory completely belongs to them. In this respect, I’m not even as good as a cat. You’re right – I married Xie Pingning, but never for a day believed he belonged to me.”
She turned to look at Chi Cheng, “Actually, I don’t hate Xie Pingning that much. He doesn’t have me in his heart, and I’m not necessarily deeply in love with him either. Even though I wash his clothes and cook his meals every day, I don’t care what he’s thinking. It’s a bit ridiculous that I imagined such a life could last forever. Now he’s disregarding our marriage first – I haven’t done the same, but the only difference is that I don’t have someone like Shao Jiaquan occupying my thoughts.”
“Then leave him!”
“What good would leaving him do? As a divorced woman, would the next man I meet necessarily be much better than him?”
“How would you know if you don’t try?”
Xunxun just smiled without answering.
He didn’t understand yet – when people walk a path for too long, they forget why they started in the first place. Marriage is the same way – inertia pushes people forward, but turning back requires paying an even higher price.
The wind swept a strand of her loose hair across her cheek. Xunxun had a deep dimple on her right cheek. She wasn’t the kind of stunningly beautiful woman who dazzled, but with her gentle features and charming dimple, she had her way of moving people. When she smiled, Chi Cheng’s heart stirred.
He quietly walked over and embraced her from behind, bending down to rest his chin in the hollow of her neck.
“You won’t have nothing – I’ll help you. You have leverage over Xie Pingning. If you gather evidence, he’ll pay for what he’s done.”
Xunxun was silent for a moment, then said: “Thank you, but please take your hands off me.”