Chapter 15: CH 15

I dialled Sheng Min Ou’s number, not finding the incessant repetition of my movements tedious, until the scarcely remaining battery on my phone was fully depleted. The phone now could no longer be used, and despite all my efforts, the person on the other side ultimately never picked up.

I sunk down into a squat in the hospital corridors, painfully tugging at my hair, before I let my face fall into my arms.

He didn’t pick up my calls, even when it was a time like this, he still refused to pick up. I just wanted to hear his voice, even if he just provided me with a sliver of comfort, I would still be able to hang on and continue enduring everything, even if it was ever so despairing or painful… but he wouldn’t even grant this miniscule wish of mine.

“Liar…” I closed my eyes, blinking away the hotness repressed there.

I maintained that pose for a long while, until a gentle woman’s voice sounded in front of me. I raised my head, seeing a young nurse staring at me with concern in her eyes.

“Mr Lu, are you okay?”

I rubbed at my face and stood up from the ground, “I’m fine, is the car here?”

The nurse nodded, “The car from the crematorium is here already and it’s currently waiting in the underground parking lot. You can head down there now.”

While speaking, a care worker pushed out a stretcher bed and there was a slight bump on it that was tightly covered by white fabric.

When it passed in front of me, perhaps due to the shaking from the wheels, from the top a pale and shrivelled hand suddenly fell and hung at one side.

“Wait…”

The care worker immediately stopped and I walked forward, carefully holding that ice cold hand, completely devoid of any traces of life and placed it back under the white covering.

The scene where these hands had just held mine was still fresh in my mind, traces of the touch still lingering. However now, the owner of these hands would never again be able to smile and call me ‘A-Feng’, nor will they nag at me to wear more layers when it’s cold, or to drink more water when it was hot.

A person’s death was like a light being extinguished, or when soup was poured out into the snow. When the lamp wick went out, when the snow had melted, they would disappear from the earth without a trace. You wouldn’t try to remember a specific lamp, or diligently try to recall a speck of snow. However, people were different, when they were gone, what they left behind were countless memories, bonds that couldn’t be forgotten. It was endless remorse and wordless regrets.

A long black van came to pick my mother up. I sat in the front passenger seat, next to the driver and went along to the crematorium. After finishing all the paperwork, the staff there asked if I wanted to hold a farewell.

Before my mother passed she had specifically mentioned that she didn’t want a farewell, as people would just laugh at her and feel pity. She knew in the depths on heart that there wouldn’t be many people who would genuinely feel sad and grieve for her.

“No, we won’t need it.”

Hearing this, the staff member heavily pressed a vibrant red stamp on the records, and after passing it to me, they told me to go wait at another area for collecting the ashes.

The weather today was downcast and cold. The collection area for ashes did not have any heaters on and the ceramic tiles seemed to conduct cold gusts of air. The plastic chairs felt as if they were covered with a thin layer of ice, making it hard for a person to sit or stand still.

After waiting for around half an hour, the big screen finally showed my mother’s name.

The ashes were placed inside an elegant white urn, and when it was passed into my hands there were still some remnants of heat.

I held the urn and thanked the staff before turning to leave.

The taxis in front of the crematorium did not easily stop. There were many taxis that were vacant but sped up and drove even quicker past me once they saw the urn in my hand, so fast I couldn’t even get to take in their car plate number before they disappeared without a trace.

I could only head back into the crematorium and ask to borrow their phone line. I called Wei Shi and asked if he could come to pick me up.

Wei Shi didn’t say another word except for asking me to stay where I was, and said that he would be there immediately.

I stood at the side of the road, one hand gripping the urn, the other hand reaching for a cigarette and lighting it up. When the floor was filled with scattered cigarette ashes, my hair had been completely tousled by the howling wind and my head was throbbing. At this moment, Wei Shi’s car slowly pulled up from one end of the road.

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“I’m fine.” The last residue heat on the urn had completely disappeared. Sheng Min Ou had said that black was the coda in the piece that was life. No, black was not the coda, the cold was.

It was too cold.

I adjusted the seat so I could lean back and closed my eyes, “Call me when we arrive at the columbarium.”

When Wei Shi arrived there, the skies had already darkened. He originally planned to go with me but I politely declined.

“You don’t have to accompany me, I’m already this old, this is something I can do.”

Wei Shi held the car door, his expression not having relaxed by much, “A-Feng…”

“It’s really fine.” He didn’t even get to finish his sentence as I declined once again.

Seeing that he really couldn’t convince me, he could only acquiesce.

“Then, take care of yourself.”

The columbarium staff brought a ladder with him and helped me open the niche, then placed the urn containing my mother’s ashes inside.

From now on, the two of them were reunited as husband and wife, and could enumerate all my shortcomings as an unfilial son.

I bowed three times towards the niche and didn’t stay for long as I thanked the staff and walked alone back towards the parking lot.

Wei Shi saw that I returned so quickly and was slightly surprised, “Everything’s done?”

“Done.”

Wei Shi started up the car and deliberately used a light and casual tone, “Let’s go, San Ge is going to take you out to dinner.”

From a few moments ago, my body had started feeling cold flashes and my head also was throbbing, it felt like an oncoming fever.

Since I jumped into the lake in the afternoon, I didn’t even get to change and take a shower before my mother woke up. Afterwards, I had been busily attending to everything that came after and didn’t have a moment of rest until now. The clothes on my body were blown by the cold wind, then warmed by my body heat, and although they were almost dry now my shoes remained wet. My feet seemed to be soaked in glacial waters, unable to feel warm no matter what.

“It’s fine, San Ge, send me to the department store that’s close to our shop.”

“The department store?” Wei Shi was shocked, “Do you want to buy something? Need me to accompany you?”

“I’m going to find someone,” After pausing for a second, I continued, “To find my older brother.”

I leaned against the car door, the passing car lights leaving illuminated streaks in my vision.

Sheng Min Ou was like these streaks of light, he was clearly right in front of me, but I just couldn’t grasp onto him, and for him, I was merely a passerby.

“That’s true, your mother just passed, you would need to let him know.”

Wei Shi didn’t say anything else and soon the car arrived in front of the department store.

Now the sky had completely darkened, and all around us were effervescent lights glowing in various brilliant colours, shining on the city as if it was daytime.

After waving to Wei Shi and saying goodbye, I stuck both hands in my pocket and walked towards Sheng Min Ou’s law firm.

Although it was already seven o’clock at night, there were still many people who had just finished their day at work. I took an elevator to head up and every time we moved up a level, from outside there would be a mass of people waiting to squish their way in, the scene unfolding being quite astounding to watch.

When I finally got to the level where Jin Shang law firm was, I exerted all my energy to squeeze out from the crowd, and almost lost my shoe in the process.

After expending a burst of energy there, I felt like I was even dizzier now.

The light in the law firm was still on and I had just arrived at the entrance when I saw the receptionist carrying her bag and emerging from inside.

“Mr Lu?” She was surprised at seeing me, “How come you’re suddenly here?”

“Where is my brother?” I snuck a peek inside the firm and there seemed to be many lights which remained on, so he was probably still there.

The receptionist replied, “Recently we picked up a major case and Lawyer Sheng regards it of great importance. He was in a video conference with them again for a whole day, I think he just left to head to the emergency exit staircase for a cigarette break.”

She pointed at a direction for me.

I nodded at her and turned to walk towards the fire exits.

I pushed open the heavy fire door and a thick smog of cigarette smoke hit me.

Sheng Min Ou leaned against the wall and was smoking while lowering his head, preoccupied by his phone. The cold white reflection of the screen illuminated his face, making his features seem even more sharper, the gaze in his eyes more gloomy.

He heard the noise and lifted his head, in an instant he froze slightly, and even his hands which were in the middle of something had stilled.

“Do you still have more? Give me one.” I walked towards him and asked him for a cigarette.

Sheng Min Ou seemed to hesitate for a moment, then he took out a whole packet of cigarettes from the inner pocket in his blazer and passed it along with his lighter to me.

I sat on the staircase at the side and lit up the cigarette with refined ease, then tilted my head back and blew out a puff of smoke towards Sheng Min Ou’s direction.

“Mum died.”

In the spiralling smoke, it was hard for me to distinguish his emotions, I could only hear him replying with a monotonous voice, “Sorry for the loss.”

“Why didn’t you pick up my calls?”

He lowered his eyes and looked at the phone screen, then stuffed it into his pocket, “I didn’t guarantee you that I would pick up your calls.”

“Fuck. You..” I initially wanted to curse at him with even worse words, but once I thought that his mother was my mother, I forced myself to take back the remaining four words. “Sheng Min Ou, do you despise me this much? To the extent where I’m begging you to pick up and you won’t even do that?”

Sheng Min Ou didn’t respond, his silence was as if he had been fed poison which had made him mute.

Was this because he didn’t find me worth the effort to acknowledge my tantrums, or because he was more considerate that I had just lost my mother so he didn’t want to respond to me as he usually would?

“Mum knew of my feelings for you.” I lowered my head, staring at the warm yellow tiles beneath my feet and laughed bitterly, “Before she passed, her only wish was for me to not see you again. She held my hand and told me that I had to get married and never meet you again… she wanted me to promise her, she begged me to do so.”

I grabbed my hair, upset, “I couldn’t speak, and I couldn’t make a choice… why wouldn’t I make a decision?”

My mother grabbed onto my hand, only wanting to see me nod my head and then she could rest in peace. However, I was like an idiot standing there, unable to give any semblance of assurance.

“Lu Feng…”

Her grip on my hands started to fade slowly, and the weak light in her eyes started to disperse and dim. She let out a long sigh and a drawn out moan, as if she wanted to fully spit out all traces of life remaining in her.

With this sigh, her fingers started to uncurl, and she no longer held onto me tightly.

When her fingertips had completely loosened and were no longer holding onto my hands, I abruptly came to and reflexively grabbed her falling hands.

“Mum?” I called out in panic, though she could no longer respond to me, as she lay there with half opened eyes.

With a shaking finger, I moved to detect traces of exhalation under her nose, and found that she had stopped breathing.

Because she was unable to complete her last with before dying, her eyes remained open until death.

I held onto that hand and pressed my forehead against it, feeling the energy slowly dispersing from my body as my knees bent and I slowly knelt on the floor.

“I’m sorry…”

I knew I didn’t do well, I never did well. I could’ve become an even better son but I didn’t, I wasn’t worthy to be her son.

“Sorry… Sorry…”

Having a son like me, they really had rotten luck. They should’ve just thrown me out instead of the placenta, the placenta probably would have done better than me.

I continued kneeling in front of the hospital bed, holding my mothers hand, continuously voicing my remorse until the caretaker realised something was amiss and called the doctor over to drag me up from the ground.

Pain, sorrow, a sense of vacancy, loss and not knowing what to do. On this earth, there no longer existed someone who loved me. On this earth, the amount of people I loved lessened by one again.

Surrounding me were clearly doctors and nurses, yet I had never felt so alone in my life.

I impatiently wanted to call Sheng Min Ou, to confirm his existence, but he did not pick up my calls, and did not send a message to reply to me either.

There wasn’t even something as small as a full stop…

He knew that I only needed one moment of happiness to be satisfied, yet he was a miser to the extent that he couldn’t even give me the bare minimum.

I knew that he had his work to attend to, he had his own life, I was nothing to him, even any dog would have priority over me. I knew, of course I knew.

On this earth, there was no one else who loved me, and the only remaining person I loved, did not love me back.

He viewed me the same as worthless reeds growing on the side of the road, and avoided me as if I was a flea.

Even if I died one day, he wouldn’t shed a single tear.

I knew of it all.