Kou Tong was about to get out of bed and was held back by Huang Jinchen, who wrapped a blanket around him. “You’ve just managed to sweat it out a little. What are you looking for? I’ll find it for you.” 

“Something in the safe,” Kou Tong said. “Take everything out—the switch is on the very top of the cabinet, you’ll find it as soon as you start feeling around.” 

The huge bookcase split into two parts, revealing the safe inside. Huang Jinchen looked back at him, and Kou Tong casually said, “The code is BODEBX.” 

Huang Jinchen paused. “You’re…just telling me that…” 

Kou Tong leaned back against the head of the bed, raised his head, and smiled at him. “There aren’t any state secrets inside, and if there are, they’re of a technical nature. You wouldn’t understand, anyway.” 

For some reason, Huang Jinchen’s mood suddenly became very good. 

The little cipher box popped out from inside. The yellowed file case, like a display of a secret concealed in a remote space and time, lay there quietly. Huang Jinchen picked it up and suddenly felt a bit of reverent fear, as if what he was holding wasn’t an old file pouch but Kou Tong’s heart and memories. 

“Turn off the lights,” Kou Tong said softly. Huang Jinchen turned off the lights. He raised a hand to turn on a dim little bedside lamp. 

Huang Jinchen sat by the side of his bed and raised a hand to gather up the blanket draped over Kou Tong. He watched him open the file pouch and pour out some moldy-smelling things. Perhaps because of the light or because he was running a fever, Kou Tong’s face seemed extremely pale. His long, thick lashes weren’t as curled as those of Westerners. Rather, they fell straight down, casting a dark shadow. In that instant, he wasn’t smiling; he was like a spirit trapped in a ruin, forgetting who he was, passing ten years like a single day. 

After a long time, Kou Tong, holding a folded admission notice, said, “This was the first gift I received after the Projector entered its experimental phase and I formally ‘retired.’ You could call it compensation for my actions not being free over the years before.” 

“From O University?” Though Huang Jinchen was a half-illiterate youth, he had still heard once or twice of this famous educational establishment. “Hey, my wife is really capable.” 

When he said this, all of the bedroom’s dim and tranquil atmosphere was broken. The train of thought Kou Tong had just started on unexpectedly cut off. He felt as though a breath was caught in his throat. 

After a moment, Kou Tong laughed softly. He didn’t look up, but the shadowy look in his eyes softened considerably, no longer seeming so gloomy. He raised a finger to his lips and “shush”ed softly. “Don’t interrupt.” 

Huang Jinchen obediently shut his mouth. 

“The first time I went on a long trip.” After a while, Kou Tong folded up the admission notice and picked up the old photographs next to it. “Some are from university, and some are pictures from when I was aimlessly wandering all over Europe.” 

Huang Jinchen, imitating the pace of his speech, asked extremely quietly and extremely gently, “Why did you stop taking pictures afterwards?” 

“Afterwards I found that I wasn’t actually interested in photography, and I didn’t have any talent,” Kou Tong said, “so I stopped developing photos. At most I’d use a digital camera or my phone to casually snap a few shots, and I didn’t feel like doing anything with them, just kept them on the memory card.” 

Huang Jinchen watched him turn over one old photo after another. The person in the photos didn’t seem any different from the present Kou Tong—smiling brilliantly, assuming all kinds of vulgar or deliberately preening poses. They must have been taken just a few years ago. But when he came to the last few photos, he found that there were some older ones. 

Huang Jinchen stared. 

The little boy in the picture seemed to be less than ten years old. There was no distinction between male and female clothes for small children. This made his features look even more like Kou Tong’s mother’s. But Huang Jinchen looked for a long time before remembering…this little boy might be Kou Tong when he was little. 

So he softly asked, “Is this you?” 

It was no wonder he hadn’t recognized him at first. It would have been hard for anyone to link the little boy in the picture to the present Kou Tong—the kid’s features were delicate, with the characteristic pure good looks of childhood, but he seemed somewhat deathly. 

He was like…a lifeless doll, quietly standing next to the woman, looking out of the image. There was none of a child’s liveliness and wit. Instead, it gave you a sense of indescribable blankness and indifference. 

He wasn’t smiling, but the woman next to him was forcing a smile—the corners of her mouth were stiffly turned up, but there wasn’t a trace of laughter lines at the corners of her eyes. 

The woman and child took up only half of the photograph, but the other half was empty. Someone had used a bright red pen to draw a big X over it. 

Holding this photograph, Kou Tong became motionless. For a moment, Huang Jinchen nearly had the impression that his breathing had vanished. 

“It’s me,” Kou Tong said after a long time as though talking in his sleep. “Next to me is my mom. Where the X is should be my…father. But he doesn’t exist in this space, so there’s a blank in all the pictures where he used to be.” 

He pinched the photo paper gently with his nails. During this time, neither of them spoke. There was only the rustle of the photo paper. “I remember….he was here. 

“It rained hard that day,” Kou Tong said softly, “but he was very happy, because it was their wedding anniversary…” 

The faded things in his memories seemed to skim quickly through his brain, like a dust-covered treasure chest being suddenly opened; the things inside were all just as before. There seemed to be the sound of dense rain outside the window; the sky was dark, pressing down on the city, and the air was humid and wet. 

“He suddenly opened the door and loudly said, ‘Come on, we’re going out to eat today, and we’ll take a family portrait.’” Kou Tong’s pupils suddenly seemed unfocused. Through the old photograph, they fell on that long ago…lost time. “We went out together, ate, then took many pictures in the photo studio across the street from the restaurant. There’s an enlarged one in the living room.”

“What is it? Was your childhood unhappy?” Huang Jinchen asked quietly. 

“When he wasn’t drinking, he was a man who loved to talk and laugh. When he’d been drinking…” Kou Tong paused, then flatly and quietly said, “He wasn’t a person anymore.” 

Huang Jinchen tentatively reached out and covered the back of Kou Tong’s hand. He felt him struggle uncontrollably, giving a start. The carefree Dr. Kou had suddenly become extremely sensitive to another’s touch. Huang Jinchen asked, “Was it domestic violence?” 

Kou Tong nodded. “He didn’t let my mom talk to other men. He was shiftless when he was young, managed to muddle his way into a few accomplishments, but when he reached middle age, he was even more outrageous. I went through his criminal record afterwards. It seems he also had a record of drug dealing. When he was in a bad mood, he would drink. Then…” 

“He hit your mother? What about you?” Huang Jinchen asked. “Did he touch you?” 

Kou Tong’s profile was extremely tense, remembering something. After a long moment, he finally gave a cold laugh. His finger tapped the bloody red cross. He didn’t answer Huang Jinchen’s question directly. “I really wanted to kill…him.” 

Huang Jinchen had a wild animal’s intuition. Though he didn’t know what the law of memory was, what perception was, what an unstructured diagnosis was, he felt that not answering a question directly was a means of avoidance; though he didn’t want to avoid, instinct still made him skillfully avoid. 

So Huang Jinchen’s hand holding him tightened. He pressed, “Answer me, did he hit you?” 

“He put his hands around my neck,” Kou Tong finally said with difficulty after a long time. He seemed to be having trouble breathing. His voice was increasingly thin. “Holding me by the neck, he pressed me against the wall. His eyes were all bloodshot. The breath he exhaled was foul and full of the smell of alcohol. He was like a monster.” 

Huang Jinchen’s heart tightened. 

“My mom screamed and threw herself over. He pushed her aside, threw me down, and hit her over the head with a bottle. He hit her several times… The alcohol and blood mixed together—until she was lying on the ground, not moving.” 

“And then what?” Huang Jinchen asked softly. “What happened to her then?” 

“Then some of his friends came to our house. They didn’t know anything was wrong. As soon as they saw that there was going to be a death, they finally pulled him away. She was taken to the hospital,” Kou Tong said. “It was like that every time. He got drunk, hit her, then sobered up. It was too late for regrets, so he got on his knees, apologized, swore…” 

“It came to that, and she was still willing to stay with him?” 

“After she got out of the hospital, she took me home to pack her things and prepare to leave that drunkard.” 

A bang, a woman’s scream and a child’s sudden hysterical crying, a man’s furious cursing… These sounds mixed together seemed able to strike directly at a person’s soul. Kou Tong suddenly raised his hands to cover his head. His fingertips turned pale, firmly pressed to his temples. He leaned against the head of the bed, curled into a ball, his shoulders sticking out of the blanket. His shirt was drenched, tightly stuck to his thin, hunched shoulders. 

Huang Jinchen put his arms around his shoulders. Taking no notice of Kou Tong’s struggles, he pressed him firmly into his arms. 

“Shh…” he said, “it’s all right. Look, there’s no unusual shaking in the space, we still don’t need the cold water. Calm down a little. She didn’t manage to leave?” 

Kou Tong was constrained in his arms. His voice even seemed deeper. “…He suddenly threw himself forward and locked the door. He knocked her out, then dragged her along the ground. He kept dragging…as though he were dragging a corpse, glaring at me in the meantime. Then he locked her up.” 

“Illegal detention?” 

“Yeah.” 

“And then what?” 

This time, Kou Tong didn’t speak for a long, long time. Finally, somewhat painfully, he closed his eyes. “I…can’t remember.” 

Huang Jinchen was silent for a while. But after all, he wasn’t a professional. He faintly guessed that the part he couldn’t remember was the most crucial, but he still didn’t know what to do. He could only hold him, gently patting his back. After a while, he finally found a starting point and asked, “The wounds on your arm. Did you make them yourself?” 

Kou Tong shook. 

“Did you do it then?”

“…No.” Kou Tong struggled free of him, took a deep breath, and raised his head to look at the shadowed ceiling. “That was later, after she passed away.” 

“Why?” Huang Jinchen asked. 

Kou Tong closed his eyes. It was clear that he was doing his best to calm himself, but the skin between his brows kept shaking faintly. After a while, he opened his eyes and shook his head a little wearily. 

As expected, it wasn’t so easy being a psychiatrist. Huang Jinchen rubbed his chin. 

He picked up the photograph with the X drawn over it, looked at it, and commented: “Your mom doesn’t look as well as she does now.” 

Kou Tong gave a bitter laugh. “Isn’t that to be expected?” 

“Well…” Huang Jinchen looked at her for a while and described, “There’s no blood in her face. She looks wilted. And her lips are all purple. She has a sickly look, all…” 

Kou Tong’s eyes suddenly opened wide. He grabbed him by the arm. “What did you say?” 

“I said she has a sickly look, all listless,” Huang Jinchen repeated. 

“Not that part. You said her lips were purple…” 

Huang Jinchen suddenly felt the familiar shaking. 

He looked in conflict at the cold water, but with matters coming to a head, he couldn’t bear to splash him with it—a normal person would sneeze a few times, and Kou Tong was feverish to start with. Wouldn’t this be driving him to his death? 

“Purple lips…” Suddenly, Kou Tong began to laugh quietly. The expression on his face was defeated; he looked almost like a dead man. “Yes…her lips always looked pale, because she had heart disease. At home…there was a medicine chest. Her suxiao jiuxin pills and nitroglycerin were always prepared.” 

His speech became more and more rapid, and the room shook harder and harder. Turmoil began to come from the living room. Once again someone started desperately knocking on the door yelling “earthquake.” Huang Jinchen ignored it. He only felt more and more fearful, faintly sensing what Kou Tong was going to say next. 

“She was locked in a little room, living an inhuman life. I tried many different ways. There were always his people in the house, watching… I couldn’t protect her, and I couldn’t save her. If I even got close to her room, someone would quickly cover my eyes and carry me away…” The corners of Kou Tong’s eyes were wet. He was staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, but his tears dripped down bit by bit, scalding. “I could only…I could only free her.

“I could only free her. I could only…free her…” 

He repeated this again and again, almost demented, as if once again witnessing that powerless, skinny little boy emptying the little pill bottles, sprinkling the life-saving medicine under the couch, then waiting for her to have an attack one day, unable to breathe, her face turning purple, her eyes rolling up, as ugly as all people in their final struggle…

The man, for once showing some intellect, ransacked the house for medicine as if he’d gone insane. All he could find were a few completely empty bottles. 

When he was ten years old, a little boy, using his greatest courage and scheming, murdered his mother. 

He knew that never again in his life would he love another woman so deeply, or rather…that there would never be another person who loved him like that. 

The suspended mirror broke. Huang Jinchen gritted his teeth and held down Kou Tong’s shoulders. He drew close and firmly blocked all his sobs… He had decided to use a more intense method to wake him up.