The words fired out like bullets. When I glanced at Ke Fei, her stunned, speechless expression brought me back to my senses.
Ke Fei blinked twice, her slightly furrowed brow revealing a mix of confusion and hurt. If what I had just said was as cutting as it sounded, the damage was already done.
“Wait, I didn’t mean—” I stepped closer, attempting to explain.
“Don’t bother!” Ke Fei raised her hand, signaling me to stop. She took a step back, her eyes as cold as ice. “Don’t come any closer. I’ll leave on my own.”
An acquaintance from the wafer fabrication industry once told me that the worst disaster a fab could face was a power outage—if it happened, an entire batch of chips could become irreversibly ruined.
Reflecting on my own breakdown just now, if that could be called a “power outage,” then my entire life might as well be declared a total loss.
How could I even begin to tally the cascading damage from this breakdown?
I betrayed Hao Yi, using Chu Ke Huan as an outlet for my dissatisfaction with our relationship. And now, my venomous words had wounded Ke Fei. How many more people would my collapse end up hurting?
I didn’t truly resent Ke Fei for her actions. The things I said to her were born out of envy—envy for her freedom, and anger that she had more choices than I did. She moved through life with ease, while I was trapped, drifting between desire and guilt. She shattered the moral logic I clung to so effortlessly, making me, someone who had meticulously guarded my boundaries, feel like a fool.
But the truth was, her freedom and my lack of it were both outcomes of our own choices.
I had blamed Chu Ke Huan for having the ability to choose despite being chosen himself, but the one I should have been reflecting on was me. I had accepted Hao Yi’s proposal not because I was truly ready to marry him or believed we were perfectly suited for marriage, but because I needed the unyielding bond of matrimony to restrain myself—to stop myself from succumbing to moral failings in love. I hadn’t even felt an overwhelming desire to get married. My eagerness for marriage was entirely built on the idea of using it as an escape from temptation. I had worked so hard to appear pristine, but my outward purity couldn’t disguise the corruption in my heart. And now, those temptations had finally overtaken me, and I had no one to blame but myself.
Realizing all of this, I finally understood how ugly my heart truly was.
I spent the evening watching a movie, eating dinner alone, and wandering the streets. I silently counted the lights of shops as they turned off one by one until the surroundings became unfamiliar, and I could no longer recognize where I was. Taking out my phone to navigate back home, I noticed that Chu Ke Huan had called and messaged me before 8 p.m.
“Where are you?” his message read.
How ironic. I couldn’t even begin to guess what he was thinking when he sent that.
Last night in Shanghai, I had foolishly believed we shared some unspoken connection—that I could intuitively understand his feelings through mere words. But now, with these four stark characters staring back at me, I had no clue about his intentions. Had his priorities shifted, allowing him to find time for me after all? Or did he think I still had some value to him, and that it was worth checking in to manage my rejection-fueled low spirits?
Whatever the reason, I didn’t want to speculate anymore. All I wanted was to go home, collapse into my own bed, and finally get a good night’s sleep—the one thing I should have done the moment I landed this afternoon.
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