My life ended with Yu Shen saying, “Ruan Ying, if you found out, I'd never be able to show my face again.”
The rooftop railing was digging into my waist. Far below, a loudspeaker's announcement blurred into a hum on the wind. Three steps away, the man behind me watched with cold eyes.
I'd shared my life with him for seven years.
Third row by the window in the university library. When he sat down beside me with a stack of books, I thought he was the person I was destined to be with.
He remembered when I had period cramps, that I didn't eat cilantro, that I needed a cup of warm soy milk before an exam. Once, I couldn't imagine a love that fit me better.
That afternoon, I'd followed a trail of money flowing into an unfamiliar account to an office building on the west side of the city. I hadn't been there before.
I recognized the woman's jacket on his passenger seat. It wasn't mine. Three days earlier, it had been draped over the seat back. He'd said a colleague left it there.
I crouched beside a flower bed downstairs, trying over and over to focus my phone camera. My hands shook too badly to get a clear shot of the address plaque.
He stayed inside a long time. Long enough for me to start feeling numb.
When he came out, he loosened his tie. His shoulders dropped, and his expression relaxed all at once.
For a moment, that look left me disoriented. As though being with me was something he endured, and only at times like this could he finally breathe.
I'd seen that expression once before, two months earlier, when we were keeping vigil at the hospital.
After my mother fell asleep, his phone lit up. I could only see half the message preview:
[A-019 is now linked to the assigned status. Work may proceed to the next phase.]
When I asked what it meant, he told me it was a warehouse item code.
I'd joked that his company's inventory numbers looked more like personnel files.
He stroked my hair and said my professional instincts were acting up again.
And I believed him.
“When did it start?” I asked. The wind was strong on the roof, tearing at my voice.
He thought it over, then answered with the seriousness of someone helping me reconcile old accounts.
He said that when he'd transferred in during our first year, he already knew I always sat beside that window.
Remembering my preferences hadn't been an act of devotion. It had been meeting a client's needs.
The night of my mother's surgery, he'd stood in the rain until morning because he was afraid an emotional breakdown might disrupt the reclamation schedule.
He told me the company had been liquidated. All its debts were mine alone. He'd sent my parents out of town, too. There was no need to pretend to be devoted anymore.
He spoke slowly, taking that word apart for me: devotion.
I should have hated him.
Instead, my first response was amusement. Only after I'd laughed did the flesh inside my chest begin to feel the bone-deep cold.
I couldn't help remembering the first two years of building my business. Whenever I worked at my desk until the early hours, revising proposals, he'd arrive at exactly the right moment and effortlessly make sense of something I'd rewritten seven or eight times without getting it right.
Back then, I thought even Heaven had acknowledged how lucky I was.
Now I understood. He'd only been using me. The more I depended on him, the easier I made his job.
I'd mapped out every weakness I had, presented them to him with both hands, and even said thank you afterward.
“Did you ever love me?” The moment I said it, the question sounded childish and stupid.
He looked at me without answering right away.
The wind stirred the hair over his forehead. He brushed it aside, his voice as gentle as though he were soothing a child.
“Ruan Ying, are you asking me to perform one last scene with you?”
Now that he'd stopped pretending, I genuinely found him funny.
After seven years of acting, he was finally asking whether I'd play along.
I said there was no need. I only wanted one honest answer.
He considered it. “I suppose I did.”
“When I loved you enough to put the company in your name, I knew this project could be completed.”
He'd turned the one hope of my life into a measurable project milestone, then liquidated the lot.
I remembered that the top of this office building was also where he'd first told me, “One day, I'll give you a home.”
Seven years later, there could never be a home between us again.
The wind rose, whipping at my clothes and scattering my tears.
He took a step forward. Before I could turn, a palm struck my chest, and I toppled over the railing.
Those few seconds of falling felt long enough for my whole life to flash before my eyes.
I stared up at the sky. It was so blue that day, boundless and clear. So clear it made me want to cry.
Against that dazzling blue, a thick volume suddenly opened before me. A small line at the top of the page read: [A-019].
The pages raced through the air, and every one contained my story.
Our first meeting in the library was a “contact point.” That rainy night outside the hospital was labeled “emotional reinforcement.” The day of the signing was marked “asset ownership secured.” Even the number of times I'd cried had been plotted into curves, as though awaiting a performance review.
Another page recorded things I'd never paid attention to:
He never stayed overnight at my home. He never introduced me to his friends. Even when we talked about marriage, all he did was take me to the upper floors of an office building to admire the night view.
I'd thought he had his reasons. Now I understood: project isolation.
The rooftop where he'd brought me to admire the view for seven years was the same rooftop he'd pushed me from today.
The next page showed our engagement.
He knelt in the middle of the restaurant, holding up the ring, his eyes reddened just enough. A woman at the next table gasped with envy. In a corner of the page, a small note read:
[Ritual binding approximately 40% complete. Marriage registration awaiting approval from management.]
Even marrying me had required his boss's permission.
What I'd been doing all my life was compiling a bound reclamation report. All that time, I'd called it love.
The last page held a photograph of my mother from behind as someone helped her out of an airport. Beside it were the words:
[Once family members are relocated, isolate communications. Prevent contact with the target.]
Only then did I understand why my mother had always seemed to hold something back during our calls over the past few years. Whenever I mentioned Yu Shen, she'd only say quietly, “As long as he treats you well.”
Even my mother's ignorance had been arranged.
I reached for the necklace at my chest.
He'd bought it with his first paycheck. I'd worn it for seven years without taking it off, even to sleep.
The volume had a page titled “Token Anchor.” It said that as long as I wore it, someone in the world would be able to find me.
I'd never wanted to remove it because I thought it proved his love. It had only been a lock hanging around my neck.
I yanked hard. The fine chain broke into two pieces in my hand, and the cold pendant fell into my palm. With the last of my strength, I closed my fingers around it, saying goodbye to the necklace in my heart, and to this world.
Hitting the ground should have hurt.
Strangely, when the book closed, I felt lighter instead. As though I'd owed some bewildering debt and someone had finally laid the ledger in front of me so I could see it.
I managed to lift my eyes. The man stood at the edge of the roof, leaning out, one hand touching the corner of his eye.
I didn't know whether those were tears. Crocodile tears, perhaps.
Before the white light came, only one rather pathetic thought remained:
If I really could start again, I wanted to live for myself first. I wanted no one else drawing up the bill for my life.
Everything turned white. Somewhere far away, a woman's voice spoke with the unmistakable exhaustion of someone at the end of her shift, apparently checking a backlog of unreported work orders.
“Well, well. A-019. Trying to die your way out of a debt?”
I tried to speak, but no sound came from my throat.
The voice added lazily, “Want another chance at life?”
Of course I did.
I heard paper rustling, as though someone were sitting at a desk looking through my résumé.
Then the voice continued reading.
“Hard to kill, a nice clean death, and some backbone left in the soul. You'd do for fieldwork.”
I tightened my grip on the two pieces of broken chain.
Gathering what breath I could, I forced a few words out of my throat.
“Another life. What does it cost?”