Disobedience To Control chapter 54

Echoes of the Past

Spring was in the air, but Jiangcheng ushered in two gloomy rainy days. After a rain, the cherry blossoms fell to the ground, crushed into the dust.

The police investigation concluded, ruling out homicide. Song Qin was placed in a cold transparent coffin, his heart permanently ceased.

Fu Xuehua didn’t say much about Song Qin’s death. Seeing her eyes red, her hands trembling uncontrollably, Song Siheng didn’t press for more details.

Song Ping only appeared for half an hour during the investigation and then disappeared again.

Fu Xuehua took a leave of absence from work and stopped seeing patients. She couldn’t shed another tear, just sat numbly in the westernmost chair in the living room, staring at the direction of the stairs for a long time.

Aunt Qiu continued to help around the house, cooking, doing laundry, and organizing Song Qin’s clothes and books, but she dared not mention the name “Qin” in front of Fu Xuehua, not even words that sounded similar.

A few days ago, Aunt Qiu hadn’t expected the temperature to drop even in such a beautiful spring day, so she turned off the heating valve in the old house. Only now did she notice a hint of coldness.

Li Ke had been accompanying Song Siheng in the old house for two whole nights. Song Siheng told him that this matter had nothing to do with him and urged him to go home and rest. But Li Ke stubbornly refused.

And the paper box that had been delivered was still sitting on the back seat of Song Siheng’s car, and Li Ke still didn’t have the courage to open it.

“If you really want to see it, just go ahead,” Song Siheng told him, handing him the car keys.

Li Ke lifted his tired face and glanced at Song Siheng. He sat still for a moment, then, when the clock in the living room struck, he got up and walked back to the car alone.

There was a large sunny garden to the south of the villa. In the early years, Fu Xuehua had purchased two rows of wooden benches and a white parasol, which were placed on the east side of the garden. But since Song Siheng moved out, no one had sat on those benches again.

Li Ke unlocked the car, opened the back door, and picked up the light box. He walked back to the garden and sat on one of the benches.

People came in and out of the old house from time to time, their steps hurried, their figures bustling, but he paid no attention.

After two days of rain, the outer wall of the paper box seemed a bit soft and damp. Li Ke bowed his head for a moment before silently opening the box. He set aside the glasses case first and then took out the old notebook with the leather cover at the bottom.

The cover of the notebook bore two faint characters: Lin Pei.

Li Ke had never heard Song Qin mention this name. But he knew who she was.

Upon flipping open the notebook, he found several insert pages stuck onto the thin sheets. He lowered his eyes and flipped through them one by one. They were all ancient medical records from various hospitals in Wan City, large and small. The medical standards over thirty years ago were not very high, and the diagnostic results for Lin Pei varied. However, most of them prescribed psychiatric medications.

Flipping further back, the last page revealed a blurry certificate of appraisal.

Lin Pei, female, 34 years old, died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

The thin notebook was filled with the woman’s years of pain. Li Ke’s fingertips trembled, unable to bear looking further. After slowly closing the cover, he took several deep breaths before finally opening the newer dark green thick notebook.

This diary had about two to three hundred pages. The first page started in 2010, spanning over a decade, with the ink gradually darkening from light to dense.

Li Ke flipped through the pages, each day’s entry being very brief.

October 9, 2010.

• “I can’t sleep, my whole back hurts. I hate myself for being a sinner.”

December 15, 2010.

• “I hate drinking warm water. Why do they have to monitor me all the time, watching me like a dog?!”

December 31, 2010.

• “It’s New Year’s Eve again, meaningless. Every year is the same repetition. I want to go back to Wan City, but I probably won’t be welcomed there.”

January 3, 2011.

• “Back to school again, feels like I can breathe for a while. Finally able to sleep at night.”

Li Ke flipped through many pages afterward, most of them containing similar expressions. Occasionally, Song Ping’s name would appear on the paper, only to be vigorously crossed out with a black pen.

Until 2013, on a certain day ten years ago. Suddenly, countless occurrences of “Song Siheng” appeared on one page.

The strokes varied in thickness, starting with neat regular script, and gradually becoming messy repetitions in the later rows. The last stroke of the character “Heng” seemed to have been blurred by water stains, barely recognizable as a paired radical.

After that, two pages were torn off. Li Ke flipped to the end but couldn’t find the missing two pages.

The diary resumed, with the date at the top jumping to the summer of 2013. It was the year Li Ke graduated from high school.

July 26, 2013.

• “Discovered for the first time that orange soda is quite tasty.”

Unlike other diary entries, there was a three-inch photo attached next to this page. Li Ke recognized it as the evening they went camping by the sea ten years ago. There were no human figures in the photo, only the moment when the sun slowly descended from the sea surface. The entire sea was dyed orange.

That day, he had grabbed a bottle of orange soda that had been shaken all the way, only to have bubbles splash all over his hand when he opened the bottle. In the end, he left that bottle of soda on the beach, which Song Qin helped him finish.

Li Ke sniffed, enduring the soreness in his eyes, and continued reading.

August 31, 2013.

• “Why can he leave this house? Why can’t I?”

January 30, 2014.

• “I also want to love the person I want to love. Why can’t I?”

Li Ke’s right hand trembled as he opened the calendar on his phone and set the year to 2014. January 30th, that was New Year’s Eve in 2014. That night, he sent Song Qin the first New Year’s greetings. The message was long, about two or three lines, but Song Qin only replied with two words: “Thank you.”

March 7, 2015.

• “A new project has started. I also want to dissect my own heart to see what’s inside.”

After that, the diary had a gap of about five or six years. There were only two thin bookmarks inserted in the middle of the pages.

Li Ke flipped through the two bookmarks and saw the somewhat blurry titles of the books. One was “Demon at Noon,” and the other was “On Freedom.”

After that, the dates jumped to 2022.

September 10, 2022.

• “He found out again and sent me to the hospital. The third time.”

Li Ke’s fingers flipped over that page, and there was a dark red bloodstain on the back of the paper.

October 5, 2022.

• “The progress of the new project is not going well. I’ve thought of giving up countless times. Can I give up? I really want to give up.”

Then there were two blank pages, and the time jumped to 2023.

September 8, 2023.

• “Summer is almost over, and I finally returned to Wan City. The trees here are still tall, the leaves are large, and the weather is hot.”

September 10, 2023.

• “Why did you let me discover that this was all a lie? I unexpectedly became the scapegoat for preserving your bright future, why, why, why?!”

The black pen strokes tore through the paper, the last exclamation mark like a sharp blade.

The diary remained blank for about half a year.

There were two pages in between without a date, only countless lines of scribbles. Some words appeared and were crossed out, then rewritten, and crossed out again.

Li Ke couldn’t make out what he had written, but he vaguely saw the word “wrong” appearing many times.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Tall and short, big and small, covering the entire page, like an anxious and chaotic heartbeat.

Soon, the diary reached the last page. The handwriting still seemed fresh, as if the black ink had just dried.

The date remained on the day Li Ke went to visit Ming’an Hospital. And on this day, there was only one line.

• “Li Ke, you’ve fallen for the wrong person.”

The clouds came and went, the fine rain fell and stopped. The slanting rain drifted in from outside the sunshade umbrella. Li Ke sat alone on the damp bench, feeling his eyelashes wet with rain, his eyes swollen and gradually blurred.

In the more than two hundred pages of the diary, spanning over a decade of records, his name appeared in the last line, in a sentence with a negative connotation.

The echoes of the past resounded in the present.

One mistake after another, never to be seen again.

📢 Author’s Note

Finally, let me say this: Whether hateful or pitiful, Song Qin’s previous behavior was absolutely unacceptable. If you encounter a low point in life, I hope you have the courage to start over and fight for your freedom.