Chapter 055: Yun Jiu's Agony

This story is purely fictional.

It was a night ten years ago. When he returned to his rented apartment after work, what he saw left him stunned. The room was a mess, his wife’s clothes had vanished from the wardrobe, and the floor was littered with trash and scraps of paper. In his daughter’s cradle, there was nothing but a freshly changed diaper. The air was thick with the mingled smells of urine and milk.

On the table, beneath a glass, lay a note—a letter that read:

Husband, forgive me for my shortcomings. I simply have no faith in our future together. With your monthly income not even reaching two thousand yuan, even the cost of formula for our child is a heavy burden for me. Every day, I’m stuck at home with the child; this is not the life I want. For our child’s future, I’ve decided to leave you and go to America with John. There, John can provide our child with the best education and guarantee us a life without worries.

Don’t try to find me—you won’t be able to. So please, forget about me and Xiao Bao. John and I have already left on the 10 a.m. flight. Take care of yourself. From this day, Guo Ying.

That emotional wound tormented him for a long time. For nearly five or six years, he could barely catch his breath. He had suffered, he had despaired, and more than once, he stood atop the 69th floor of a skyscraper, ready to end his life. But thoughts of his aging parents gave him the strength to endure.

Until, by chance, he met a kind-hearted boss. Seeing his plight, the boss introduced him to a croupier at MC Entertainment, who took him on as an apprentice. Gradually, he began to let go of those painful memories.

In the days he worked as a croupier, Dai Yunjio found financial stability. He could send money home to his parents every month, and at least his younger sister’s tuition was no longer a problem.

During the Jingwei Conference, Dai Yunjio met Gao Yating from HZ in a hotel room—a meeting that utterly changed his life. The days spent entwined with Gao Yating allowed him to feel the warmth of a real home.

Now, when Dai Yunjio was at home, he felt at ease. He no longer had to worry about daily necessities or chase after life’s trivialities; the housekeeper managed all the chores. All he needed was to oversee a few of Gao Yating’s businesses and act as her advisor; everything else was of no concern to him.

But Will’s appearance stirred waves in his heart that had only just found calm. Will made him restless and uneasy.

He knew exactly why: he already regarded Gao Yating as his own woman. Yet he sensed a looming crisis and couldn’t understand why the woman he loved could so easily cause him pain and sadness. If his ex-wife had left for reasons of poverty and vanity, then Gao Yating seemed to act out of gratitude to her benefactor. The future, he feared, would see the two of them drifting further and further apart.

He picked up the phone and called Gao Yating. The phone rang endlessly, but no one answered.

After her shower, Gao Yating wrapped herself in a white towel and, standing by the bedside lamp, glanced at her phone. Multiple missed calls from Dai Yunjio were displayed. She dialed him back, ready to respond.

While Dai Yunjio sat anxiously, her call finally came through. He answered, and Gao Yating’s voice came from the other end: “I won’t be returning to the villa tonight. Will from MC headquarters is in Dahe, and we have some business to discuss. It’ll probably be late. Tomorrow, let’s meet directly at Zhizhen; we might go to Dahe Football Club together.”

After he hung up, Dai Yunjio sat with his head bowed, utterly dejected. Now, his heart was heavy with worry.

Ever since learning of his wife’s fate, he had disliked foreign men. In his mind, foreign men were promiscuous, their attitudes toward intimacy separated by an unbridgeable chasm from his own traditional values. To him, such openness could inflict enormous, incalculable harm.

Even before his wife divorced him, he had tried to persuade her, warning that she and that foreign man belonged to two different worlds and could never be happy. But she hadn’t listened to a word.

Perhaps fate is cruel. Three years after eloping, his ex-wife’s lover contracted AIDS and died. She too was infected. When she learned her HIV status, her world collapsed. Within a year of the man’s death, his ex-wife sent their child to an orphanage and took her own life.

To this day, he didn’t know which orphanage the child had gone to. He wanted to go to America to search, but circumstances made it impossible.

The thought of Gao Yating not coming home made him anxious, and his dislike for Will grew.

While working at MC, he’d heard that Will once had a beautiful woman, but hadn’t known at the time that she was now living with him—Gao Yating. He couldn’t imagine what would happen if Gao Yating and Will were alone together. One thing was certain: Gao Yating would sleep with that man. Whether the old man still had the ability, he didn’t know—after all, Will was well over eighty. But just the thought of AIDS sent chills through him.

Situ Kong returned home to find Mingyue absent. The house was cold and empty. Ravenous and irritable, he banged around the kitchen furiously. With nothing to eat, he flung himself onto the bed and fell asleep.

Meanwhile, Mingyue was out on the streets searching for her beloved Harry. She wandered alley to alley but found no sign of him. At last, across the street, she saw her Harry. Without regard for the traffic, she dashed across.

Harry, too, seemed to spot his beloved owner and sprinted toward her as if in a hundred-meter race.

Mingyue took Harry home and fed him.

Lying in bed, Situ Kong watched. “I haven’t even eaten and here you are, feeding your dog. Am I even less important than a dog?”

“You have no idea how adorable Harry is. With or without you doesn’t matter to me. But without Harry, I couldn’t go on—you understand?” she replied.

Situ Kong, exasperated, slammed the door and left.

Mingyue cradled Harry, running her fingers through his fur. “Harry, you really are my treasure. You don’t know how scared you made me just now. Whenever I take you out for a walk, I can never tell if I’m walking you or you’re walking me. Promise me you won’t run out into the street again—it’s so hard to find you, you know?”

Harry barked in response, as if answering her, gazing at Mingyue...

That night, Dai Yunjio didn’t sleep a wink. Scenes of his wife’s tragic fate after contracting AIDS haunted him; he kept seeing her suicide, and drifted into a haze of nightmares.

When he awoke the next morning, sunlight was slanting through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting a golden reflection onto his bed. His eyes were puffy, so swollen it was hard to open them. When he managed, his vision was blurry and his spirit utterly drained.

He drove to the Zhizhen Hotel parking lot and sat motionless in his car, not moving for a long time, unable to summon the will to go to his office. He remained in the driver’s seat, not even undoing his seatbelt, so exhausted that he drifted off to sleep.

A Rolls-Royce carrying Will and his assistant pulled into the hotel parking lot. Suddenly, a pedestrian darted in front of the car. The driver braked sharply, the screeching sound jolting Dai Yunjio awake.

He thought the sound had come from Gao Yating’s car. He opened his eyes—the morning sunlight slanted through the window, the glare blurring his vision. He frowned.

Will and Gao Yating emerged, both radiant, their faces glowing as if they were lovers reunited after a long separation, rejuvenated by a night of ecstasy.

Will’s vigor surprised Gao Yating. She could hardly believe that the man who had once helped her, now well over eighty, remained as potent as ever. She was sincerely impressed by his virility. Throughout the night, Will had given her endless pleasure, rekindling the passion of days long past. She felt as if she had been bathed in spring rain, her face flushed with joy.

She walked over to Dai Yunjio’s car and tapped on the window.

Dai Yunjio rolled it down and glanced at her. When he saw Will behind her, displeasure flickered across his face.

“Get out, let’s go to Dahe Club now,” Gao Yating said. “Oh, let me introduce you. This is Mr. Will, president of MC Entertainment.”

Dai Yunjio got out and nodded to Will, slowly and deliberately.

Will noticed Dai Yunjio’s unhappy demeanor and asked, “Young man, don’t you recognize me? It hasn’t even been a year since we last met, and you’ve already forgotten me?”

“How could I forget, President Will? Of course, I remember you,” Dai Yunjio replied, his tone icy.

He followed Gao Yating to the Rolls-Royce—a car he knew well, one he usually drove himself, with Gao Yating beside him in the front, chatting and laughing. But now, Gao Yating told him to take the front passenger seat while she and Will settled in the back.

Sitting in the passenger seat, Dai Yunjio kept glancing in the rearview mirror. When he saw Will’s hairy hand resting on Gao Yating’s thigh, he felt grossly violated, as if his woman were being taken by another man—his pride was deeply wounded.

At that moment, Dai Yunjio even wanted to drag the man out of the car and beat him senseless.

But seeing Gao Yating and Will talking and laughing, he could only struggle to control his feelings, his fists tightly clenched. He dared not lose his composure before Gao Yating—after all, the man beside her was none other than the president of MC. He couldn’t and mustn’t act out. Even now, Gao Yating had given him neither promise nor status.

How the future would unfold with Gao Yating left a series of enormous question marks in Dai Yunjio’s mind. Would he ever again share a home with her? He didn’t dare imagine. Would the harmony and mutual respect of the past return? He began to doubt.

(To be continued)