Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
âI know youâre sad now, but you canât endanger yourself like this.â
Lu Bancheng talked to Gu Yusheng for a long time, but Gu Yusheng had kept quiet. He wasnât even listening to Lu Bancheng. With an expressionless face, he was deep in his own thoughts.
Finally, Lu Bancheng stopped talking. He eventually broke the silence with a sigh and said, âLast night your housekeeper called me, so I went out to look for you. I couldnât find you anywhere, so I called Haozi. I thought he might know where you were. What I didnât expect was to learn about your two wives. And then that Xiaokou has had a body double? My mind was blown. I didnât find you until early this morning, drenched and passed out and your temperature was off the charts. After I got you home, I asked the housekeeper what had happened. All she seems to know was that you had kicked Xiaokou out of the house yesterday and yelled at her for... Is she Xiaokouâs body double?â
Lu Bancheng paused and then finally asked, âDid she leave?â
Gu Yusheng, who had been staring at the plants, blinked several times hearing those three words and looked down.
He didnât answer Lu Bancheng. Instead, he leaned back on the sofa and asked in a tired voice, âCan you close the curtain?â
Lu Bancheng stared at Gu Yusheng for a moment before saying, âOkay.â
He stood up, walked to the curtains, and closed them completely.
As he headed back to the sofa, Gu Yusheng said weakly, âCan you turn off the lights, too?â
Lu Bancheng complied, and when he had finished turning off all the lights in the bedroom it was suddenly pitch black. Lu Bancheng carefully walked back to the sofa and took a seat. He turned to look at Gu Yusheng in the dark.
Gu Yusheng, sensing Lu Banchengâs stare, adjusted his body. In a low voice he said, âI just woke up. I called everyone, and they told me they couldnât find her.â
Lu Bancheng did not say anything, but he knew who Gu Yusheng was referring to. âTheyâ were the ones heâd asked for help to find Liang Doukouâs body double.
âHaozi called me the other day and told me she was not the real Liang Doukou. I drove from Shanghai to Beijing to look for her. When I got to A city, she called me. She told me she was coming to Shanghai to see me. You have no idea how happy I was. I hadnât been that happy for many years. I thought this was the beginning of us, a clean start. I had no idea sheâd gone to Shanghai to say goodbye to me until I didnât see her at home yesterday. When I woke up in the hospital and didnât see her, I was scared. I had my intuition, but I didnât know it would happen this way.â