Chapter 34: The End

Translator: Jacquelin

May Day was a national legal holiday. Many people got married on this day, such as Luo Nan and Dong Ci. Many people came to attend their wedding banquet. The banqueting hall was sumptuously decorated and bustling with noise and excitement. Luo Nan looked at Dong Ci, and Shang Linglong looked at Luo Nan. All of them were lost in their own thoughts.

‘Your marriage won’t last long,’ Shang Ling Long whispered in her heart.

Luo Nan perceived that Dong Ci was uneasy.

“What’s wrong? Babe.” He looked Dong Ci up and down. She wore a floor length bridal gown, looking beautiful like an angel.

Dong Ci put on a sweet smile and answered, “I feel very happy. And I feel as if I’m in a beautiful and happy dream.”

“It’s not a dream. It is real. We are married, and we will be together till old and grey.”

Dong Ci fixed her eyes on the entrance of the hotel. ‘He will come. My beloved will come to take me away. He will hold my hand and we will rove all over the world together,’ she thought.

She looked forward to his coming with eager expectation, but he didn’t come.

‘Has he really left this city? Is he really not going to take me away? Are there any other guests? No. All the guests have left, but I haven’t seen him. He will never come.’

After the wedding banquet, Dong Ci looked at the last guest’s retreating figure in a trance. There were so many people around her, but she still felt lonely because the man she loved deeply gave her up.

At the banquet, Dong Ci smiled at her parents, her husband and all the guests. After the banquet, she cried sadly in a corner. ‘If the road of being mature need the price, I would rather be a child. If I had known that I would lose you, I would rather have never met you,’ she thought.

On the night of wedding, they made love and fell asleep. Sadly, Luo Nan didn’t know that the woman in his arms loved another man.

After marriage, Dong Ci was wasting away day by day. At last, she was nothing but skin and bones, just like a starving refugee.

Luo Nan took her to a doctor, but the doctor said that she was not ill.

Gradually, Luo Nan lost interested in Dong Ci’s body. As the leaves of autumn withered and fell, so did Dong Ci’s life become barren. She was like a withered flower, trapped in a loveless marriage. However, neither of them wanted to give up their hard-won marriage. They carefully made this marriage work and continued living together, although they were both unhappy. ‘Perhaps I should give him a baby. By then we will be reconciled with each other,’ she comforted herself.

Luo Nan failed to fulfill his promise that he would spend more time with Dong Ci after marriage. He always came home late. Sometimes he even stayed out all night, sleeping with all kinds of random women, including prostitutes, net friends and his secretary Shang Linglong.

They were not like Dong Ci. They were buxom and overcome with passion. Dong Ci had become a dead fish in bed.

One evening Dong Ci received a call from a stranger. After hanging up, she decided to go for Luo Nan. Anyway, he was her husband.

The call was arranged by Shang Linglong. She had asked someone to call Dong Ci in order to destroy their marriage.

Dong Ci arrived at the hotel and pushed open the door of a room in which Luo Nan was. It was purposely unlocked. The moment she walked into the room, she felt a sense of relief that she could finally end her marriage. Luo Nan and Shang Linglong lay naked on the bed and both of them wore a look of satisfaction. The floor was scattered with paper towels. The room was filled with the smell of strawberry condom mixed with the flavor of liquor. It was the smell of lust. It was like a knife cutting off all her emotional bonds with him.

Luo Nan was stunned to see Dong Ci. He stared blankly at her, stiff and speechless.

“I am going to divorce you.” Dong Ci let out a sigh and continued, “I will not disturb you, so you can have a good rest.”

Luo Nan returned home as quickly as possible. He had gone to a supermarket and brought some fresh meat and vegetables. Now he was busy cooking Dong Ci’s favorite dishes in the kitchen. He wanted to satisfy her appetite and fix their relationship.

He lit some candles and dined with her by candlelight. It seemed to him that he was doing something romantic.

“I understand why you did that. I’m the one who should be blamed.” Dong Ci took a sip of the soup and stopped eating.

“Didn’t we agree to never get divorced regardless of any kind of quarrel? Have you forgotten that?” Luo Nan begged, “Please give me another chance. I do know it was my fault. I drank too much…”

“No one has ever given me a chance.” Dong Ci went into the bedroom, closed the door behind her, and then began to cry.

She fell back on the bed and buried her head in the pillow. “I think I’m dying. How did I come to such a pass?”

Next day they went to the marriage registration office and got a divorce. After that, Luo Nan and Dong Ci embraced each other in the street and cried. A song named I Miss You All Year Round was played into their ears from a music shop. They cried for a while, and then parted at a fork. Luo Nan went back to his house. Dong Ci returned to her parents’ home.

Luo Nan didn’t marry Shang Linglong.

He got married with another woman because she looked like Dong Ci in youth. She was pure and lively. She wore the same perfume as Dong Ci. It smelt fresh and sweet, like the scent of the grass after rain. Luo Nan often buried his head in her shoulder and cherished the illusion that Dong Ci was still by his side.

Dong Ci went to many cities to look for Chen Qi, and mistook someone else for him several times.

There was a newly built villa estate next to the rose garden that Chen Qi had given Dong Ci. It was also entitled “Rose Garden”. There was a gardener working in it. He had the same surname as Chen Qi. His name was Chen Bo. He was an unattractive middle-aged man with a slight stoop. One day Dong Ci went to the rose garden and saw him pruning roses.

“Are you Chen Qi?” she asked.

“No, I’m Chen Bo.” The gardener picked up a pair of scissors and skillfully cut off the unnecessary twigs and branches. “You must be mistaken.”

“Let’s get married.” Dong Ci looked at him with loving eyes. “I love you. I’ll never let you go again.”

The marriage of Chen Bo and the beautiful woman Dong Ci, became a fantastic story circulating among the people living in Rose Garden. A gardener suddenly became the owner of a villa. After marriage, he didn’t need to do the gardening anymore. All he needed to do was to enjoy flowers and plants.

The neighbors often gathered together, talking and discussing animatedly.

“I heard that woman came here for her ex-lover.”

“I heard that the gardener had cosmetic surgery.”

“Impossible! He’s merely a gardener. He’s from the countryside.”

“So, is he the woman’s ex-lover?”

“I don’t know. Do you know?”

“God knows!”

…

Dong Ci was cooking in the kitchen. The gardener was watching TV on the sofa. A little girl was playing with her pet rat on the balcony. She was not good-looking. When night fell, the meal was ready. They sat down to eat at the dining-table.

Dong Ci looked at her husband and daughter gently and thought, ‘Thank God, our story has a happy end.’

‘I miss the old times. I’m always full of melancholy. I want to meet you again. Every day I wait for you to come back. I find myself in a blind alley, but I have no way to retreat. I just wait, kneeling before the image of Buddha, praying and meditating. I thought Buddha would grant me my wish, but reality let me down. Is it because I’m not sincere enough or Bodhisattva is not at home?

Actually, I should have known that your gentleness was a kind of mercy.

But I can’t learn how to forget you.

Actually, I should have said goodbye to you.

I shouldn’t indulge in your tenderness and mercy.

But I’m still deeply addicted to it.

I’m on the edge of pleasure and pain.

I don’t know how to face your tenderness and mercy.

I can no longer get comfort from it.

I can’t hold back my tears anymore.

When I think of your tenderness and mercy,

I don’t regret falling in love with you.

I will remain loyal to you forever,

though you have made me heartbroken…’