Chapter Eighty-Seven: Tomb Sweeping

In the dim room, only a sliver of light remained.

On the projection screen, a figure was seen from behind, walking away.

He had just come out of the community clinic. After only a few steps, he stopped in place and turned his head toward the camera.

His gaze merely skimmed past it, then quickly veered away as he searched all around, as if looking for something. In the end, finding nothing, he withdrew his eyes and went on walking.

The camera still trailed behind him, recording the slightly lethargic drag of his steps.

A strike.

A flame bloomed in the room; a match was brought to a cigarette, and another ember appeared.

The next second, blue smoke rose in curling threads.

The hand holding the match gave a light flick, and the match fell onto the projection screen, leaving a dark mark over the figure’s back.

...

Absentmindedly, Cheng Yao went home. When he saw Bai Xiao, he still felt uneasy, though it was a different kind of unease now.

Bai Xiao greeted him with a smile, telling him to wash his hands and come eat.

Cheng Yao nodded and sat down at the table, slowly eating the steamed mandarin fish Bai Xiao had prepared.

“Fresh, isn’t it? I watched the老板 kill it on the spot. He said it had just been brought in this morning from the wholesale seafood market, kept alive all the way. They also had very fresh clams, and I told him to help purge the sand. I’ll go pick them up tomorrow. Today I only bought the mandarin fish...”

“It’s delicious,” Cheng Yao said in reply.

The two of them ate at an unhurried pace. The television in the living room was on, broadcasting the news for that hour.

All at once, the word “baby” drifted into Cheng Yao’s ears.

He turned to look at the television.

“...Regrettably, the baby still left us...” the anchor said in a flat, level voice. The word “regrettably” was there, but the tone remained calm.

The shot was a medium one. Through the glass, a middle-aged nurse could be seen kneeling beside an incubator, head lowered, her face hidden from view, and yet her grief was unmistakably real.

It was Fang Simin, Cheng Yao thought.

He also recognized the young nurse standing beside her. The young nurse kept wiping her tears, but still they kept spilling down her cheeks.

The report gave this part no sound. After a few brief lines from the voice-over outside the frame, the image cut away and moved on to the next story.

“He... he died, then...” Bai Xiao sighed.

Cheng Yao did not answer.

His feelings were complicated, as though he had seen something he had long expected, yet also as though he had just heard terrible news and for a moment lacked the strength to react.

The kind of “miracle” he had hoped for had not come to pass.

But it was precisely because a “miracle” was called a miracle that the one hoping for it knew full well it was unlikely to happen.

Emotion and reason had already rendered their judgment the moment the “miracle” appeared.

“How could you possibly have let a criminal go?” Boss Le’s words surfaced in Cheng Yao’s ears.

Cheng Yao looked at Bai Xiao.

Bai Xiao seemed dispirited, head lowered as she continued to pick at her rice.

Cheng Yao placed a piece of fish in her bowl.

Bai Xiao looked up and smiled. “I’m fine. It’s just a little regrettable... Still, we never had any real fate with that child to begin with... That child... that child didn’t do anything good again, did he?” she asked haltingly at last.

Cheng Yao nodded.

“Ah... if only we had adopted him sooner...” Bai Xiao felt even more regret.

Looking at Bai Xiao like this, Cheng Yao suddenly said, “Today, I went to see someone.”

Bai Xiao paused, then curved her lips. “I knew you weren’t going to see your cousin today.” She blinked playfully, then ate the piece of fish. “Who did you go see?”

Cheng Yao did not answer at once.

Bai Xiao did not urge him.

“You don’t know his name, and you’ve never met him. He was... the driver who caused the accident...” Cheng Yao said softly.

Bai Xiao’s chopsticks froze. A trace of confusion crossed her face, and only after a while did realization dawn.

“The driver who caused the accident... ah... I see...” Bai Xiao lowered her eyes and tightened her grip on the chopsticks, as if at a loss.

“He’s passed away,” Cheng Yao went on. “I... went to see him one last time, I suppose. No, rather, he was about to die, and that made him want to see me.”

Cheng Yao told Bai Xiao everything he had heard from Lin Youde’s son without concealment.

Lin Youde likely intended, after death, to stand face-to-face with Bai Xiao and with his own sin.

Cheng Yao did not know what the world after death was like. Perhaps there was no such world at all. But whether it existed or not, Lin Youde could never find Bai Xiao there.

Bai Xiao listened quietly. Only after a long time did she give a soft “mm.” “So that’s how it was. He must not have had an easy time these past years either.”

The words were light, without emotion, neither resentful nor compassionate.

Just as Cheng Yao had expected, Lin Youde was nothing more than an irrelevant stranger to Bai Xiao.

Cheng Yao said, “If you hadn’t met me, hadn’t fallen in love with me and married me, if I hadn’t planned that anniversary...”

Even if Bai Xiao had not been pregnant, she might not have been trapped by the mangled car body.

Bai Xiao looked straight at Cheng Yao. Reaching across the table, she took his hand. “Then I wouldn’t have been that happy.”

Cheng Yao’s eyes grew hot. He turned his hand over and held hers in return.

“Shall we go visit Mom and Dad’s graves tomorrow?” Bai Xiao said abruptly. “We can’t just keep hiding at home. I... should say goodbye to them properly.”

Cheng Yao looked at her downcast expression and tightened his grip on her hand, feeling the smooth softness of her skin and the warmed diamond ring on her ring finger.

“Everything is over now. We should start again. A new beginning,” Bai Xiao said solemnly. When she finished, the gentle smile Cheng Yao knew so well returned to her face.

...

The next day, Cheng Yao bought flowers and took Bai Xiao by bus, then subway, then a shuttle bus to the Crane Cemetery.

The cemetery had been in existence for nearly twenty years. Even so, it was still the newest cemetery in the city. Its facilities, landscaping, tombs, and gravestones had not yet become overly aged, but problems of narrow paths and cramped surroundings were unavoidable. Standing at the entrance and looking out, one saw dense gray gravestones to the left and, on the right, a dense stand of slender trees—one of the newer tree burial options introduced in recent years. Farther in was a newly built small building, where ash niches were collected together, naturally at a lower price.

It was not Qingming Festival or Winter Solstice, so there were very few people coming to sweep graves, though not none. Elsewhere, there were families busy arranging burials, and from afar drifted cries of grief and wailing.

No matter how fierce the sunlight, when it fell upon this field of gravestones it only gave off a chill.

Cheng Yao found his in-laws’ gravestone with ease.

They had bought it early, but had chosen one of the cheaper plots. One could only say it had the essentials; like the cemetery itself, it could not avoid cramped space, rough carving, and similar flaws. In fact, not long after Bai Xiao’s death, his in-laws had secretly bought a grave for the two of them. Bai Xiao’s death had been sudden, leaving no time to prepare. At the time, Cheng Yao had been dazed and numb, unwilling to face reality, and certainly unable to handle Bai Xiao’s funeral arrangements properly. Her parents could only follow the directions of those funeral service shops and hurriedly buy a single burial plot. Because of this, Cheng Yao almost came to blows with an employee at the funeral shop. Later, when the elderly couple bought their own plot, they even considered moving Bai Xiao’s remains. But seeing Cheng Yao—who seemed to have accepted things, yet still came regularly to visit and care for them—made it hard to broach the subject. After weighing their choices, they ended up buying only this double plot.

From an investment point of view, it had been worth it. Yet in actual use, the experience was far from ideal.

Cheng Yao only learned these old stories from his father-in-law when his mother-in-law passed away. At the time, he had been calm. Now, recalling the past and looking at Bai Xiao, who crouched stiffly before the grave in sorrow, he could not help feeling a sting of bitterness.

He reached out and stroked Bai Xiao’s long hair.

Bai Xiao turned to look at him, gave him a strained smile, then turned back and stared fixedly at her parents’ portrait.

The phone in Cheng Yao’s pocket rang with a notification, but he did not look at it.

He stayed beside Bai Xiao and spoke about the thirty-five years of his in-laws’ lives.

Bai Xiao listened in silence, like the most dutiful of audiences, occasionally interjecting with a concern or two, as though Cheng Yao were speaking of things happening in the present and continuously tugging at her heart.

The two of them squeezed together before the grave and stayed there for a very long, very long time.

“In that case, that’s fine too. They didn’t suffer... that’s enough...” Bai Xiao let out a breath and rested her head on Cheng Yao’s shoulder. “Let’s go visit your parents afterward.”

The two of them had always referred to each other’s parents as “Mom” and “Dad,” and when they spoke of them, they sometimes confused things and had to add “your” or “my.”

Cheng Yao smoothed her loose hair. “Are you tired? Mom and Dad are buried in Long Life Garden. It’s a bit far from here.”

“It’s fine. I’m not tired. I want to go see them.” Bai Xiao cut him off, then could not help but laugh. “Crane Cemetery, Long Life Garden...”

“And there’s also Longevity Garden...” Cheng Yao said, then paused.

Bai Xiao had already risen to her feet and even reached out to pull him up. “Let’s go. How do we get to Long Life Garden?”

Subconsciously, Cheng Yao stood as she pulled him along. Only then did he come back to himself. What he had wanted to say had already been interrupted by Bai Xiao and cast to the back of his mind. He could only answer, “There’s no subway or bus to Long Life Garden. Usually you have to take one of those shuttle coaches... We’ll take the shuttle back to the subway station first, then get a taxi from there.”

Bai Xiao nodded. “Is it very far?”

“It’s not exactly far, really. The straight-line distance isn’t much. It’s just that the place is rather small, and there’s an industrial park there too, so there’s no bus or shuttle route. There’s only a shuttle during Qingming. The route is pretty roundabout.”

Bai Xiao still had some sense of the city map. Hearing this, she understood at once and asked in surprise, “Why would they open a cemetery there?”

“Who knows...” Cheng Yao sighed. “Mom went with her little circle of friends to buy it. I think at first they meant to run some kind of scam, but after a lot of twists and turns, they really did open a cemetery. Still, the graves there are better. I had even thought about whether we should move Mom and Dad’s grave, or buy two more plots there. In the end—”

Before the words “forget it” could leave his mouth, Cheng Yao lifted his chin slightly and looked ahead.

They were almost out of the cemetery gate. Ahead lay the tree burial area.

The trees, planted in neat rows, were mostly only as thick as two hands clasped together, yet their branches and leaves were lush beyond measure, and they had been trimmed into uniform arches. Seen from a distance, they could be called beautiful.

People inside were in the midst of burials, and others were sweeping graves. The loud wailing had already stopped, leaving only soft sobbing.

Because burning paper offerings was forbidden, there was no smoke hanging over the cemetery, though grieving relatives were still bound to smoke to ease their sorrow.

The scent of cigarettes was not strong, but unlike the intermittent cries, it seemed to drift among the trees without end.

“What is it?” Bai Xiao asked.

“No, nothing.”

“Then let’s go.”

“Mm.”

Cheng Yao withdrew his gaze.

...

As Cheng Yao had said, Long Life Garden was in an extremely remote location, so remote that it was enough to make one suspicious. The plots inside were also, as he had described, better than those in Crane Cemetery, and could even be called luxurious.

The wide paths allowed Cheng Yao and Bai Xiao to sit on the ground, and the broad gravestones nearly hid their figures. Small shrubs separated one gravestone from the next, creating a space that was a little more private.

Bai Xiao was also deeply concerned about her in-laws’ lives, listening quietly as Cheng Yao told her what had happened during these thirty-five years in her absence.

There was no thrilling drama or bizarre twists like in films and television; what Cheng Yao described was no more than the trivial miscellany of daily life, yet Bai Xiao listened with undiminished interest.

As Cheng Yao watched her smile at times and furrow her brow at others, he could not help smiling as well.

He recalled the past with great composure. Because there was another person by his side, those long thirty-five years no longer felt dull, and the ordinary fragments of life took on a new brilliance.

The surrounding gravestones and the shadows they cast, the pale faces in the portraits, brought no chill to Cheng Yao, for a warm body was leaning against him, skin touching skin, breath mingling with his own.

Cheng Yao’s account paused briefly midway through.

Bai Xiao promptly handed him a bottle of mineral water.

Cheng Yao took a sip, and when he tilted his head back, his gaze involuntarily drifted forward.

His eyes passed through layer upon layer of gravestones, but saw not a single person.

The wind blew by, and only the bouquets they had bought to place before the gravestones sent out a faint fragrance.

“And the growth afterward was benign?” Bai Xiao asked.

“Mm, benign. They didn’t even need chemo or radiation.”

“That’s wonderful,” Bai Xiao said with feeling.

“Aunt Cui didn’t think so. She insisted on chemotherapy. Those little friends of hers tried to persuade her, and her daughter-in-law did too; they practically talked themselves hoarse. Even the doctors were annoyed.”

“What happened in the end?”

“The hospital wouldn’t do it, so she had no choice but to discharge herself. After that, she ran off to a temple.”

“Ah?” Bai Xiao was astonished.

“She burned incense and worshiped the Buddha all day long. At home, incense was lit from morning till night. She donated a lot of money too. On certain days, she’d even stay in the temple on purpose. She became a vegetarian as well,” Cheng Yao said, setting down the water bottle. “After a long while, she stopped associating much with that little circle of friends.”

“That’s fine too. It’s good that Mom didn’t go along with her.”

“Yes. At least she wasn’t dragged off to burn incense and worship the Buddha.” Cheng Yao let out a long breath.

“You must have worried a lot during that time,” Bai Xiao said, looping her arm through his and lacing their fingers together.

Cheng Yao looked at the ring on Bai Xiao’s hand and nodded. “For a while, I went home every day, and I kept telling Dad to keep an eye on Mom...”

As he said this, Cheng Yao’s gaze once again drifted forward.

...

Amid the neatly arranged gravestones, there was a point of red.

A hand holding a cigarette rested on a bent knee, the posture languid. Yet from that hand, fingernails had grown wildly long, like nimble snakes, probing at the carved words on the gravestone.

The nails traced over the lettering, as though idly passing the time.

When they reached the last stroke, a slight pressure left behind a barely perceptible scratch on the stone.

Suddenly, the nails withdrew.

The figure leaned back, resting his head against the gravestone, and with a leisurely air raised a hand, took a drag from the cigarette, then exhaled smoke over the portrait on the stone, obscuring the image and his own youthful face alike.