When Shang Hong brought Shen Meng back to the morgue, it was already evening in Shen Meng’s world.
But the person Shen Meng saw was not her parents. It was her younger sister, who was seven years younger than her.
“The factory is busy, so Mom and Dad didn’t have time to come. I’m Shen Meng’s younger sister, Shen Zhibai. I’m here to take care of her funeral arrangements.”
Shen Zhibai’s words to Xu Jingchen seemed to answer the questions in Shen Meng’s heart.
Her words left Shen Meng feeling utterly cold.
I’m dead, and Bai Jinxi still couldn’t be bothered to come see me!
Thankfully, when I was young, I never tried to take my own life just to get her attention or pity. Even if I had died back then, it wouldn’t have made any difference to them. It would have been nothing more than a farce.
Bai Jinxi was my biological mother. To make absolutely sure of that, I had even secretly gotten a paternity test done.
The result was that Bai Jinxi and I were unquestionably biological mother and daughter.
But that only made me even more confused. I was the child she had carried for ten months and given birth to after all that hardship. How could she treat me like this?
Bai Jinxi had never loved me. There had always been disgust in her eyes, and sometimes even hatred.
No matter how hard I tried to be an obedient, sensible child, or a good student with excellent grades, Bai Jinxi never changed the way she treated me.
Not once.
Instead, Bai Jinxi doted on my sister, who was born seven years after me.
She had even given her a particularly meaningful name—Shen Zhibai. It commemorated the thirty years of love between her mother, Bai Jinxi, and her father, Shen Qingbo.
“Your parents aren’t coming to the farewell ceremony either?” Xu Jingchen asked.
“No. Mom said funerals in the new era should be kept simple to avoid wasteful extravagance. What’s the point of saying goodbye to someone who’s already dead? We can just cremate her and scatter the ashes into the sea.”
There wasn’t a trace of sadness on Shen Zhibai’s face.
“I’ve already asked around. Nangang is by the sea, and they also encourage sea burials. There’s no sea burial fee for local residents, while people from outside the area have to pay a thousand yuan. There’s also a 380-yuan boat fee and a 200-yuan fee for handling the ashes. There happens to be a group sea burial tomorrow. I brought all the money with me. Once everything is taken care of, I have to hurry back to Changzhou. I took time off from school to come here.”
“All right,” Xu Jingchen said. “I’ve already booked a hotel. I’ve also packed up your sister’s things. You’ll need to come to the house and pick them up. Take a look and see what you want to bring with you. Also, I’ll transfer her savings to you.”
Xu Jingchen’s face was deathly pale. His beautiful eyes were dull and lifeless, with heavy dark circles beneath them.
“In the end, nearly thirty years of family ties still couldn’t compare to the pain of losing someone she’d known for only a year and a half.”
Shen Meng sighed.
She had expected this outcome long ago, but now that it had actually happened, she realized she still couldn’t fully accept it.
She didn’t know how other people felt, but her lifelong obsession had always been to earn her parents’ love—to receive the same kind of love they gave Shen Zhibai.
But even in death, all she had ever wanted remained nothing more than a fantasy.
“Do you know something?” Shen Meng said to Shang Hong. “I’m twenty-seven years old, yet at this age, I’m still hoping to receive my mother’s love. Isn’t that ridiculous?”
Shang Hong patted Shen Meng on the shoulder.
“But I’m dead, and she still wasn’t willing to come see me one last time.”
At that point, Shen Meng broke down completely.
“Shen Meng, there’s a saying in your world: accepting that your parents don’t love you is the first step toward growing up. Clearly, there are many people whose parents don’t love them that much. You’re not the only one,” Shang Hong said. “So it’s nothing to be ashamed of. You still have yourself. As long as you love yourself enough, that’s all that matters.”
“But I’m still so sad.”
Inside the little home where Shen Meng and Xu Jingchen had once lived together for a year, ten large cardboard boxes and two rolling suitcases had been placed in the living room.
“You finished packing this fast?” Shang Hong asked with a cold laugh, crossing her arms.
Shen Meng glanced at Shang Hong. A vague suspicion began to form in her mind.
None of the cardboard boxes had been sealed. They were all left open, and inside were even the toothbrush and toothpaste Shen Meng had used, her pillowcases, bedsheets, duvet covers, the bowls she had eaten from, the cups she had drunk from—in fact, everything she had ever used was packed inside.
The photos of Shen Meng and Xu Jingchen that had once been displayed in the living room and bedroom had also been packed into the boxes.
Shen Meng’s expression gradually darkened.
“These are all your sister’s things. I was afraid that seeing them would bring back memories, so I packed everything up. Take a look and see if there’s anything you want to take with you. She has several designer bags, and they’re still in pretty good condition. It would be a shame to throw them away.”
Xu Jingchen had already grown stubble, making him look somewhat haggard.
Shen Zhibai rummaged through the boxes, picking through the contents. She pulled out several of Shen Meng’s designer bags.
“These really are pretty nice.”
Xu Jingchen handed Shen Zhibai a passbook.
“These are your sister’s savings from the past few years. Take them.”
Shen Zhibai took the passbook and opened it. She immediately looked disdainful.
“I heard Shen Meng started working part-time back in college. After all these years, she only managed to save a little over ten thousand yuan?!”
“As far as I know, Shen Meng never asked her family for a single cent after she started college,” Xu Jingchen said. “She paid for her own tuition and living expenses. She has plenty of expenses now too. Being able to save more than ten thousand yuan is already pretty good.”
“You conveniently left out the more than one hundred thousand yuan I have tied up in stocks,” Shen Meng said coldly.
“Oh, right. The stock account was opened under your name.”
Shen Meng had spent her entire life watching her parents’ moods and reactions. She had always been extremely sensitive to other people’s thoughts. By now, she could clearly sense that something was wrong with Xu Jingchen, and she hated herself for not realizing it sooner.
“Is this the big show you wanted me to see?” Shen Meng asked Shang Hong. “The double betrayal of family and love?”
“No. The real show is still to come!” Shang Hong said.
Shen Meng looked at her in confusion.
The next day, the cremation and sea burial were handled as a complete package. Everything went quickly and smoothly.
By a little after three in the afternoon, it was all over.
Shen Meng’s physical body had turned to ashes overnight and been buried in the sea. She had completely disappeared from this world, as if she had never existed at all.
After the funeral arrangements were finished, Shen Zhibai returned to Changzhou to continue her college studies.
Xu Jingchen, however, took a taxi to a luxury villa community.
Xu Jingchen was lying on a luxurious king-sized bed with nothing on but a bath towel. His head rested on the lap of a woman wearing a silk camisole nightgown. The blush had not yet faded from either of their faces. Clearly, they had only just finished.
When Shen Meng saw the scene before her, she was so furious that she couldn’t even speak. She was too shocked to feel sad.
She knew this woman.
Her name was Meng Hua. She was a regular customer at Ping’an Auto Repair’s main shop and, more importantly, one of Xu Jingchen’s biggest clients.
Rumor had it that Meng Hua owned a publicly listed company and came from a military and political family. She had an extensive network of connections.
Although she had taken excellent care of herself and looked like she was in her thirties, she was actually forty-six years old—exactly twenty-four years older than Xu Jingchen.
“He really does like mature women! Mature enough to be two full rounds older than him!”
Shen Meng ground her teeth in fury.
“And I actually trusted him so much and loved him so much! So all that love he showed me was just an act!”
“Mature women have money!” Shang Hong said with a laugh. “He doesn’t have to spend his own money, and they can even give him money. They’re not as willful as young girls either, so he doesn’t have to spend all his time coaxing them. When he was with you, didn’t you pay for his daily expenses? Even his clothes and shoes?”
Shang Hong looked at Shen Meng as though she were looking at an idiot.
“Seriously, look at you. He didn’t make any less money than you did. Why were you so eager to play his mommy?”
“I… I just thought that he was so much younger than me, and he was so handsome…” Shen Meng let out a long sigh. “I thought it was only right for me to take care of him a little more.”
“You really are hopeless when you’re in love. No, wait—you were so blinded by his looks that you lost your mind!”
Meng Hua ran her fingers from Xu Jingchen’s forehead, slowly tracing down the high bridge of his nose before finally resting them on his lips.
“I only told you to leave her. Why did you have to kill her?! Are you really that short of a million yuan?!”
Meng Hua’s words once again exploded inside Shen Meng’s mind, making her entire body and soul tremble with shock.