In the VIP ward of Jingbei Hospital, Su Jinle lay with her eyes closed, listening to the nurses gossiping outside.
“The one inside is Professor Gu’s wife. Be extra careful. She may not be able to speak, but she’s precious.”
“Professor Gu is a big name in academia. Who would’ve thought his wife is not only mute, but also an uneducated housewife?”
“What? Then why did Professor Gu marry her in the first place?”
“Shh, keep your voices down!”
…
The whispers gradually faded until there was nothing but silence.
Su Jinle let out a self-mocking smile. Yes… why would the great Professor Gu marry her?
She had always believed it was because he loved her. Only now did she realize that, in the end, it had all been a joke.
She had been soft and compliant her entire life. This hospitalization had come from overwhelming anger. Even now, with her eyes closed, she could still see the cruel lines written in that diary.
*“You and I were never meant to be. But she resembles you in a few ways, and that was enough to unsettle my heart.”*
She had borne him children, cared for his parents, and pretended to be mute in public for an entire lifetime.
And in the end, she had only been a substitute.
A substitute.
She had once believed he must have loved her deeply to marry a stuttering woman. She had been grateful to him—loved him with her life.
And what was the result?
How laughable. How utterly ridiculous.
At the thought, Su Jinle couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Fine wrinkles framed her eyes, and tears seeped faintly from their corners.
Gu Jingxiu… If you wanted to be devoted, then be devoted. Why did you have to provoke me? Just because I resembled your “white moonlight” a little, did I deserve this?
Silently covering her face, she lay still for a while before shaking the call bell by her bedside.
A young nurse hurried in. “Auntie, what do you need?”
As she spoke, she instinctively looked toward the paper and pen in Su Jinle’s hand, waiting for her to write. Everyone in the ward knew that Professor Gu’s wife could not speak. Communication relied on sheets of paper. It took time, but she was in a VIP room—they had no choice but to be patient.
But Su Jinle did not write.
She slowly opened her mouth and enunciated, word by word, “Wa… ter.”
“Ah?” The nurse was so startled by the sound of her voice that her eyes widened in shock. She barely managed not to blurt out the obvious question.
Wasn’t she mute?
How could a mute person suddenly speak?
Su Jinle glanced at her. “Go.”
Only then did the nurse snap out of her shock. She rushed out so hastily she nearly tripped, and outside she stammered to the head nurse, “Professor Gu’s wife can speak!”
Inside the ward, Su Jinle let out a long breath.
She hadn’t meant to frighten anyone. She simply didn’t want to keep pretending.
She wasn’t mute. She only stuttered. But every time Gu Jingxiu heard her halting speech, he would frown impatiently. As his status rose higher and higher, she began to feel that her stutter would embarrass him. So she stopped speaking in public altogether.
Over time, people simply assumed she was mute.
She had thought that was better. A mute person invited sympathy. A stutterer invited ridicule.
For decades—decades—she had not spoken a word in front of outsiders.
Yet the diary had said:
*“Her voice sounds nothing like yours. It’s better when she doesn’t speak. I don’t want to hear her voice.”*
The ward door was pushed open.
The person who entered was not the nurse, but Gu Jingxiu.
He wore a traditional Zhongshan suit. Though nearing sixty, he carried himself with distinguished elegance. Gold-rimmed glasses rested on his nose. He held a cup of warm water and spoke calmly.
“Everyone outside is talking about you speaking. Why did you suddenly open your mouth?”
Su Jinle had always been gentle, but this time her voice sharpened.
“Pro… Professor Gu… am I… mute?”
She stuttered through the question. There was no imposing aura—she simply stared at him without blinking.
Gu Jingxiu’s brows knit slightly. “Does it matter? Everyone already thinks so.”
Su Jinle took the cup from his hand and hurled it hard to the floor.
“We… are getting… divorced.”
For the first time, Gu Jingxiu lost his composure. He grabbed her wrist, his tone turning cold.
“What are you making a scene about? Because of that diary? Su Jinle, go look in the mirror. How old are you now? Still playing jealous like some young girl?”
“Divorce? You don’t even have a pension. After divorce, are you planning to live on air?”
She struggled but couldn’t break free. Without thinking, she bent down and bit the flesh between his thumb and index finger.
“Divorce!”
He had never imagined that his gentle, obedient wife—who had loved him as if her life depended on it—would, at this age, demand a divorce over a diary.
Annoyed, he removed his glasses and sneered.
“Don’t even think about divorce. I can’t afford that embarrassment. What exactly can’t you accept? Haven’t I treated you well all these years? Did I ever let you go hungry or lack anything? Wherever you go, aren’t you respectfully called ‘Madam Gu’?”
“I married you because of Mu Qing. So what? Haven’t we been the ones living this life together? What exactly are you making a fuss about? I’ve wasted my entire life here with you as well!”
After a deep breath, his tone softened slightly.
“Jinle, we are destined to be bound together in this lifetime. If you want to leave me, wait for the next life. In the next life… I don’t want to have regrets.”
He refused to divorce her, yet admitted he regretted marrying her. Wasn’t that contradictory?
Su Jinle looked at him coldly.
“If you… don’t want… embarrassment… then we’ll go to court. I want a divorce.”
Her persistence finally infuriated him completely. The refined and courteous professor seen by the public darkened as he stepped toward her.
“I said—unless it’s the next life.”
Overwhelmed with rage, the normally mild-tempered Su Jinle became almost hysterical, grabbing and throwing whatever she could reach. Even the machines beside the bed emitted shrill beeping alarms. The couple once praised by the media as “devoted for a lifetime” tore off their decades-long disguise. The ward descended into chaos.
She was old, after all. Her body could not withstand such violent emotions.
Suddenly, Su Jinle spat out a mouthful of blood.
In her fading consciousness, she caught a glimpse of panic in Gu Jingxiu’s eyes…
When she opened her eyes again, she saw a mottled wall and a calendar.
May 1st, 1984.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror, stunned, when voices drifted in from the main room.
“We all work in the same factory. It’ll make us even closer as family. Lele’s father, when shall we arrange the wedding?”
Slowly, Su Jinle regained her senses.
She had been reborn to the day the Gu family came to propose marriage.
She remembered clearly. Back then, Gu Jingxiu’s parents had carried themselves with aloof superiority. But she had been too immersed in the joy of marrying him to notice her own parents’ hesitation. She had eagerly agreed.
The words he had spoken in her previous life still echoed in her ears. The yellowed diary felt vivid before her eyes.
Without hesitation, Su Jinle slipped on her shoes and rushed out of the room.
“I… won’t marry.”
Everyone fell silent.
Her gaze moved past both sets of parents and met the eyes of the man seated at the lower end.
Gu Jingxiu’s eyes were dark and unreadable. After a moment, a trace of mockery flashed within them.
“If that’s the case, then forget it.”
The young Gu Jingxiu had never worn such an expression before.
They had been husband and wife for most of their lives. They understood each other.
Su Jinle calmly held his gaze.
In that instant, she knew.
He had been reborn too.