Chapter Ninety: Memories

When Peng Min heard this, she was overjoyed. Taking her few belongings, she left the guest room with Li Jia.

As Li Jia passed through the living room, the faint smile that had appeared on her face because of Peng Min's happiness vanished at once when she saw Li Ming and Liu Jia in the room.

She only paused as she passed by, glancing once without lingering, then sighed and led Peng Min into her own room.

Inside Li Jia's room, Peng Min looked here and there, picking up small objects from time to time to ask about them.

Perhaps because she knew Li Jia was in low spirits over her parents, she acted this way in an effort to distract her.

Li Jia was a very intelligent person and could tell at a glance what Peng Min was thinking. Moved by the gesture, she cooperated readily, answering each question with patience.

In the middle of it all, some of the small things truly stirred pleasant memories in her, and a fleeting smile returned to her face, lifting her mood little by little.

After they put down their luggage and chatted idly in the room for a while, about ten-odd minutes later, Li Jia changed into the clothes she usually wore, and the two of them left the room together.

They had both washed up earlier at the inn; only the clothes Li Jia had been wearing were Peng Min's.

Though their figures were not very different, there were still some differences in size, and many of Peng Min's clothes were styles Li Jia was not used to wearing, far too youthful and bright, and she found them a little revealing.

She had worn them before only because there had been no choice. Now that she was back in her own home, of course she would change into something familiar.

In the living room, Li Ming and Liu Jia seemed to have returned from some wondrous illusion to reality.

Their eyes had also grown clear; the murmuring in their mouths had ceased. It was obvious the drug's effect had worn off.

"Father, Mother." After Li Jia came out of the room and saw that her parents had returned to their senses, she hesitated for a moment before calling out to them.

The two of them were clearly startled by the sudden voice. Turning around and seeing Li Jia, they even thought they had seen wrongly, shaking their heads repeatedly. Only after confirming again and again did they realize it was not an illusion, but the real thing.

After looking at Li Jia for a few moments, Li Ming looked away, unable to meet his daughter's eyes. There was guilt and remorse in his expression. Liu Jia, on the other hand, confirmed that it was indeed Li Jia, and a smile appeared on her face. She hurriedly stood up, took a few steps to Li Jia, and held her hand.

"Xiao Jia, you're back. I haven't seen you in a few days, and you seem a little thinner. Haven't you been sleeping well? What do you want to eat? I'll make it for you right now." Holding Li Jia's hand, Liu Jia looked her daughter over and asked with great concern.

There was not much else on Liu Jia's face. Her expression and words were the same as whenever Li Jia came home before.

Her reaction suggested that she had no idea what had happened to Li Jia at all.

If Li Jia's memory had not been so clear, if the pain in certain places on her body had not yet completely faded, and if Peng Min had not been standing behind her, she would truly have believed that everything that had happened to her over these past few days was a dream, and that she had only just woken from it.

Looking at her mother, Li Jia thought, if all this really were a nightmare, how wonderful that would be. If I were still dreaming now, I would even be willing to lose ten years of my life just to wake up and have everything return to the beginning, as if nothing had ever happened.

But she knew this was reality. Everything had truly happened, and nothing could ever go back to the way it was. The so-called dream was only the wish in her heart, a wish that could never come true.

Now, Li Jia felt that the person before her, so familiar yet so strange, had completely turned into a stranger. This stranger merely happened to look a great deal like her mother, and even sounded like her mother—so much so that it filled her heart with fear, with utter dread.

She pulled her hand free from Liu Jia's grasp and stepped back a few paces, only to lose her footing and lurch toward the floor.

"Li Jia, are you all right?" Peng Min, who had been watching her closely all along, caught her the instant she fell.

"I'm fine."

Hearing Peng Min's voice, Li Jia's fear vanished by more than half at once. She took several deep breaths and steadied her mind completely.

She straightened and looked at Liu Jia not far in front of her.

She could see a trace of panic and helpless confusion in Liu Jia's eyes, but not much genuine concern.

Li Jia looked to the other side, where Li Ming had been sitting silently on the sofa. She could see that his gaze was also on her now. In his eyes there was guilt, and also a trace of concern she knew all too well.

She took all of this in, and a general idea had already formed in her mind.

Li Jia did not pay attention to her mother's words of concern. After silently expressing her gratitude to Peng Min with her eyes, she moved past her mother and came to stand before her father.

"Father, now you should be able to tell me in detail what exactly has happened these past few days. To be honest, I have already been forced to get involved with drugs."

As she said this, she also exposed her arm, showing Li Ming the place where the drug had been injected.

"Xiao Jia, you too? Oh... what a sin. Your father and mother have failed you." Seeing the traces of intravenous drug use on his daughter's arm, Li Ming was instantly overcome with emotion. He apologized to his daughter again and again, and then, unbelievably, began to cry.

A grown man actually broke down in tears before his own daughter.

Li Jia was deeply moved by the sight. It was truly the first time she had ever seen her father weep in pain.

In her memory, her father had always been towering, extraordinary, a great hero, a true man.

So her father, in the end, was only an ordinary person after all—flesh and blood, someone who bled and could cry like any other.

At some point, as Li Jia studied her father closely, she realized he had grown so much older. His back was no longer straight, but slightly bent and stooped. The image in her memory, once without a single gray hair, now had many strands of white, and she did not even know when they had appeared.

So aging was only a matter of a single instant.

Scenes from memory flashed rapidly through Li Jia's mind, each one a precious recollection.

As a child, at the amusement park, her father had lifted her high into the air, while she laughed with her whole face glowing, shouting for him to raise her even higher.

In elementary school, at the school gate, her father had been arguing red-faced with a man dressed in fine clothing. Her father, always gentle and easygoing with others, refused to back down that day, because the man's son had made Li Jia cry at school.

In middle school, after failing an exam, Li Jia had crouched before her computer desk and sobbed softly while her father comforted her in a low, gentle voice. That day, for some reason, because of her father's comfort, the harder he tried to soothe her, the more fiercely she cried. Yet her father showed not the slightest impatience and stayed by her side with endless patience.

In high school, at the barbecue stall near the school, after an evening study session had ended, because she wanted barbecue, her father took her there to eat. While she ate, she kept listening to him repeat that this absolutely must not be let slip to her mother.

At the train station, when she first left home to study in another city, her parents saw her off from the platform as she boarded the train. That day, Li Jia saw clearly that although her father did not shed tears like her mother, his eyes were filled entirely with worry.

Again at the train station, when she had come back once after finishing her sophomore year with Huang Yu, her father came to pick her up and happened to see the scene of her and Huang Yu saying goodbye and parting ways. That day, Li Jia was astonished to discover that for the first time her father did not look at her kindly at all, but kept pressing her all the way home about who Huang Yu was. He also warned her repeatedly that she should prioritize her studies at school and reminded her again and again that handsome men were usually unreliable.

These scenes, each with her father in them, kept flashing through her mind over and over.

All the reproachful words Li Jia had long wanted to say suddenly reached her lips, but in front of such a father, she found she could not utter a single one.

At that moment, the tears she had held back for so long could no longer be restrained, and she broke down crying together with Li Ming.

Half an hour later.

Looking at her parents, who kept apologizing and pleading for her forgiveness, Li Jia found that she could not summon much hatred at all.

About five months earlier, when she had left home to return to university for the second semester of her senior year, her mother Liu Jia had, on one occasion, been tempted by a familiar friend and, unable to resist vanity and curiosity, tried drugs.

That one try had spiraled completely out of control. Liu Jia could no longer break free from them. The more she used, the stronger the addiction became. Soon she had spent all of her own savings, and in order to satisfy her craving, she began borrowing money from friends everywhere.

One month later, Li Ming learned of Liu Jia's drug use by chance—or perhaps inevitably.

A fierce argument was certainly unavoidable.

But even after the shouting, the matter still needed a solution in the end.

Li Ming first demanded that she stop using drugs at once, or he would immediately call the police and forcibly send her to a rehabilitation center for compulsory detoxification.

Liu Jia knelt before Li Ming and swore the most solemn vows, promising that she would never touch drugs again.

After so many years as husband and wife, their bond was deep. Li Ming put down the phone he had picked up, preparing to call the police the next moment.

And so, another week passed.

During that week, Li Ming temporarily set aside his work and stayed at home with Liu Jia, helping her through withdrawal.

When Liu Jia's cravings first flared and her mind grew muddled, Li Ming even hardened his heart and tied her directly to the bed. To avoid making too much noise and alarming the neighbors, he even gagged her mouth.