Chapter 2

At ten-thirty that night, the lights in the Li household went out one by one. Li Caiwen was sitting in the living room, sorting through the photos on his camera. He flipped through them one by one, occasionally breaking into a satisfied smile. He had taken dozens of photos today, and in every single one, his youngest daughter was smiling like a little sun, her radiant grin bright enough to illuminate the entire room. “Old Li, have you seen my charger?” Zhou Wan poked her head out from the master bedroom. “My phone’s dead. I remember it was still in the living room this morning.” “Didn’t notice. Look around.” “I’ve looked everywhere. It’s not here.” Zhou Wan thought for a moment. “Could I have left it in Yu’an’s room? I went in this afternoon to help her organize her bookshelf.” “Then go check. She probably hasn’t gone to sleep yet.” Wearing slippers, Zhou Wan walked down the hallway to Li Yuan’an’s room. The door was slightly ajar, and warm yellow light spilled through the gap. She raised her hand and knocked lightly. “Yu’an? Are you asleep?” There was no response. “Yu’an?” she called again, but there was still no answer. Zhou Wan pushed the door open. The room was empty. The blanket had been folded neatly, and no one was on the bed. The bathroom door was open, but the light was off. “That child, where did she go?” Zhou Wan muttered, without giving it much thought. Li Yuan’an was already seventeen and had her own space. Perhaps she was getting some fresh air on the balcony, or maybe she had gone to the kitchen to get some water. Her gaze fell on the desk. The charger wasn't there, but an open diary lay spread across the desktop. Its cover was dark blue and looked somewhat worn with age, the corners slightly curled. Zhou Wan had never intended to read it. She had always respected her children's privacy. Li Yuan’an had kept a diary since she was little, and Zhou Wan had never pried. But as she walked over, her eyes happened to sweep across the open page. The handwriting was dense, written in Li Yuan’an’s neat, graceful script. She only glanced at it casually. Just one glance. And then her eyes seemed to become glued to the page, unable to move away no matter what. Zhou Wan stood frozen before the desk, her fingers unconsciously gripping the corner of the page. In that instant, it felt as though something had slammed violently into her mind, leaving her head buzzing. Thinking she must have seen it wrong, she rubbed her eyes and looked again. The handwriting was unmistakably clear. She recognized every single word, yet when those words were put together, she simply refused to believe they had been written by her own daughter. “Lele fell asleep today. Her eyelashes are so long, and her lips looked so soft. I couldn’t help myself. I kissed her. Just once. She didn’t wake up. She tasted so sweet.” “I’m doomed. I think I really want to raise her as my wife.” “Mom bought Lele a new dress today, a white lace one. She looked like a little bride in it. If only I could be the bride… and she were marrying me.” “I’m crazy. I must be crazy. But whatever. Let me be crazy.” Zhou Wan’s fingers tightened around the page until her fingertips turned white. Her lips trembled, and her entire body felt as though someone had poured a basin of ice water over her head, chilling her from the roots of her hair all the way to her heels. Her mind buzzed, as if hundreds of bees were crashing wildly around inside it. “Impossible…” she murmured, her voice so faint it was almost inaudible. “This can’t be…” She flipped forward several more pages. “A boy confessed to Lele at school today. He gave her a love letter. Lele didn’t accept it and said she didn’t like him, but I still felt awful. Just thinking about someone coveting her makes me want to kill.” “Mom asked what kind of boyfriend I want to find in the future. I said I don’t want one. Mom laughed and said I’m still a child and don’t know any better. But I meant it. I don’t want a boyfriend. I only want Lele.” “Today, I held Lele’s hand while crossing the street. Her hand was so small and soft, just the right size to fit completely inside my palm. I couldn’t bear to let go. The light turned green, then red again, but I pretended not to notice. I just wanted to hold her hand a little longer.” “When Lele calls me ‘Sis,’ my heart practically melts. But if one day she stopped calling me ‘Sis’ and called me by my name, or something else… I think I’d go crazy.” With every page she turned, Zhou Wan’s face grew paler. By the time she reached the final few pages, her hands were trembling so badly that she could barely hold the diary. She stood there motionless, like an empty shell whose soul had been ripped away. The light from the desk lamp fell across her face, revealing a pallor so intense it was almost translucent. No one knew how much time passed. Perhaps a few minutes. Perhaps half a century. At last, Zhou Wan moved. She closed the diary and took a deep breath. Then she opened it again, only to close it once more. She repeated this several times, as though closing the diary could somehow make it possible to pretend she had never seen any of it. But she couldn't lie to herself. Those words, those sentences, had already seared themselves into Zhou Wan’s mind like red-hot iron. There was no way to erase them. Clutching the diary to her chest, she slowly made her way out of the room, each step painfully slow, as though lead weights had been strapped to her legs. The hallway wasn't long. It was only a dozen or so steps from Li Yuan’an’s room to the living room, yet it took her an eternity to cross it. Li Caiwen was still in the living room, looking through the photos. When he heard footsteps, he looked up and saw his wife approaching with a deathly pale face, clutching a notebook in her hand, looking as though half her soul had been taken from her. “What happened?” Li Caiwen put down the camera, his brows knitting together. “Are you feeling unwell?” Zhou Wan said nothing. She walked to the coffee table, placed the diary on it, then slowly lowered herself onto the sofa, using the armrest for support. Only after sitting down did she realize how weak her legs had become, soft as two boiled noodles. “Read this.” Her voice sounded hoarse, almost unfamiliar even to herself. Li Caiwen looked at her in confusion before picking up the diary. "Yu’an’s?” He opened the cover. “Why did you take her diary—” “Read the contents.” Zhou Wan cut him off, her voice trembling. “You’ll understand once you’ve read it.” Li Caiwen’s eyes fell on the first page. At first, his expression remained relatively calm. When he reached the second page, his brows furrowed slightly. By the third, they had knitted into a tight knot. By the fourth page, his face had darkened like the bottom of a cooking pot. “This…” His voice caught in his throat, as though something had seized him by the neck. He flipped through the pages faster and faster, every word stabbing into his eyes like a needle. Words like kissed her, wife, and want to marry her were so jarring that he almost wanted to hurl the diary onto the floor. “What the hell is this?!” he finally exploded, snapping the diary shut and slamming it onto the coffee table with a sharp smack. “Li Yuan’an wrote this? Is there something wrong with her head?!” “Old Li, keep your voice down…” Zhou Wan grabbed his sleeve. “Don’t let Lele hear you.” Li Caiwen’s temples throbbed with anger, the veins in his forehead standing out one after another. He rose to his feet and paced back and forth across the living room like a wild beast trapped in a cage. “No. I have to talk to her.” He turned and started toward the stairs. “Wait!” Zhou Wan grabbed him. “Calm down! If you rush up there like this, what are you going to accomplish?” “Calm down? How am I supposed to calm down?” Li Caiwen kept his voice low, but every word seemed to be forced through clenched teeth. “That’s her sister! Her own sister… I mean… even though they’re not biologically related, we raised them as our own! How could she… how could she have thoughts like this?!” “It’s been six years. Six years. This can’t just be a momentary impulse.” Li Caiwen fell silent. He looked at the family photo still lying on the coffee table. In the picture, his elder daughter had one arm around her younger sister’s shoulders, smiling with gentle restraint. He had always thought that was simply the affection an older sister had for her younger sister. But now, looking at it again… How had he never noticed what was hidden in those eyes? “Yu’an has always been very strong-willed,” Zhou Wan said, wiping away her tears. “Ever since she was little, once she makes up her mind about something, not even ten oxen could pull her back. Old Li, I’m afraid…” “Afraid of what?” “I’m afraid she’s serious.” Li Caiwen remained silent for a long time. So long that Zhou Wan thought he wasn't going to speak at all. Finally, he spoke, his voice low and heavy, as though the words were being forced out from deep within his chest. “Whether it’s real or not, we can’t let her keep thinking this way. Lele is still young. She doesn’t understand anything. We can’t let Yu’an lead her astray.” “How do we stop her? Confiscate her diary? Cut off her internet access? Keep her from seeing Lele?” “If it really comes to that, we’ll send her abroad to study,” Li Caiwen said. “Somewhere far away.” Zhou Wan abruptly looked up at him. “You want to send Yu’an away?” “I’m only saying we should consider it for now.” Li Caiwen rubbed his temples. “Let’s see how things develop first. See what her attitude is. If she… if she realizes she was wrong and is willing to change, then we can simply send her to another city here in the country. But if she refuses to let go…” He didn't finish, but the meaning was already clear. Zhou Wan opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but closed it again. She lowered her head and stared at the diary in her hands, at the name Li Yuan’an had pieced together with stickers on the cover. The final stroke of the character “an” stretched out unusually long, like a road with no end. Suddenly, she remembered Li Yuan’an as a little girl. Back then, Li Yuan’an had only been eleven, and Li Lehe had just been adopted into their family. She had been so tiny. Li Yuan’an had crouched in front of the slightly nervous little girl and cautiously reached out with her chubby finger, gently poking her cheek. “Mom, little sister is so tiny,” she had said. “I’ll be good to her. I’ll be good to her for the rest of my life.” For the rest of my life. At the time, Zhou Wan had thought those were nothing more than childish words—innocent and adorable. But thinking about those two words now, she felt a chill run down her back. Soft footsteps came from upstairs. Zhou Wan and Li Caiwen looked up at the same time, like two startled birds. It was Li Lehe. She came downstairs in her pajamas, rubbing her sleepy eyes, a plush bear tucked in her arms. It wasn't the enormous one, but a smaller bear that Li Yuan’an had given her much earlier. “Mom, Dad, why aren't you guys asleep yet?” She yawned, her voice soft and drowsy. “I already slept for a while. I woke up to use the bathroom and saw the lights downstairs were still on.” Zhou Wan quickly stuffed the diary beneath the sofa cushion and covered it with a throw pillow. Then she forced a smile. “Nothing. Your dad and I were just talking. You should go back to sleep. You have school tomorrow.” “Oh.” Li Lehe didn't think much of it. Hugging her bear, she turned around and headed back upstairs. After taking two steps, she turned back. “Mom, where’s Sis? Her bedroom light is off.” “She… might be on the balcony,” Zhou Wan said. “Go back to sleep first. Don't worry about her.” Li Lehe nodded softly and dragged her slippers back upstairs. Her footsteps gradually disappeared at the end of the hallway. Zhou Wan and Li Caiwen exchanged a look, both seeing the same fear and helplessness reflected in each other's eyes. “Don’t let Lele find out for now,” Li Caiwen said. “Of course we can’t let her know.” Zhou Wan nodded, her voice so quiet it was almost inaudible. “She’s only thirteen. This kind of thing… she shouldn’t have to bear any of this.” Outside the window, the moon was half-hidden behind the clouds, and the light dimmed. The two people in the living room sat facing each other, with a diary hidden in the shadows between them. Its pages were filled with a young girl’s most secret thoughts. And from this night onward, those thoughts would never be secrets again