It was half past nine in the morning, and as usual, Wang Haozhi sat in his living room listening to a weekend news program on the radio. Over the years, staying home on weekends had become his routine....especially now that business at his company had slowed down and almost everything was being handled by his eldest son, Danue.
So even if he tried to go out during the weekdays, he always found himself staying home on weekends, partly to rest his body, which had been growing weaker with time. After the news, a breakfast plate sat in front of him, alongside a cup of hot tea that he sipped slowly because he was still fasting intermittently.
He lifted the cup to his lips and set it down just as the phone resting on the arm of his chair began to ring. He reached for it, opened the wallet-style cover, and checked the caller's name. It was an old friend...a police officer named DSP Pan Zi.
He answered the call.
"So you finally picked up. I thought your line was dead."
Pan Zi's voice came through before Haozhi could speak, and he laughed.
"That's because you don't keep in touch. You just disappear and act like no one exists."
Pan Zi laughed as well.
"It's not just my fault. You also don't reach out. Anyone who complains about relationships is guilty too."
They exchanged greetings and asked about each other's families and affairs. Then Pan Zi finally mentioned the reason for his call.
"We received a kidnapping case here at my division. A married man and his younger brother were involved. While I was looking at the married man husband's and one of his friends, I kept thinking I knew him. Later it hit me...he looks like your son. One of your twins. I'm not completely sure, because he didn't recognize me, but I strongly suspect it's him."
A strange silence filled Wang Haozhi's mind...a heavy, ringing silence that pressed against his ears. It took him a long moment to swallow before he could speak.
"Which city?"
"Beijing. You know I'm posted here."
He went silent again, nodded as if Pan Zi could see him, and then said quietly,
"It's him. That's the one, Pan Zi."
"Really?" Pan Zi sounded shocked.
"So he's working there now?"
Haozhi hesitated, his heart pounding. He knew silence was useless now. Clearing his throat, he lifted his tea, took a sip, and began to explain everything...what had happened between him and the Yibo, how the years had passed, and how he had recently come across him again, living his own life.
Since Pan Zi was willing to listen, he also shared his thoughts about Yibo, and the guilt that weighed on his heart...especially because his wife still believed he was responsible for their son leaving home.
And when he recalled the promise he had made to Qiaoxi...that he would prove Yibo was dead...he did not know what to call it anymore. Coincidence? Fate? Or karma?
That same morning, Qiaoxi woke up with a strange feeling, as if her spirit had risen before her body. The room was still dim with the fading darkness of dawn. She sat on the bed for a long time, focusing on her breathing. It felt heavy, as though something had settled deep in her chest. When she stood up, she pressed a hand to her chest. It wasn't pain...she knew pain well; she had lived with it for years.
This feeling was different.
She took a hot shower, hoping it would ease her body, but when she came out, nothing had changed. Her chest felt even tighter, as if something invisible had been wrapped tightly around it. She briefly wondered if the hot water caused it, then dismissed the thought.
She looked around her bedroom...neat, orderly, everything in its proper place. It had always been like that. Only decorations changed over time. This was the room she had entered as a bride, full of dreams. Yet out of all those dreams, only a few had come true...and even those had not turned out as she had imagined.
At around half past nine, after breakfast and making sure her husband had eaten, she received a call from her elder sister, informing her that the husband of one of their relatives had died.
"We'll come through your neighborhood. Get ready and we'll go together."
"Alright. When you arrive, you don't need to come inside. I'll meet you at the gate."
She ended the call and remained seated, unable to move. The news of the death hit her harder than expected, even though she barely knew the man. She had only seen him a couple of times since his marriage to her relative nearly twenty years ago, yet the news made her chest tighten and her throat feel blocked.
Just then, the bedroom door opened and Qile walked in, greeting her while holding her phone.
"Mom, I'm going out. Work called me, and I also want to visit Que's house. Since Aria was ill, I haven't checked on her."
Que was Qile's younger sister. Before Qile finished school, fate brought her a husband...after much resistance from Wang Haozhi. He had wanted her to finish nursing school and start working before discussing marriage. But destiny had other plans. After many arguments and conditions, he finally agreed, setting strict terms for the groom. His relatives thought the conditions were excessive, as if she were royalty, not a human being.
In the end, the young man loved her deeply and followed every rule. He let her to finish school and even begin working. Aria was the only child she had.
Qile had also married after finishing her studies, but since the marriage had been arranged by Haozhi from the beginning, he had simply introduced a friend's son as her husband without truly considering their compatibility. Less than a year later, the marriage ended in divorce due to their conflicting personalities and lifestyles.
Haozhi had chosen based on his own opinion, ignoring everything else.
After that, Qile focused solely on her career and completely put marriage out of her mind.
"Mom…"
She called again when she realized Qiaoxi was not responding. That pulled Qiaoxi back from her thoughts. She nodded and said,
"Alright. When you return, I'll be out too. I'm going to visit Suma, someone died."
"Who passed away?" Qile asked, concern on her face.
"Sami Han's husband. He died last night."
"May he rest in peace. Will you be long? If you're still out when I return, I'll go straight to Suma's place."
Qiaoxi shook her head.
"I'm not sure. The funeral is at ten. Just go and call me."
Qile nodded.
"Alright. May he rest in peace, and may God give the family strength."
Qiaoxi nodded as well.
"Amen. See you later."
Qile turned and left.
Qiaoxi watched her go, then stood up and walked to the curtains. She pulled them aside and saw the city bathed in a strange pale light, as if the sun were hidden behind mist and only its faint glow remained.
She dressed in a white gown with black and blue patterns, draped a blue scarf over her shoulders, and stood before the mirror to apply perfume. Her face looked radiant....brighter than it had in recent days...and she seemed slimmer, almost fragile.
When she checked the time, it was already close to ten. She gathered her belongings and left her room, heading downstairs. She passed through the kitchen, greeting the two elderly staff members, giving instructions about what to cook, and listening to their reports about the house.
Then she headed toward her husband's part to inform him about the death before the car arrived.
As she walked through the corridor toward his living room, the edge of an air conditioner unit snagged her scarf. She turned and saw the fabric caught and slightly torn. She bent down to free it...and that was when she heard Haozhi's voice on the phone.
"From the day I saw that boy, Pan Zi, I decided I would do whatever it takes to convince Qiaoxi that he is dead. Why should our lives be disturbed and lose their stability because of a child who never cared about us? From what I saw, he looks fine...healthy, calm, living his life. So why should she torment herself over a son who doesn't even value her pain? Why should he live freely while we can't have peace because of him?"
That was all Qiaoxi heard before something inside her chest shattered...something old, something she had held together with patience, endurance, and countless reassurances for years.
And as it broke, a storm of thoughts flooded her mind.
Yibo?
He was talking about Yibo?
He had seen him?
He had seen him and never told her?
Not only did he hide it...he stood in front of her and told her that her son was dead?
What kind of man had she married?
What kind of man had she lived with all these years?
Why had she never truly known what was in his heart?
What kind of person was he...to feel no remorse for everything he had done, and instead try to deepen the damage?
After everything he had done to her, after letting her live with him all these years, he had looked her in the eyes and told her that her son was dead...when he wasn't.
Her chest tightened again.
Her breathing became labored.
Anger mixed with years of suppressed frustration surged through her.
All the things she had endured over the years flashed before her eyes...her patience, his temper, his punishments, his pride, his commands, his selfishness.
She had lived with him in shame, frustration, and tears, trapped in a marriage that had given her nothing she could proudly call happiness, even after bearing his children.
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
Without realizing it, she had already opened the door. All she knew was that her eyes found him...sitting with his phone pressed to his ear...then he stood up abruptly.
"Qiaoxi…"
His voice sounded like a question, a shock, a realization.
"You lied to me? You lied and told me he was dead?"
She shook her head.
"I never believed you. I told you I never believed you. I told you I never believed that he was dead!"
"Qiaoxi…"
He called her name again, but she shook her head, tears still flowing.
"What kind of man are you?
What kind of man are you, Haozhi?
What kind of man separates a mother from her child?
What kind of man has no conscience?
What kind of man are you, Haozhi?"
The pain in her chest exploded with a sudden intensity, like an electric shock.
Her vision blurred, her eyelids fluttered, and it felt as though the ground beneath her feet had disappeared.
Her strength gave out, and she collapsed to the floor.
"Qiaoxi!? Qiaoxi!"
She heard his voice from far away, as if he were calling her from underwater, as if it were a fading echo in a distant dream. Her breathing became uneven and strained, but her thoughts were no longer in the present. They were no longer on Haozhi.
Instead, she saw two little children, laughing brightly, their eyes sparkling...her children. A part of her, a part of her own body. One of them held onto her hand tightly. She looked into those eyes she had searched for endlessly, leaned down, and kissed his cheek. He laughed and tightened his grip on her hand, and she whispered his name softly.
"Yibo."
Her body began to tremble.
She felt herself drifting away.
Her last breath left her lips.
Then there was a heavy silence.
The world faded completely from her sight.
Dark, Silent.
✴✴✴
The sound of loud crying throughout the house drew Tao outside to the front gate, where cars were arriving one after another and people were pouring in. Some were already crying before they even stepped inside, their faces filled with grief as they came to pay their respects to Qiaoxi's family.
He found a spot beneath a tree near the gate and slowly sank down to sit.
All the noise around him faded away.
Only one thought repeated endlessly in his mind:
Mom is gone.
Mom is gone.
His eyes filled with tears as he watched the stream of men and women entering the house, the house that now held the body of the woman he had come to see as his second mother. Even though he had known from the beginning that she wasn't his biological mother, her kindness and gentleness had carved a place for her in his heart.
She had cared for them with sincerity, trust, and devotion...until his love for her became as deep as the love he felt for the woman who had given birth to him.
His chest tightened with a painful mix of grief and longing.
Where was he?
Would he come?
Would he come as he had hoped?
Could he really come?
He closed his eyes, remembering the moment he had called Yibo and forced the words out of his mouth:
"Mom is gone, Yibo… Mom just passed away."
His voice had broken, trembling as tears filled his eyes. He remembered Yibo's shocked voice...."WHAT!?"...before the line went silent. After that, he had ended the call and moved on to the next person on the list.
He hated himself for every call he had made, every person he had informed.
He buried his face in his hands, recalling how he had arrived to find Qiaoxi in Haozhi's arms, Haozhi shouting her name in panic, shaking her desperately.
If only he had come earlier.
If only he had arrived sooner and told her the truth he had carried for years....that Yibo had never forgotten her, that he had never forgotten any of them, that he had always been there for them in every way he could.
Maybe her heart wouldn't have failed her.
Maybe she wouldn't have died, as the doctors later explained.
He wiped his eyes again, his chest feeling heavy as stone. Slowly, he lifted his head.
And then he saw a car pull up among the others.
Before he could think, the door opened and a young man stepped out....tall, radiant, dressed in white. That was the first thing he noticed before he saw his face.
Yibo.
Yibo…
He came?
He really came?
In an instant, memories of Yibo flooded his mind...images of him as a child, moments from their youth, scenes that contrasted sharply with the mature, composed man standing before him now.
He closed his eyes and opened them again, watching Yibo from a distance.
Yibo shut the car door and looked toward the house. Tao saw everything written in his eyes at a glance...tension, grief, anger, exhaustion, confusion, inner conflict, and a deep, painful fracture in his soul.
The white clothes made Yibo stand out even more. Tao watched him walk around the car with slow, controlled steps, each movement carrying a quiet stiffness that revealed his emotional restraint.
Then, before Tao could process it fully, the door on the other side of the car opened.
Another young man stepped out slowly.
His face carried the same sorrow Tao had seen in Yibo's eyes.
Zhanxianyibo💚❤️💛