“You—you…”
“Why did you kiss me!”
And you kissed me so hard, it feels like you left your lip print on my face.
I was angry and embarrassed, and my words came out all jumbled.
But I wasn't angry at all. If anything, I felt like I'd come out ahead.
Why was that? It was strange.
Maybe... because he was handsome.
6
Ngạn Cận had very masculine features. He was six-foot-two, and he worked out regularly, giving him the air of one of those Hong Kong action stars from the nineties.
Actually, during those two years I worked part-time for him, I'd secretly had a crush on him.
“Are you still mad?”
The man sat obediently by the bed. Seeing me secretly smile, he asked cautiously,
I pretended to huff. “Of course. Who said you could make a move on me?”
Then I leaned my right cheek toward him:
“Unless you kiss me one more time.”
A man practically throwing himself at me—I'd be a fool to pass that up.
That night, I slept like a log. Our relationship had taken a huge leap forward.
Although we'd sometimes had to share a bed to fool his parents before, most of the time we'd been forced into it.
I remembered the first time I shared a bed with Ngạn Cận, last winter. His parents kept calling me their good daughter-in-law and probing us from every angle to find out whether our feelings for each other were real.
So I could get next month's paycheck without a hitch, that night I gritted my teeth and pushed open the door to Ngạn Cận's bedroom.
“Um, your mom isn't leaving until tomorrow, so we should keep up the act.”
I mumbled an explanation, but as soon as I looked up, I saw him taking off his shirt. His body was covered in scars, and I was so startled I almost forgot to control my expression.
Ngạn Cận didn't seem bothered. His tone was as indifferent as ever:
“All right. I just changed the sheets today. Have you showered? If you have, go to sleep first. I'll come in later.”
“These are all old injuries. I got them boxing when I was young.”
Before I could react, he added,
The man had a bottle of iodine in his hand. Looking up, I saw a fresh, gleaming wound amid his colorful tattoos.
It looked like he'd been stabbed with a piece of broken glass.
Probably someone had caused trouble at the bar again one night.
I saw him cross his arms, unable to reach the wound no matter what he tried. My heart softened, and I stepped over and snatched the bottle of medicine from him:
“Let me help you.”
“Thank you.”
That night, we lay in the same bed, both of us stiff as corpses. It felt as if an invisible electric fence stood between us, and neither of us dared cross the line.
Sometime after midnight, my feet were so cold I couldn't sleep. But I couldn't bring myself to open my eyes, so I groggily stretched my legs beneath the other blanket.
“Mm.”
The man let out a soft groan, then unexpectedly grabbed the soles of my feet in his large hands.
“Why are they so cold?” His low voice gave no hint of how he felt.
I jolted awake and realized who the man beside me was. My heart went half-cold.
Although he was always polite to me, he was still the notoriously ruthless Ngạn Cận.
What if he suddenly turned on me? Wouldn't I become his punching bag?
“I-I'm sorry. I fell asleep. I'm sorry—I won't do it again.”
“No, wait. I'll never share a bed with you again.”
After saying that, I pulled my feet back, only to realize he was still holding them tightly and had no intention of letting go.
A little while later, the man shared half his blanket with me and rubbed my feet with his warm hands.
“If you're cold, why didn't you tell me? They'll warm up if I hold them for a while.”
The night was silent. I couldn't make out his face.
But my heart was beating faster and faster, and a voice sounded in my ear:
“Maybe pretending this is real wouldn't be so bad?”
But afterward, we went back to being polite partners, Party A and Party B.
7
During the few days Ngạn Cận had amnesia, I asked him if he remembered when we first met.
He blurted out, “December 30, six years ago.”
What a joke. Six years ago, I was a sophomore in college. I hadn't even met him yet.
Sure enough, his memories were jumbled, and he'd mistaken me for someone else.
I looked at Ngạn Cận, kneeling in front of me and begging me to go out with him to celebrate our anniversary, and my throat tightened.
If only I were just Party A. If only I didn't care at all.
But why was I starting to care?
I was furious. Once he got his memory back, I was going to squeeze more money out of him as compensation for my emotional distress.
At first, I thought he was taking me out just to eat, stroll around, and go on and on about his love story with his first love—something I had no interest in hearing.
But instead, he changed our route and said he had a surprise for me, then pulled up in front of an upscale bridal shop.
Ngạn Cận took me by the hand and led me inside.
“Bring out the wedding dress I ordered last month—the one with the diamonds.”
I looked at Ngạn Cận in the mirror and noticed his suit was unusually crisp today.
So the anniversary he wanted to celebrate was an excuse to have me take wedding photos with him.
That made sense. In our two years of fake marriage, we hadn't taken a single decent wedding photo. After all, I was only a fake.
It wasn't until I put on the sparkling white wedding dress that I understood why girls always wanted one. It was truly beautiful.
Ngạn Cận picked up the veil and gently laid it over my hair.
I saw the light in his eyes, and my own eyes reddened.
Who said he could look at my face and think of his first love? The contract never said I had to take wedding photos with him.
“Is it pretty?” I asked softly.
“Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.”
Ngạn Cận pressed his lips to mine through the thin fabric.
All right, then. As long as he thought I was beautiful.
Besides, once he remembered everything, he would be the one to regret it—not me.
At the photographer’s direction, I curled my lips into a bright, natural smile and nestled against Ngạn Cận, as if we really had been a loving married couple for two years.
A whole wedding album, along with a large wedding portrait that he hung in the most prominent spot in the first-floor living room.
“Isn’t this a little too showy?”
I poked Ngạn Cận in the arm. “It’s like you suddenly acquired a wife.”
Besides, this wife was supposed to divorce him.
“You call this showy? I was thinking, maybe we should have the wedding all over again. I can barely remember what our wedding was like.”
The corner of my mouth twitched. I made up some excuse to change the subject.
Of course. We never had a wedding in the first place. No wonder he couldn’t remember it.
8
Although Ngạn Cận had lost his memory,
Aside from his doctor, me, and a few housekeepers, no one else knew about it.
So he kept to his usual routine, attending meetings at the company during the day and occasionally stopping by the bar at night to keep an eye on things.
I’d never understood why, when he was already so rich, he still ran that troublemaking bar.
Taking advantage of the fact that he was confused about his memories of me, I asked him outright.
“Because this bar is where I boxed when I was nineteen. I was broke back then, and boxing here was my only way to survive. Later, when the owner passed away, I took over.”
I’d thought he boxed as a hobby. Turns out it had been how he survived.
But in less than ten years, Ngạn Cận had built a successful business from scratch and become a self-made heir to a fortune.
But where had his parents been back then?
Where were they when he couldn’t afford to stay in school?
Now that Ngạn Cận was doing better and better, the old couple kept showing up all the time, pretending to check whether their son was doing an honest day’s work.
Good grief. How disgusting.
I suddenly felt that the kind old woman who called me her good daughter-in-law wasn’t so kind after all.
After that, I looked at Ngạn Cận with a hint of pity.
One day at lunch, the man suddenly looked up and caught me staring at him.
He suddenly asked,
“You’ve been acting strange lately.”
My chopsticks paused midair. “How so?”
“You look at me the way you looked at that stray dog we saw the other day.”
Ngạn Cận set down his chopsticks, pulled my chair closer to him, and asked me seriously,
“Be honest. Are you looking down on me?”
I felt a little helpless. With a sigh, I reached over and patted his thick, dark hair.
“Just eat your food, you dummy.”
9
Three months had passed since Ngạn Cận lost his memory, and I sneaked off to the hospital alone again.
His doctor put on his glasses, went over Ngạn Cận’s medical records several times, and finally suggested I consult a psychiatrist.
Sure enough, I found the answer in the psychiatry department:
“His case is very rare. If he only has the wrong memories about you, that means your current identity has caused him great pain in the past, so he can’t forget you.”
“The brain’s defense mechanisms automatically erase certain painful memories…”
I nodded to show I understood.
“So he went through a tragic, heartbreaking romance, and after losing his memory, he mistook me—his fake wife—for her, right?”
When I left the hospital, rain suddenly came pouring down outside.
I took my umbrella out of my bag, but when I opened it, I saw that one of the ribs was broken.
I held out my hand to catch a raindrop, and my mood sank with it.
I was just about to plunge into the downpour without a second thought.
A man’s anxious voice called out from a distance:
“Thời Ngọc, don’t move!”
Ngạn Cận hurried toward me with a black umbrella. As he came closer, I saw that his white shirt was almost completely soaked.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to the hospital? Aren’t I your husband?”
The man’s tone was far from pleasant. He frowned, looking rather fierce.
What do you mean, your husband? Of course you’re not my husband.
I bit my lip as an inexplicable sense of grievance welled up inside me.
“That’s right, you’re not!”
In the end, I couldn’t hold back my feelings and shouted.
It seemed I still didn’t love money enough.