After I Lost My Memory, My Wife Started To Chase Me - Chapter 33.2

Chapter 33.2: Regret

“I will.”

The memory flashed again, returning to the day Weishu had her first period. Weishu seemed to mature in every way earlier than Beige. Beige was three years older but had only started her period recently.

“Am I going to die…” Weishu mumbled, squatting beside a yellow rosebush, clutching her stomach. “If I die, bury me under you. You have to bloom every year. I want Beige to water you, so I can see her every year.”

Beige appeared behind her, holding a watering can. She pulled Weishu up with a helpless look, put her on her back, and took her to Weishu’s mother.

Weishu’s mother laughed heartily and poked Weishu’s forehead. “My poor little thing, what are you thinking? Come on, let’s go to the bathroom.” Beige watched Weishu’s small figure disappear into the villa, her heart filled with a satisfaction she had never felt before.

The beautiful memories turned into fragments. The grand villa instantly became an abandoned old house, dilapidated everywhere with overgrown weeds.

“You can come find me. I’ll come back to Jincheng to find you after my college entrance exam.”

“I’ll wait for you.”

“You must wait for me.”

“I don’t want you to leave. Can I go with you?”

“No. I don’t want to leave either.”

“Then you have to remember to come back.”

“I’ll definitely come back.”

“…The whispers of a young girl were still in her ears. Who knew that everything would change?

…

When Beige walked out of the house, there was a pile of cigarette butts on the ground next to Zhou Shan.

“Xiaoge, why do you look so pale? Are you not feeling well?” Zhou Shan turned to look when he heard Beige’s footsteps and was startled.

Beige’s eyes were bloodshot, and her face was pale. She shook her head weakly. “I’m fine.”

She said to Zhou Shan, “Uncle, don’t spend the money on that card carelessly. I’ll give you a list of reliable investment firms. You can invest the money there and give Mom the interest you earn, telling her it’s money you made.”

Zhou Shan was stunned. He hadn’t thought of that. “What if she asks me what business I’m doing?”

Beige’s pale face was expressionless. “Just tell her you started a foundation with some people. She won’t understand these things. As long as she sees you’re making money, she’ll be happy.”

“Okay, I promise,” Zhou Shan said, then hesitated. “Xiaoge, are you really okay?”

Beige didn’t say anything. Zhou Shan cautiously spoke, “Is it… because of what I told you the other day?” Although he wasn’t very clever, he could tell how important that girl from that night was to Beige. He had always favored Beige a little more than his sister, perhaps because they grew up together. Seeing her like this, he regretted saying anything.

“It has nothing to do with you, Uncle. I’m really grateful that you still remembered,” Beige said quietly. She looked like a branch in late autumn, withered and about to fall. “Don’t mention this to Mom. Just pretend you never said anything.”

With that, Beige walked past him and left.

Two hours later, in Beige’s office at Kuangye Company. “Auntie Chen, do you have some time? I’d like to talk to you about Xiaoshu.”

Beige called Chen Xiaojian and explained her purpose. Chen Xiaojian seemed to be playing mahjong. Someone called for her to play a card. The background noise was chaotic. Chen Xiaojian put the phone to her ear and said, “Talk later,” then hung up. Beige put down her phone and stared blankly at a spot in the air.

About ten minutes later, Chen Xiaojian called her back. When she answered, the background was silent.

“Alright, what do you want to talk about?” Chen Xiaojian’s tone was cold and to the point.

Beige sat in front of the French window, showing no emotion, as if she were talking about a perfectly ordinary little thing. “Back then, when Weishu was missing, she came to find me.”

The voice on the other end of the line stopped. A few seconds later, a disbelieving voice came through. “What?”

“Please, Auntie, tell me what happened back then.” Beige’s tone was low and slow. She wasn’t aggressive, but the person listening felt an overwhelming heaviness, their heart sinking. It felt as if saying those words took a tremendous amount of effort for Beige, and the answer was incredibly important to her.

Chen Xiaojian didn’t have time to process her feelings. She quickly asked, “You first. Xiaoshu came to you? When? What did she say? Where did she go after she looked for you?”

“I wasn’t home at the time. My mother met with her,” Beige said, lowering her eyes. It was as if she were split in two. One half was being fried in boiling oil, and the other was in an ice cellar. “My mother can’t remember the details. I only know that Xiaoshu came to me to borrow some money.”

After hearing her, Chen Xiaojian’s mind worked for a moment. Her voice was cold. “I understand. Your mother turned her away, and then Xiaoshu left.”

Beige closed her eyes. Her eyelids felt heavy, and she didn’t open them for a long time.

“You really are a great family,” Chen Xiaojian’s tongue was sharp, even more so than Zhou Wei’s. “A country bumpkin who followed Xiaoshu around all day, getting free food, drinks, and school. Your mother was nothing but a maid back then. She had to bow and scrape to us. Xiaoshu was better to you than to us. She always thought of you and depended on you, body and soul. Your tuition for those three years was paid for by Xiaoshu’s own red envelope money. Without her, you wouldn’t have been able to finish school even if you got in. But your mother drove her away when she was at her most desperate. How can people like you, who take advantage of others and then act self-righteous, be so shameless and so relentless!”

Beige let her yell. No matter how ugly the words were, she didn’t talk back. Only when Chen Xiaojian became more agitated and was about to hang up did she finally speak. “Auntie, Xiaoshu’s not doing well recently.”

Chen Xiaojian instantly stopped. Beige opened her bloodshot eyes and stared blankly at the ceiling. “She’s having nightmares and has something on her mind. She drinks, and when she gets drunk, she hugs me and cries. I can’t get anything out of her, no matter how much I ask.”

There was no sound on Chen Xiaojian’s end, but she hadn’t hung up. She was clearly listening to Beige.

“When you found her, was she like this?” Beige’s eyes were red, as if dripping bl00d. “I’m afraid she’ll remember the bad memories. She’s a blank slate now. Memory is a slow recovery process. I really hope she only remembers the good memories from her past and never remembers that dark time.”

Chen Xiaojian’s breathing became heavier. “What do you want to know?”

Beige said with great difficulty, “I want to know what happened back then.”

Even after losing her memory, Weishu’s first love was still Beige. Chen Xiaojian had tried many times to get Weishu to move in with her, but she was always rejected. From childhood to adulthood, she had seen clearly that Weishu truly loved Beige. Only with Beige could she live a good life.

Chen Xiaojian was silent for a long time this time. She finally spoke slowly. She also felt a sense of powerlessness. “I don’t know much. When the Wei family went bankrupt, there were huge debts with no one to pay them. The desperate creditors wanted to die with the Wei family. Xiaoshu’s father was afraid of implicating his family, so he committed suicide by laying on the train tracks. Xiaoshu’s mother went crazy when she heard the news. When she went mad, she took Xiaoshu when no one was looking. We looked for them for over a year and finally found her on a small boat. Xiaoshu was sitting next to her mother’s cold, stiff body, her face expressionless. She didn’t recognize anyone.”

“I don’t know what Xiaoshu went through during those missing days. When she came back, she had severe autism. If you hadn’t hit your head on the stairs, she wouldn’t have even spoken.”

Beige’s breathing became more and more difficult. The words were like sharp snowflakes, one by one, drilling into her ears, filling her head, squeezing out her breath, and suffocating all her senses.

Chen Xiaojian sighed. She felt sorry for Weishu. “Such a good child, and she couldn’t even speak. It really breaks my heart.”

Beige’s senses, which had been blocked and taken away, slowly returned. She said a very small “thank you” and then hung up the phone.

It turned out that Weishu’s rejection of her had a complete and necessary reason. She wasn’t just in a bad mood or suffering from a setback. She was cold to her because she didn’t want to see her.

When she needed her the most, when she had hoped and hoped and showed up at her door, what she got in return was Zhou Wei’s expulsion and deception. Zhou Wei told Weishu that Beige didn’t want to see her. Zhou Wei took her phone and deleted all the messages from Weishu, and blocked Weishu’s number.

From Jincheng to Yucheng, with only a mad mother beside her, she braved the winds and frost. She followed the note Beige gave her, finding her address street by street. When she rang the doorbell, full of hope, what was she thinking? When she was told that Beige didn’t want to see her, what was Weishu thinking? During those days of wandering and not even being able to live, Weishu held her phone, dialing a number that was always busy. The weather was cold, and her stomach was empty. What was she thinking then?

Beige had broken her promise. She had forgotten her vow. She came too late. All the mistakes had already been made, all the damage had already been done. She didn’t help Weishu when she was at her lowest. She didn’t save her from her despair. What’s worse, she might have given Weishu the deepest despair, crushing her last bit of hope.

For all these years, she had been kept in the dark, like a bystander who had nothing to do with it, standing outside Weishu’s suffering, playing the part of the devoted and innocent one. Little did she know that much of that suffering was a gift from her. Everything she had done all these years was a show, so hypocritical and disgusting that it was nauseating.

Beige took a long, deep breath, then bent over and clutched her stomach, coughing as if the world were falling apart. Her throat was filled with the metallic taste of bl00d. Her chest spasmed from lack of oxygen. Beige curled up on the ground and finally couldn’t hold back her tears.

She cried and laughed, tears mixing with laughter. Regret, self-blame, heartache, pity, and guilt were all mashed into shattered salt, which was then poured onto her bleeding heart.

There was nothing more terrifying than a guilty person knowing the truth.

“Why didn’t you tell me? How could you not tell me anything…”