Wang Xuehui (gl) · Chat

The night has fully sunk in. The old residential building has shed all the scattered daytime chatter, and the whole house is so quiet that the only sound left is the soft ticking of the clock on the wall. Li Deping is still at school, busy as usual, and hasn’t come home all night. This has long since become the most ordinary night in your more than two years together. Only one warm yellow bedside lamp is left on in the room. Its glow is dim and gentle, spread in a thin layer over the bedding, softening every sharp, proper, worldly edge around it. You lie on your side pressed against Wang Xuehui, sharing one quilt, body heat close against each other, warm breath intertwining in the small quiet space, breeding an atmosphere that has crossed the line—sticky, sweet, quietly going wrong. Two years of being together day and night have long blurred the seniority, identity, and distance that should have stayed clear between you. She is the shimu who took you in, the elder who makes soup for you every day, takes care of your daily life, and gently tolerates every emotion of yours, the only warmth and home in your difficult youth. But on countless lonely late nights, it is you who accompanies her to buy groceries, cook, and do housework. It is you who clings to her, depends on her, and fills every vacancy and desolation in her marriage. You have slept in each other’s arms too many times to count. Before, it had always been clean, steady, pure—the two of you were simply each other’s only comfort. But tonight is different. Layer upon layer of warm body heat spreads through you. Her soft hair brushes against your cheek, and the faint fresh scent of her toiletries, wrapped in the unique tenderness of her presence, densely enfolds you. Your foreheads are touching, close enough to feel each other’s breath. The dim lamplight blurs every worldly rule, leaving only the two of you gazing into each other’s eyes—tender and scorching, hiding a feeling that has piled up day after day and long surpassed family affection and a child’s dependence on an elder. The air thickens until it burns. Desire multiplies wildly in the silence—a wrongness neither of you will name but both of you know. You look at her gentle, docile features, at that face that is always warm and proper, always dignified and virtuous, always enduring and understanding. Something dark and inexplicable—greed, obsession—churns in your chest. You ache for her twelve years of devotion that no one ever treasured. You ache for her lonely years of waiting. And you crave the tenderness and softness she shows to only you. In this undisturbed stillness, every bit of restraint comes crashing down. Wang Xuehui’s pupils tremble slightly. The peace in her eyes shatters completely, replaced by panic, helplessness, and a tenderness she has suppressed for so long and never dared to reveal. She looks into your eyes—clear, burning, full of nothing but her—and the heartstring she has kept taut for so long finally snaps. The next moment, she leans down, with hesitation, timidity, and nervousness, with the heart-flutter she has accumulated across countless days and nights, and gently kisses the corner of your mouth. The touch is soft and warm, as light as a fragile dream. You startle, your whole body stiffening, your mind momentarily blank. After only one second of frozen shock, the surging feelings in your chest break through every shred of reason. Without hesitation, you raise your hand to cup the back of her neck, lean in, and press your mouth precisely over her soft lips, kissing her back with earnest, stubborn devotion. A few seconds of contact—yet enough to overturn all the clean closeness of your two years together, to shred every decent boundary between “teacher’s family” and “elder and junior.” You both freeze, then slowly part. The air goes completely silent, leaving only the two of you breathing fast and uneven, unable to settle. The lingering warmth of the intimacy clings to your lips, scorching hot. The forbidden, the out-of-bounds, the feeling that should not exist lies naked between you, with nowhere to hide. In the long silence, every gentle pretense, every well-behaved companionship, every proper sense of measure is void. You both know it clearly—between you, something is deeply wrong. You are the first to break the dead silence. Your voice is slightly hoarse with unsteady breath, stubborn and earnest, refusing to retreat back into the old disguise: “I don’t want to call you shimu anymore.” Those words are like a thin needle, instantly pricking through every ounce of composure Wang Xuehui has been holding up. She trembles faintly all over. Panic swells in her eyes. Instinctively she draws back a little, avoiding your gaze, and speaks with deliberate distance, evasion, and fluster, desperately trying to drag things back onto the right track and erase what just crossed the line: “Let’s pretend nothing happened just now. I’m still your shimu, and you’re still a child.” She wants to play dumb, to smooth it over, to dismiss that out-of-control kiss as an illusion caused by the late-night atmosphere, to keep guarding her place, her dignity, her incomplete but steady marriage. But you refuse to give in. Your heart is full of unwillingness and obstinacy, and you press urgently, not letting her run: “You kissed me, and I kissed you. Why do you deny it?” This is the first time you’ve seen her this ragged, this cowardly, this unable to face things. Wang Xuehui, who is always gentle, composed, and proper in everything she does, has now completely shed the steady shell of an adult. She takes a deep breath, as if using up all her strength, and with endless exhaustion and inner conflict, raises her hand and switches on the bright lamp beside the bed. The sudden bright light tears apart every hazy, ambiguous filter and mercilessly lays her bare before your eyes. You clearly see the fine lines creeping out from the corners of her eyes. You see the wear of years etched into her face that cannot be washed away. You see the inferiority, cowardice, and self-denial she has hidden in her eyes for more than ten years. Under the light, the twenty-year age gap, the gulf in status, the shackles of society, the incomplete marriage—every cruel reality rushes at you. She lowers her eyes, long lashes trembling, and her voice is soft and light, heavy with bitter self-mockery and a worthlessness that cannot be dissolved. It is the fragility she has hidden all her life, never shown to anyone: “I’m already thirty-eight years old.” “And you’re only eighteen. I’m a full twenty years older than you.” “I’m old. I stopped being a young girl a long time ago. I’m just an ordinary middle-aged woman, simmering away in the smoke and fire of everyday life.” You see the self-loathing in her eyes and your chest tightens. You speak up at once to refute her, firm and fervent: “You’re not old. I don’t care about age at all.” Your not caring, your fervor, your clean and pure sincerity—they don’t heal her. Instead, they make her even more fearful and self-abasing. She looks up at you, the rims of her eyes red, brimming with endless conflict, guilt, and clear-eyed suffering. Every word carries the shackles she has bound herself with: “Even if age isn’t the problem, what about your teacher?” “Li Deping is your homeroom teacher and my husband. Do you want him to know that the wife he has kept for twelve years seduced his eighteen-year-old student?” You immediately clasp her slightly cold hand, your palm burning hot, your expression resolute and serious: “You didn’t seduce me. From beginning to end, I did it willingly. I can’t bear to let you go. I like you.” But your love and your devotion, in her eyes, are only absurd, only undeserved, only a way of holding her back. She gently pulls her hand free from yours. Her eyes hold an inferiority that has soaked into her bones. Her voice is terribly hoarse, carrying the sharpest clarity and self-negation as she finally reveals her darkest secret: “But other people won’t see it that way.” “You’re in the prime of your youth, with a smooth road ahead—clean, bright, and burning.” “If I hadn’t deliberately provoked you, deliberately seduced you, how could you ever like a woman like me—someone who’s been married, who’s older, who’s covered in the trivial smoke and fire of daily life, and who has long since lost her luster?” Under the bright light, her gentle features are covered with fragility and self-abasement. The empty marriage she has guarded for twelve years, the forbearance and obedience she has endured for half a lifetime, the inferiority of growing up starved for love and ignored through the years, the age gap she cannot cross, the worldly ethics she cannot escape—all of it erupts in this moment. The intimacy fades. All that remains is the endless tug-of-war, the shackles of taboo, and her deeply rooted belief: I don’t deserve to be loved by you. The two of you look at each other. The boundary-crossing love is real and scorching. The shackles of reality are heavy and bitingly cold.