Strung across the night sky, covering the stars were blankets of rolling grey clouds. A silhouette of the moon could be seen, lighting up the paths of lost wanderers. Distorting the light was the ominous rain pelting onto the cement ground, drenching the city of Shenbei. The breeze was damp and wet, howling a whistling tone. Thunder turned the clouds into a white, pearly color.
Yang Feng was undisturbed by the storm roaring outside of the hospital windows. He was lost in a maze of his jumbled thoughts. Staring out the window, the bright flash ominously lit up his face. A shadow curved the outline of his sharp, prominent features.
Yang Feng was stuck in a crossroad of truths and deceptions. To tell her, or not to tell her. She had a right to know the truth, but was she ready for it?
While he was drowning in his thoughts, a woman stirred in the bed. It started with the twitching of her long, pale fingers and then the creasing of her soft brows. Her eyes fluttered, slowly peeling open in confusion. Her chin tilted to the side. She attempted to access her surroundings through a blurry vision.
Zhao Lifei weakly lifted her hand and grasped her neck. She wanted to soothe her dry throat and parched lips. Moving as slow as time, she tried to sit up.
The rustle of her blankets snapped Yang Feng out of his thoughts. It was a rope that yanked him out of the pool of indecisiveness. He whirled around, his eyes widening. Struggling and shaking was the woman haunting his dreams for three consecutive nights. She was finally awake. He wasted no time to cross the distance between them.
"W-what—" She was cut off when he engulfed her in a bone-crushing hug. His strong arms crashed her on his body, slightly lifting her off of the bed.
He buried his head onto her shoulders and held her like she was the only thing that mattered to him. She might as well have been, for her scent was the air that filled his lungs and her laughter was the beat of his heart.
Zhao Lifei could feel his desperation through the hug. Her eyes softened, turning moist when he clenched her. She wanted to give this big teddy bear a giant pat on the back and tell him all was well but she could not move a limb. His arms had an iron grip caging her to him.
Yang Feng only pulled back to lean his head against the side of her head, his eyes squeezed shut.
"You big baby." She weakly said to him. Even after waking up from a four-day coma, she still had the energy to make fun of him. It was her way of showing her affection towards him.
Yang Feng let out a burst of relieved laughter, choked with emotions. "How about you give me a big baby to accompany me?"
"I just woke up and you want kids already?" Zhao Lifei wryly said. She turned her face and kissed the side of his head. "You can let me go now."
"No."
She groaned in pain when he abruptly lowered them onto the bed, squishing her into the plush mattress. "Why not?"
"Because you might disappear if I do."
Her heart melted, like the last droplet of snow which marked the beginning of Spring. She could die happy right here, but she kept that thought to herself. If she joked about death at this moment, she knew she would break his heart to pieces. "Idiot. That will not happen."
"It happened in my nightmare."
Okay, so her heart broke. Just a bit. That was a lie. It shattered. She wanted to clutch her aching heart and give him a hug, reassuring him that she was real. "Well, this is reality. Something like that will never happen."
"You said that in my nightmare too." Yang Feng breathed out, his heart dropping with her words. Was this another dream? Will he wake up soon and discover she was still unresponsive? He braced himself for the pain.
"Well, what did I not say in your nightmares?" She asked him, wriggling in his arms, asking for some sort of release. She let out a tiny sigh when he loosened the hold enough for her to pull her arms out.
One of her hands caressed his powerful, rippling back. His muscles clenched under her gentle fingertips. His heart skipped a beat when she began to rub her hand from the top of his spine to the bottom. The other hand immersed itself into his silky locks of midnight-colored hair. Bit by bit, she was able to soothe the statue in her arms, turning the tense body into a human yet again. Well, as human as this robot could get.
"You didn't say you would spend all of the money in our bank account." He slyly told her. "You can reassure me first by saying you will finally touch the money I earned for you."
Zhao Lifei laughed. She suppressed the desire to yank his hair. What a crafty husband she had…"Then I must bring myself to tell you and believe me, it hurts me to say this, but this is just another nightmare."
Yang Feng didn't like her response. He roughly nipped her ears, causing her body to jolt out of surprise. "What's wrong with spending my money?" He grumbled. She yanked his hair out of retaliation. It didn't hurt him. Nonetheless, for her sake, he let out a monotoned, "Ow."
She laughed at his boring response to her attack. A robot had more life than him. "Because I didn't earn it, I don't want to waste it."
"I earned it for you."
"Is that so, Fengfeng?"
Yang Feng's body tensed at her words. He pulled back, supporting himself with his arms as he hovered over her body. She had a tiny smile on her face, the very one that drove him insane with love.
Zhao Lifei brought her hands behind his neck and in a small voice, she whispered, "I-I saw something when I was asleep." Remembered would be a better term, but she was unsure about the word. She didn't know if it was a memory of the past or something her delusional brain made up.
"What did you see?" He anxiously asked her, his heart drumming with anticipation. She looped her hands together.
"A little version of me running through a garden with a teacup in hand. The garden was very beautiful and it reminded me of the one I saw in Qinqin's house...which happens to be your previous house as well."
Zhao Lifei saw his eyes flicker with recognition. So it was a memory after all. But how was this possible? For all of her life, her childhood was a blur to her. She could not remember a thing but the resentment her parents had for her.
Whenever she tried to think of the things that happened as a kid, she felt like her conscious was submerged underwater. The voices were distorted and the words were hard to decipher. Faces and appearances were muddled and she could not make out a single person. There were times when she would get a mind-boggling headaches if she tried to think of the past. After a while, she stopped trying.
"And did she fall?" Yang Feng's voice was placid and mild. It concealed the turmoil inside of his head.
"Yes, she did! How did you know?" Zhao Lifei astonishingly said. "Wait, that's a dumb question because you were also there… Sitting in a chair, reading a book. I was always bad at running, so I would fall a lot." Her heart sped up. "Y-you were in my memory. A mini version of you helped me get back on my feet and then wiped away my tears, scolding me for crying over something so stupid." She pushed him off of her, sitting up on the bed with his help.
She turned towards him with a torn expression. "How...How is that possible? Why were you in the memories of my childhood? D-did we know each other before our first encounter in the hospital?" She was in a rush to voice her thoughts and tripped over a few words.
Yang Feng knew that this conversation would happen one day. He just never thought it would be so soon. What else did she remember? He cupped her face, his thumb drawing circles upon her soft, creamy cheek. In an impassive voice, he whispered, "Yes, we did."