Emergence - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

It was an exceptionally bizarre feeling, one that Lin Yi found utterly absurd. The entire three years—from meeting and getting to know Zhang Yucheng to marrying him and having a daughter, three years of suffering—had instantly vanished like a phantom, making her doubt if it had ever been real. But if it wasn't real, how could she have been tormented to this point, her heart filled with an unspeakable bitterness?

She had thought her silent endurance, her tolerance and forbearance, were all for the sake of maintaining a normal family. She believed that one day, her husband would tire of those so-called cheap women outside and return to his family, that he would eventually settle down and remember her, his proper wife. Now that they had a child, she thought he would surely understand the feelings of being a parent and finally change his wicked ways. She had thought her enemies were women just like her, and in the battle to protect a marriage, a woman's fighting spirit was inexhaustible. She had been full of fighting spirit, confident she could win.

But all of it was just her own laughable assumption. Her enemy wasn't a woman, but a man. How was she supposed to fight that? It left her completely at a loss.

She returned home in a daze. The child was crying and fussing again, but Lin Yi seemed to have lost her soul, sitting woodenly on the sofa. The image of her husband kissing another man replayed in her mind, and a sudden chill rose from the depths of her soul, making her tremble all over. Remembering the filthy STD her husband had given her, she felt a nausea that came from her very core. The disgust was so intense it sent her rushing to the bathroom, where she clung to the toilet and vomited until only stomach acid was left.

Why a homosexual? Why is it so disgusting?

Lin Yi wasn't entirely ignorant about homosexuality. In this society, even if she didn't like it, she had come across it to some extent. She understood terms like "being gay," "gay best friends," and "lesbian," and had even used them casually in jokes without a second thought. Moreover, she had studied abroad in the UK and had met a few real gay couples.

She even knew that a girl had once had a crush on her. That girl still remained in her memory. They had been very close, but then they gradually drifted apart, and in the end, the girl never confessed her feelings. Even now, when she thought of that girl, her feelings were still a complicated mix.

Although she didn't discriminate against homosexuals, she wasn't particularly interested either; she just felt it had nothing to do with her. She herself was a completely straight woman and had never imagined that her life would one day intersect with homosexuality. No, "intersect" was too light a word to describe it. Her life had been completely destroyed by a homosexual.

Now, she had begun to loathe those three words from the bottom of her heart. Why did such people exist in this world? What was the purpose of their existence? Was it to torture people like me?

In the short span of two days, Lin Yi lost interest in almost everything. She even felt she couldn't face her own daughter. Once, her daughter had been her only spiritual support, her precious darling. It didn't matter if her father didn't love her. But now, the moment she saw the little one crying, she was reminded of those humiliating nights when she was pressed beneath a homosexual, which ultimately led to the creation of this child. She was disgusted, disgusted to her very soul.

If you're a homosexual, why did you have to involve me? Marriage, having a child—was that your goal? You lied to me! You lied to me so cruelly! Lin Yi was filled with a bone-deep hatred. She wanted to grab a knife and hack Zhang Yucheng to pieces. The thought spun in her mind countless times. She even found herself pacing in the kitchen with a knife while cooking, like a cornered beast pushed to its limit.

She wanted a divorce. She had to get a divorce. She couldn't stand being tied to this homosexual for another day; she couldn't stand the deception and lies that had been there from the very beginning. The expressions of her parents-in-law, her husband's evasiveness—the reasons for everything were now clear. They were a pack of thorough liars, the enemies she hated most in her life!

That night, when Zhang Yucheng came home, Lin Yi was waiting for him at the door. The look on her face was that of an avenger suppressing a world of hatred. They faced off in the living room. He knew that she must now know everything she needed to know.

Their terse conversation escalated into an argument. Lin Yi was still relatively lucid, suppressing her rage, her breathing hot and heavy. With his secret exposed, Zhang Yucheng, conversely, became like a furious lion. Lin Yi grew strangely calmer, but her words became increasingly sarcastic and harsh. Zhang Yucheng paced back and forth, his anxiety and agitation, combined with his fury at Lin Yi's insults, causing him to lose his usual detached demeanor.

"If you're gay, why did you have to get involved with me?"

"You think I wanted to? I had no choice! My parents wouldn't accept me coming out. My mother threatened to kill herself to force me, force me to marry a woman, force me to have a child. You think I wanted this? Do you have any idea how much pain I'm in?!"

Ha! How laughable. How much pain are you in? When you were deceiving me, when you were infecting me with a disease, did you know that my pain was a thousand times greater than yours? Lin Yi found it all too absurd and ridiculous. The main culprit who had brought her to this point was now pitifully trying to win her sympathy?

Lin Yi remembered dozing off during her nap that afternoon and vaguely hearing Zhang Yucheng and her mother-in-law talking in the study. It must have been about forcing him to have a child. Hahaha, she had been so thoroughly deceived. All she could do was laugh at it all, a crazed, wild laugh.

"I don't understand. Of course I don't. I only understand one thing: you are all liars, despicable liars!" Lin Yi gritted her teeth, her expression terrifying.

Zhang Yucheng anxiously ran his hands through his short hair and roared in fury:

"Liars! Yes, we lied to you! Blame society! Blame the fact that we can't have our own legitimate marriage and love in this society! I don't fucking like women at all, yet I'm forced to sleep with one! I'm a gay man, but who the hell did I ever bother? Why was I forced into this situation?! Look at you, look at your expression right now! You're all monsters who eat people without spitting out the bones! You discriminate against homosexuals, you persecute homosexuals, and now you won't even allow us to harm you in return?!" He panted heavily, pacing back and forth in the living room, his whole body trembling with rage. The baby, woken by their violent argument, began to wail, creating an even more unbearable background noise.

"I want to divorce you, you pervert…" Lin Yi said in a tone that was cold to the extreme.

Zhang Yucheng flew into a rage and sent Lin Yi sprawling to the floor with a slap.

"You bitch! Who are you calling a pervert?! Divorce? Fine, just you wait!"

With that, he slammed the door and left.

The next day, her parents-in-law came over, and all pretenses were dropped. The house, the car—all of it belonged to Zhang Yucheng. When Lin Yi had married into the family, she hadn't brought much of a dowry. Most of the household expenses were covered by Zhang Yucheng's assets; he was the family's financial pillar. Lin Yi's meager salary wasn't even enough to support herself and the child. As such, if they were to divorce, it was obvious the Zhang family had a massive advantage. They wanted the child, and Lin Yi would be kicked out with nothing. How could she agree to that? No matter what, she had to have her child. This was her own flesh and blood, a piece of her own body. How could they be separated just like that?

They couldn't agree on the terms, making a settlement impossible. The only option was to go to court, but Lin Yi's chances of winning were slim. The only card she could play was an emotional one—the child was too young to be without its mother, a factor the court would consider. But the Zhang family was wealthy and influential, so even that wasn't a sure thing. Moreover, given Lin Yi's current physical and mental state, it would be easy for the court to see that she was unfit to raise a child alone.

Her parents-in-law played good cop, bad cop, a truly outstanding performance. Her mother-in-law attacked Lin Yi directly without a second thought, while her father-in-law stood to the side, reasoning with her and analyzing the pros and cons. By the end, the performance had changed its tune, becoming a play to persuade Lin Yi not to divorce and to just continue living her life as it was.

No matter what, Lin Yi was still a woman not yet thirty. Her social standing was unstable, and she wasn't yet worldly-wise enough to contend with her parents-in-law. She knew that if she divorced, she might lose her child, lose everything. Waves of despair washed over her, becoming more than she could bear.

That night, she felt her heart palpitate. Her chest was tight, she was short of breath, and she fainted at home. She was eventually discovered by a neighbor who couldn't stand the sound of the baby crying any longer and was taken to the hospital. Her mother rushed to see her. Seeing her so haggard, her mother, who had long suspected something was wrong, pressed her to reveal what had happened. Lin Yi could no longer hold it together and told her mother everything. Her mother, nearly sixty, could barely handle the shock. She clutched her chest, in so much pain that she couldn't even cry.

What a sin. To have lived this long only to bring such a calamity upon her own daughter. If her husband found out, he would probably die of anger. It was she who had introduced Zhang Yucheng to Lin Yi, thinking he was such a fine young man, a wonderful son-in-law. But you can know a person's face without knowing their heart. This family's hearts were black. Lin Yi's mother trembled with rage, seeming to age ten years overnight.

But her mother was, after all, from an older generation and understood the stakes. That very night, she took the child back to her own home. After Lin Yi was discharged from the hospital, she also moved out of that house that couldn't be called a home and went back to live with her parents.

Later, her parents-in-law came looking for them, wanting the child back. But after two of Lin Yi's hysterical outbursts, they feared the matter would blow up and tarnish their reputation, so they backed down and stopped bothering them. They figured that as long as Lin Yi didn't insist on a divorce, it didn't matter if the marriage hung on in this half-dead state. At least, their son could still be presented to the world as a married man with a child, free from gossip.

But Lin Yi's days grew more desperate. Her mental illness worsened. She sometimes had hallucinations. One time, she tried to kill herself by slitting her wrists. The bathroom was covered in blood, a sight that nearly gave her mother a heart attack. She had tried to get her daughter to see a psychiatrist, but her daughter was too resistant, and so far, there had been no progress. This continued until Friday, November 21, 2014. That day, Lin Yi went to the building where her accounting firm was located—the same building where the other person's party had been that night—to handle her resignation. She never came back. At ten o'clock that night, her mother received a call from her daughter's phone. The person on the other end, however, was a familiar stranger—Gu Fan.

---

November 22, 2014. The light of dawn gradually illuminated the sky. I sat on the balcony, chilled to the bone. The ashtray on the railing was stuffed with cigarette butts, and the phone in my hand was hot from my palm.

Time slowly ticked by to seven-thirty in the morning. I unlocked my phone, scrolled through my contacts, and found the number of my graduate school senior, Du Ruzhen. My senior, Du Ruzhen, had been a top student in the psychology department through her undergraduate, master's, and even her doctoral studies abroad. Now, having completed her Ph.D., she was working as a clinical psychotherapist at the psychiatric center of a major hospital. She was a proper psychologist, a psychiatrist, not on the same level as a half-baked counselor like me, who only had a counseling license. I knew that this time, I truly needed her help.

"Hello, Xiao Fan? Why are you calling me so early?" My senior was always an early riser. I knew she had a habit of jogging every morning; she had probably already finished breakfast by now.

"Senior, I'm sorry to bother you," I said, my voice hoarse.

"Xiao Fan, do you have a cold? Your voice sounds terrible," my senior said, her gentle tone filled with concern.

"No cold, just didn't sleep all night. A little tired." I raised a hand to rub my face and paused. My senior didn't interrupt. With her skills, she had surely already sensed that something was wrong with me. She was waiting for me to continue.

"Senior, there's something I need to ask of you. It's too complicated to explain over the phone. Are you free this afternoon? Let's meet."

"Okay," she replied without hesitation.

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