Sun Xiaoqin

Sun Xiaoqin rubbed her eyes as she sat up from the recliner. In her groggy state, she thought she had heard her son calling her, another dream. But when she looked at the bed, Li Huowang was watching her.

“Son? Are you… clear-headed again?”

She scrambled to grab the calendar by her bedside, marking the date. “Look, the gaps between your episodes seem to be getting shorter, don’t they? Does that mean you’re getting better?”

Li Huowang looked at her and smiled, nodding. “Yeah. Maybe I really am getting better.”

“That’s wonderful! Are you hungry? Want a tangerine? When you’re not yourself, you just babble nonsense—I can never tell if you’ve eaten enough.”

Sun Xiaoqin pulled a plastic bag of small, sandy tangerines from under her chair. She took one out and started peeling.

“I’m not hungry, Mom. Have you been here with me this whole time?”

She moved to the edge of his bed, reached out her right hand—it still smelled faintly of tangerine peel—and gently touched his face. Her eyes were full of pain.

“Don’t worry, I’m here. Doctor Wang said if I stay with you, if you see me every day, it can help you get better.”

“Don’t listen to him. He’s a liar.” Li Huowang’s voice trembled as he looked at her.

“Alright, alright, I’ll listen to you. I won’t ask him to come anymore. Look what he did to my son’s face. Once we save up enough money, we’ll take you abroad and find the best doctors.”

Hearing her talk to him like he was a child, the corner of Li Huowang’s mouth twitched. Finally, tears began to fall.

“Son, don’t cry! What’s wrong? Did Wang Wei bully you when I wasn’t here? Tell me, I’ll deal with him!”

Sun Xiaoqin’s eyebrows shot up. The stubborn woman who never backed down was back.

Li Huowang shook his head hard—whether to deny her words or to fling the tears away, it wasn’t clear. “Mom, my hands are a little numb. Can you untie me?”

“Alright, alright.” She immediately began unwinding the wide cloth straps from his wrists.

It never crossed her mind that he might turn violent. He was her son, born of her own flesh.

Li Huowang flexed his freed hands, rubbed his numb wrists, and wiped the tears from his face. Then he reached into his blanket and slowly pulled out the gold box he had carried from the other side.

“Mom. This is for you.” He spoke softly, smiling, as he pressed the gold box into her arms.

“This… this…” Sun Xiaoqin stared at what she was holding. Her mind went blank. Where had all this gold come from?!

Li Huowang took a small gold ingot from the box, held it in his palm, and placed it in front of her. His eyes shone with hope. “See, Mom? With this, we can buy back our house. And we can buy a few more. You can rent out shops and have money coming in every month without working.”

“Remember how you two always said you wanted to travel abroad after retirement? You don’t have to wait anymore. You can go right now. With this gold, you can go wherever you want.”

He paused, then reached into his chest pocket and pulled out a pair of delicate jade earrings. He held them out to her with both hands.

“These were Yang Na’s birthday gift. I owe it to her. Please give them to her for me. And… tell her—”

His voice caught. Flashes of memory surged up in his mind. His face twisted as he fought the emotions rising inside him, then he took a sharp breath and forced them back down.

“Tell her… I’m sorry. Tell her not to wait for me.”

Sun Xiaoqin’s heart dropped. He was talking like a man making his final arrangements.

She shoved the gold box onto the bed and ran out the door. “Doctor! Doctor on duty! Come quick!”

She rushed back in, grabbed his hands, and sobbed, “Son, what’s wrong? What happened? Tell me! I’ll figure it out. No matter how big the problem, I can fix it. Just don’t scare me like this!”

Li Huowang smiled at his crying mother. He held the gold box between them, both his hands cupping hers. “Mom, why are you crying? You should be laughing. Look at all this gold. We’re rich.”

“I don’t want the gold! I want my son back!” She threw her arms around his head and wailed.

The sound cut through his chest like a knife. For a moment, he wanted nothing more than to stop taking the Black Tai Sui, to stay here forever, to let this warmth last. But then he remembered Bai Lingmiao’s swollen face—her black eye, her split lip, bruises he had put there himself. He turned his head away, forcing himself to look elsewhere.

“I can’t abandon reality for a fake hallucination. I have to take responsibility.”

But even as he thought it, he held his mother tighter, feeling the vivid, overpowering warmth of her body against his. “If it feels this real… can it really be fake?”

Just then, he saw Wang Wei, dressed in white, walking into the ward with his students.

Li Huowang smiled at him. “Doctor Wang, I’m leaving now. Probably won’t see you again. How about we make a bet? You say this is reality. If you can wake me up again, I’ll admit you’re right.”

Still holding his mother, he finished the last sentence, smiled once more, and slowly closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, he was back in the open space of Qingqiu. Above him: the pale blue sky. Around him: the vivid green of the earth. He took another deep breath.

Others were unlocking the chains from his limbs. He looked at each of their faces in turn. Then he pressed the gold box into Sun Baolu’s hands and turned toward the tent where the Black Tai Sui was being kept.

Chun Xiaoman watched his back with concern. He had cried and laughed during his episode just now.

“Follow him. He’s different today.”

When they reached the tent, they saw Li Huowang clutching a piece of the Black Tai Sui with both hands. He was shaking violently, tears streaming down his face.

“What’s wrong with him?” Sun Baolu asked. “Didn’t he say this stuff can cure the episodes? That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Why is he crying?”

No one answered.

They stood there in silence, watching Li Huowang stuff the raw, bleeding flesh into his mouth. He swallowed it in great gulps, sobbing as he ate.