Nanke Yifu Chapter 11

Seeking Chi Fu (Eleven)

Chi Fu sat up in bed, his eyes still blurry with sleep, when he thought he glimpsed something by the bedside.

Oh, there’s a person sitting on the floor.

A person sitting on the floor?!

A person? Why would there be someone else in his house besides him!

Chi Fu frantically reviewed yesterday’s events: he went to the hospital, took a day off work—he hadn’t done anything that could possibly result in a living person appearing in his house.

His mind was reeling with shock, his heart pounding against his chest. It was pure shock, not terror; perhaps his heart was racing because the person was so good-looking.

No matter how good-looking they were, they shouldn’t just appear in someone else’s home!

He didn’t speak, and the person didn’t speak either, just sitting there on the floor, staring at him. Chi Fu thought the person looked like they hadn’t rested well, appearing a little haggard.

The two sat, one high and one low, staring wide-eyed at each other. Chi Fu was waiting for the other person to explain, and the other person seemed to be waiting for him to say something.

Gradually, the person’s eyes flickered, and their fingers gripped their sleeves tightly. If he looked closely, their lips were also trembling—they seemed scared.

Did they suddenly appear here because of an Anomaly? Did they not know what was going on either?

“Th-that, you…” Just as Chi Fu was about to say something, the person pursed their lips, staring intently at him, helpless yet hopeful, like someone clinging to a life-saving straw in the water.

“Don’t be afraid. I don’t know why you appeared in my house, and I… I…”

He originally intended to offer comfort, to tell the person to relax, but for some reason, as soon as the words left his mouth, the hope in the person’s eyes vanished.

“You don’t remember who I am?” the person asked Chi Fu, their voice trembling. Chi Fu felt they were about to cry.

Memories raced through his mind. Chi Fu felt he hadn’t done anything to wrong anyone, yet he asked the next question haltingly and cautiously, sounding like a guilty scoundrel: “Am I supposed to remember you?”

The last flicker of light in the person’s eyes dimmed, leaving only panic and helplessness.

“I… My name is Yan Laixi, and… you, you have amnesia… Anomaly.” They spoke incoherently, their wandering gaze suddenly fixed on a spot, then they abruptly stood up, lost their balance, and started falling toward the floor.

“Watch out!” Chi Fu immediately reached out to steady them, but it was too late. He winced at the dull thud of their knee hitting the floor, but the person seemed not to feel it. Using Chi Fu’s hand to stand up, they stumbled toward the desk.

That hand was also shaking, and it was excessively cold.

They picked up a small book from the desk, frantically, almost throwing it at Chi Fu.

“I’m sorry, I… you read it first, I…”

Yan Laixi bolted out the door. The bathroom door slammed shut, and the sound of retching filtered through the wood to Chi Fu’s ears.

Chi Fu wanted to go over and ask if they were okay, and if they needed help. The former was obviously a rhetorical question, and the latter depended on whether he was the source of the distress.

He kept part of his attention focused on the sounds from the bathroom, picking up the small book the person had urged him to read. The cover was unremarkable and looked very new. Indeed, it was new. Chi Fu opened it in the middle and flipped back to the first page before finding any writing.

It was a diary entry. Chi Fu didn’t recall ever writing a diary, especially not one from yesterday.

The entry wasn’t particularly detailed, but it was enough for him to understand the current situation, and enough to make sense of the person’s earlier disjointed words.

My name is Yan Laixi, and I am your lover. You have amnesia due to an Anomaly and have forgotten everything about me.

One diary entry told him who Yan Laixi was, informed him of his Anomaly, and even explained the reason for the flutter in his chest before Yan Laixi broke down. The only thing it didn’t tell him was what to do now.

The retching stopped, followed by the sound of running water, and then silence. Even when Chi Fu pressed his ear against the door, he couldn’t hear a sound. He grew worried. Adopting the name used in the diary, he tentatively called out, “Laixi.”

No response. Fearing something had happened, Chi Fu knocked on the door, raised his voice, and called again. Still no sound from inside.

“Answer me, or knock on something, just let me know you’re alright.” As his inquiries met with silence, Chi Fu grew anxious. “I’m coming in?”

With no reply forthcoming, Chi Fu ignored everything else and raised his foot, ready to kick the door open. “I’m coming in!”

The door opened from the inside. Chi Fu immediately retracted his leg, lost his balance, and stumbled, catching himself on the door frame. Yan Laixi’s voice was low and weak. “I’m fine.”

His collar and cuffs were damp, and his fringe was slightly wet. He glanced at Chi Fu’s current posture and said, “It wasn’t locked.”

He bypassed Chi Fu, then stopped in the middle of the living room.

“You sit down for a bit. I… I’ll go make you some porridge.” Chi Fu led the person to the sofa and settled them down before heading back to make plain rice porridge. Since the rice hadn’t been pre-soaked, it would take a long time to cook, so he first heated a cup of warm water for Yan Laixi.

“You just threw up; drinking some hot water will make you feel better.” He offered the cup. Yan Laixi thanked him and reached out to take it. As he did, the sleeve of his pajamas, which usually covered half his hand, slid down, revealing a small section of his wrist marked with a patch of red.

Chi Fu turned and placed the cup on the table. Yan Laixi, however, followed the cup like a puppet on a string, his eyes glazed over. His entire upper body leaned forward until Chi Fu put an arm around his shoulder and gently pressed him back.

Chi Fu took his hand and rolled up the sleeve. The slender arm was covered in teeth marks and scratches, all freshly inflicted. Seeing them made Chi Fu’s heart ache as if he’d been stabbed. Fortunately, the wounds weren’t deep and weren’t bleeding.

Yan Laixi pulled his hand back, smoothed down his sleeve, and his eyes were slightly clearer than before. He offered a clumsy, almost dismissive excuse: “I did it accidentally.”

Chi Fu, of course, didn’t believe him. Even if he believed that the numerous scratches were accidental, did the teeth marks happen when he accidentally bumped his own teeth? Were the crescent-shaped pinch marks accidentally pressed against his own fingernails?

He reached for Yan Laixi’s left hand, but it was pulled away.

“Don’t look,” Yan Laixi said, lowering his head and clutching his cuff.

He was unwilling, so Chi Fu didn’t insist. It was likely the same situation as the other arm. He could understand that extreme stress required an outlet, but that outlet shouldn’t be self-harm. Chi Fu would rather Yan Laixi yell at him, or even slap him or punch him, than suffer in silence like this.

Chi Fu didn’t know how to start the conversation. If it weren’t for that diary, he could say they could start over. He could tell Yan Laixi that even without memory, he was almost certain he had fallen in love with him again. But the diary told him that this exact scenario had played out yesterday.

And the truth was, setting aside the fact that such words would only rub salt in Yan Laixi’s wounds right now, without that diary, he wouldn’t even know what was going on.

“Maybe there’s a trigger condition?” Chi Fu said, steeling himself. “Like the last person you see before sleeping, the person you spend the most time with during the day, or maybe it’s just sleeping itself?”

“What do you remember… know about me now?” Yan Laixi asked, still looking down.

“I know you are my lover, that I lost my memory yesterday, that we went to the hospital and confirmed it was an Anomaly. Last night, you told me about our past, but you said you wanted to sleep halfway through and would continue telling me today.” Chi Fu said. That was all he knew, and he didn’t even know what Yan Laixi had told him yesterday.

Yan Laixi’s fingers, gripping his cuff, tightened as Chi Fu spoke, only to be gently pried open by Chi Fu.

“Is that all?” Yan Laixi asked.

Chi Fu remained silent.

Yan Laixi let out a soft laugh and said, “Thank you for being willing to believe me based on such little information, and thank you for being willing to believe me yesterday even without any evidence.”

It was the first time Chi Fu realized a person could laugh so bitterly.

Yan Laixi was wrong; there was evidence.

He didn’t know what the situation was like yesterday, but he knew how he felt right now. Even without memory, his body was constantly proclaiming this forgotten love.

“Let’s try, okay?” he asked Yan Laixi in a negotiating tone. “Let’s try. Maybe there are other ways.”

Anomalies couldn’t be cured. He knew he shouldn’t give Yan Laixi hope. Such an ethereal thing could become a spider silk lowered into hell, and when the person below climbed up, they would only fall harder.

If there truly was no turning point, what then?

He would forget Yan Laixi, every single day. The current him, existing beside Yan Laixi, would only bring the other person pain.

Chi Fu was certain he didn’t want to leave Yan Laixi. Leaving wasn’t the solution, neither for him nor for Yan Laixi.

Should he let Yan Laixi’s every day start with his “questioning”? That was even less possible.

Would Yan Laixi choose to abandon him?

Could Yan Laixi bring himself to abandon him?

The person on the bed turned over, sat up squinting, fought off sleepiness for a moment, and slowly looked over.

Yan Laixi held his breath, waiting for a result that would reassure him, but the result was a thief, bringing only fear and panic, and stealing his breath away.

Chi Fu stared at him, his eyes wide with shock. Yan Laixi recognized that look—it wasn’t surprise that he was sitting on the floor, but incomprehension as to why there was a person here.

Why was there a stranger in his house?

Yan Laixi regained his breath first, not wanting Chi Fu to watch him suffocate, and tried to reassure himself. Maybe it was just a misconception? He always tended to assume the worst; maybe this time was different? Chi Fu was just groggy, just wondering why the person who was fine in bed before sleep was now sitting on the floor.

He waited for Chi Fu to speak, to say something that would prove he remembered him, that he recognized him.

Chi Fu just looked at him, seemingly waiting for an explanation.

Time ticked by, and the flame of hope grew weaker. Yan Laixi gripped his sleeves, trying to calm himself and prevent the flame from going out completely.

Finally, Chi Fu spoke.

“Th-that, you…”

This was not a good sign. Chi Fu was stammering. Yan Laixi told himself to wait, just a moment. Maybe Chi Fu was just surprised he was sitting on the floor by the bed, thinking he was sleepwalking, or didn’t want to sleep together, or that his poor sleeping posture had pushed him off—anything.

He added another matchstick to the dying flame, but Chi Fu’s next words were a bucket of cold water.

“Don’t be afraid. I don’t know why you appeared in my house, and I… I…”

“You don’t remember who I am?”

Yan Laixi didn’t know why he was struggling when the situation was so clearly laid out, when the facts had been confirmed.

“Am I supposed to remember you?”

There was no need to ask anymore, no need to force him to say the words, “I don’t know you.” Doing so wouldn’t help him at all.

He needed to explain to Chi Fu; Chi Fu didn’t know what was going on.

“I… My name is Yan Laixi, and… you, you have amnesia… Anomaly.”

My name is Yan Laixi, I was your lover, you lost your memory due to an Anomaly, but you only forgot me.

His language function seemed to be malfunctioning. Yan Laixi couldn’t articulate that simple sentence properly. In his panic, he glimpsed the small book on the desk.

Right, Chi Fu wrote a diary yesterday.

He braced himself on the bed to stand up, ignoring the discomfort in his legs from sitting curled up on the floor all night. He couldn’t exert any strength and collapsed onto his knees.

He was usually so sensitive to pain, his eyes turning red over even minor bumps, but now he seemed numb. When a hand reached out, he grabbed it, used it to stand up, and went to retrieve the diary.

He wanted to place the book properly in Chi Fu’s hand, but his hand was shaking too violently; he couldn’t hold it. Yan Laixi knew he needed to hide for a moment, but he should at least explain what the book was. However, his stomach suddenly churned, and his body didn’t give him the time.

“I’m sorry, I… you read it first, I…”

He didn’t even finish the rest of the sentence before rushing to the bathroom. The door slammed shut with a loud bang from his rough handling. Yan Laixi leaned over the sink, retching up foul-smelling vomit, then sour bile, until there was nothing left. His stomach cramped painfully. Yan Laixi turned on the faucet, rinsed the sink, gargled, washed the stains from the corners of his mouth, and cleaned away the tears secreted from his eyes due to the vomiting.

He suddenly remembered something Chi Fu used to say: mental preparation was useless; what you couldn’t accept, you still couldn’t accept.

At a time like this, his tear ducts seemed to be clogged by the physiological tears, and he couldn’t cry a single tear of emotion. Everything was trapped in his chest, making it hard to breathe.

Yan Laixi wanted to scream, but Chi Fu was outside, and it would scare him. So he bit his own wrist, enduring the pain silently.

His fingers unconsciously tightened, leaving marks on his skin. Yan Laixi heard Chi Fu call from outside the door, “Laixi?”

He couldn’t spare the energy to respond. The door was knocked, followed by a voice that went from tentative to anxious: “Laixi!”

He must have worried Chi Fu by being silent for so long.

“Answer me, or knock on something, just let me know you’re alright.”

The next sounds confirmed his suspicion, but he truly didn’t have the strength. It took him a long time just to process that sentence.

“I’m coming in?”

Yan Laixi smoothed his sleeves and shakily placed his hand on the doorknob.

“I’m coming in!”

He finally gathered enough strength to press the handle. Chi Fu suddenly leaned in, bracing himself on the door frame.

“I’m fine,” Yan Laixi said. He noticed Chi Fu’s leg poised on one foot and realized what he had been about to do.

He explained, “It wasn’t locked.”

He walked past Chi Fu, dazed, took a few steps, and then stopped again.

Where should he go? What should he do now?

He was half-held, half-led to the sofa and sat down. After a while, Chi Fu handed him a cup of water.

“Thank you,” Yan Laixi said. He reached out to take it, but Chi Fu pulled the water away.

His body instinctively leaned forward to reach for it, but an arm blocked him. Chi Fu held his wrist. The miserable marks were exposed, laid bare in the air, rousing Yan Laixi’s sluggish mind slightly.

He pulled his hand back as if shocked, covering it again with his sleeve. The excuse he gave was so ridiculous that he might laugh at it himself under different circumstances.

“I did it accidentally.”

Chi Fu naturally couldn’t believe such an excuse. He crouched down in front of the sofa and reached for Yan Laixi’s left hand.

Yan Laixi dodged him.

He clutched his cuff, head bowed, his tone pleading: “Don’t look.”

It was too humiliating. The man had amnesia, and here he was, resorting to self-harm. Yan Laixi didn’t want Chi Fu to see him like this.

Fortunately, Chi Fu didn’t insist.

“Maybe there’s a trigger condition?” Chi Fu offered comfort. “Like the last person you see before sleeping, the person you spend the most time with during the day, or maybe it’s just sleeping itself?”

Even if there was, what difference would it make? The first two—avoiding seeing each other before bed or reducing their time together—were feasible. But the third? Could they make Chi Fu never sleep again?

“What do you remember…” Yan Laixi asked, feeling that “remember” was inappropriate here, as Chi Fu didn’t remember anything, only knew a few things from the diary. So he changed the word. “Know about me now.”

“I know you are my lover, that I lost my memory yesterday, that we went to the hospital and confirmed it was an Anomaly. Last night, you told me about our past, but you said you wanted to sleep halfway through and would continue telling me today.”

In other words, Chi Fu didn’t remember what they said, what they did, or the past events he had recounted.

He hadn’t stopped halfway through yesterday; he had only just started. He had recounted everything in great detail, almost every memory he still possessed, trying to use his own memories to fill the blank space in Chi Fu’s missing memory.

New memories, old memories—Chi Fu had neither. And he wouldn’t have them again. The validity of everything between them was reduced to a single day.

“Is that all?”

Another inexplicable question, knowing the answer already. Yan Laixi felt ridiculous, and Chi Fu’s silence confirmed his absurdity.

“Thank you for being willing to believe me based on such little information, and thank you for being willing to believe me yesterday even without any evidence.”

To believe a complete stranger based on a few lines of text or a few words—Yan Laixi honestly didn’t think he could do it.

Chi Fu asked him if they could try, saying maybe there were other ways.

Of course, he said yes. Chi Fu had lost his memory; his absence wouldn’t affect Chi Fu’s life. But Yan Laixi still remembered, and his life couldn’t be without Chi Fu.

If they tried, and there was still no hope, what then?

To be forgotten every day, to explain himself to Chi Fu every day, to gamble on whether Chi Fu would trust him again? Or to quietly leave, removing this trouble from Chi Fu’s life.

Yan Laixi thought, it sounded so selfless, but wasn’t it just him giving up first, abandoning Chi Fu and running away alone?

Regardless, they had to try, just as Chi Fu said. Maybe there were other ways.