“Hanhan really wanted a dad. Muqing and I went out for dinner with him once and there was a family of three sitting next to us. The family had a daughter about Hanhan’s age who had just learned to speak not too long ago. She would keep calling ‘daddy’ and you could tell that her dad really adored her. Her father replied to every cry. The more the girl cried out for him, the higher her voice was. In the end, Hanhan couldn’t help but turn his head and look over at the girl. Hanhan didn’t say anything, but I could tell that he was envious, really envious…”
“That night, when we got back home and after I told him a bedtime story, I sat writing beside him. In the middle of the night, he talked in his sleep. That was the first time I heard Hanhan talk in his sleep. He cried just one word. It was… Daddy…”
Han Zhifan gaped, wanting to say something, but in the end, he realized that his throat hurt so much that he couldn’t utter a single word.
It felt like his heart had been tightly squeezed by a countless pair of hands; the terrible pain of having no air to breathe made him feel like he was experiencing a life worse than death.
He figured that if eighteen layers of hell really existed in this world, he was afraid that this was how it felt to be there.
The pain was quite unbearable for him. He really wanted to run away, but he felt completely weighed down. His heavily-weighed-down-body had nowhere to go.
“Yinan Ge would come visit Hanhan and me at times. Hanhan normally stuck with me, but when Yinan Ge came, he stuck with Yinan Ge.”
“Yinan Ge had a friend who got married and had a son about the same age as Hanhan. Sometimes, we would let the two kids play together. When the friend’s son broke his toy, he would go find his father; when he wanted a drink, he would go find his father. Every time that happened, Hanhan would stand to one side in a daze and watch our friends taking care of their son. There was even one time when Hanhan actually pushed our friend’s son and cry ‘This is my daddy…'”
Han Zhifan turned his head and reached out to cover his face.
The heart-wrenching pain made his organs tremble and caused his entire body to softly shiver.
He was incredulous about how she lived after they broke up…
He was hurting like this just by listening to stories about Hanhan. He thought that if he knew about what happened to her back then, he would be a million times more hurt, right?
It was already difficult for a woman to single-handedly take care of a child… but she also had depression…
Han Zhifan knew he let Cheng Weiwan down. He instinctively wanted to apologize to her, but he found himself feeling disgusted by those two words.
No matter how many times he apologized, just what use would it be now that things were at this point?
He only wanted to get back to how things used to be and make up for everything he owed her, but he’d just end up hurting her. Could he make up for it? Even if he could, there would still be scars…
“You know what happened later. You know I had Hanhan and you stole Hanhan from me…”
Han Zhifan remembered how he went looking for Lin Muqing that one time after he found out Cheng Weiwan was taking antidepressants. As soon as Lin Muqing heard what he said, his first reaction was: “She’s sick again?”
Again… Did I make her relapse because I took Hanhan away from her?
Han Zhifan suddenly felt like he couldn’t stay there any longer. He got up and exerted a lot of strength to force some words out of his mouth. “I’m heading out for a while…”