The first thing Liu Ruping left behind was her photographs. And the first thing Ye Chen did was put them away.
Not because he wanted to. Because he couldn't stand it.
On the TV cabinet in the living room there was a photo of the two of them standing at the beach. She was laughing, her hair blown across her face, and she didn't care. On the vanity in the bedroom there was a solo shot of her in a white top, head tilted, the corners of her mouth just barely lifted, eyes crinkled into two thin lines—exactly the way she looked when she smiled.
Every time Ye Chen walked past, he saw her.
Every time he saw her, it was like someone driving a fist into his chest.
Not a sharp pain. A dull one. Heavy. Like a stone pressing down on his heart until he couldn't breathe. Her face was too familiar—familiar enough that he could see every detail with his eyes closed. The curve of her eyebrows. The small mole at the tip of her nose. The way her left corner lifted a little higher than her right when she smiled.
Too familiar. Familiar enough that he couldn't accept this face existing only inside a photograph.
So he put the photos away.
One by one. The one in the living room. The one in the bedroom. The photo strip held to the fridge with a magnet. The wallet-sized print tucked inside his phone case. All of them, gathered and slipped into a kraft paper envelope, sealed, and pushed into the farthest corner of the closet.
The same way he'd put away his military uniform. The same way he'd put away his vocational school clothes.
Fold a chapter of your life up. Put it somewhere you can't see it.
But when you put away a uniform, the ache goes with it. Photos are different. You put the photos away and she's still there, inside your head. Close your eyes and you see her. Open them and you think of her. Daytime was manageable—stay busy enough and you could go without thinking. But at night, when the room went quiet and there was nothing left but the sound of his own breathing—
There used to be two kinds of breathing. One heavier, one lighter.
Then Yuanbao came, and there were three.
Then his son, and there were four.
Now there was only his.
That silence was louder than anything.
At night, Ye Chen started dreaming.
Not every night, but often. Three or four times a week at least.
The settings changed—sometimes he was at the factory and she came pushing a cart, handing him a slip of paper, saying, *This batch is from Section A*. Sometimes they were at the beach and she was standing on the seawall with her arms spread wide, the wind tangling her hair. Sometimes they were home and she was on the couch watching TV, feet tucked under her, the afternoon light falling across her and turning everything warm.
Every dream felt real. Real enough that he could smell the laundry detergent on her clothes, feel the weight of her leaning against his shoulder, hear her voice—that clear, carrying voice that could reach him through any amount of noise.
Once, he dreamed she was sitting on the edge of the bed with her back to him.
He called her name. She turned and looked at him and smiled.
That smile. Eyes crinkled into two thin lines, corners of her mouth curving up, the left side a little higher than the right.
She said, *Why aren't you asleep yet?*
He reached for her. His hand went out, his fingertips almost grazing her shoulder—
Then he woke up.
His hand was suspended in the air, touching nothing. Cold air.
He lay there staring at the ceiling, arm still outstretched. His eyes were hot, but he didn't cry. He'd mostly stopped crying. Not because he didn't want to—it was that he couldn't. The tears seemed to have run out on some particular day, and after that, no matter how much it hurt, his eyes stayed dry.
But the stone in his chest was still there. Pressing. Always pressing.
He lowered his arm and rolled over to face the wall.
The wall was white. Nothing on it.
He closed his eyes and hoped he could find his way back to her.
But dreams don't work like that. The harder you reach for them, the further they go.
Sometimes she would say things in the dreams.
Nothing important. Just the ordinary, everyday, alive kind of things she used to say every single day.
*The milk in the fridge is almost expired. Make sure you drink it.*
*Your son fell at school today, scraped his knee. I already put medicine on it.*
*You left your socks on the floor again. Is it really that hard to put them in the hamper?*
When she was alive, those things annoyed him. Hearing them in dreams after she was gone—every single one was a blade.
The worst was the night he dreamed she was in the kitchen cooking.
Oil smoke drifting through the air. The sound of the spatula against the wok. Her back. She was wearing that old apron, hair tied up, the back of her neck exposed. She glanced over her shoulder at him and said, *Almost ready. Go tell your son to wash his hands.*
The image was so real that even inside the dream he thought: *This is real. Everything else was the nightmare. She didn't leave. She's been here the whole time, cooking in the kitchen, and in a minute we're all going to sit down and eat together.*
Then the alarm went off.
He opened his eyes.
The kitchen was dark. No oil smoke. No spatula sounds. No her.
Just the alarm, sharp and grating, splitting the dream clean in two.
He silenced it and sat on the edge of the bed for a long time.
He didn't want to wake up. He really didn't.
If he could, he would have stayed in that dream forever. In the world where she was still in the kitchen cooking, his son was still playing in the living room, and Yuanbao was still snuffling around the entryway. The world where nothing was missing. The world that was still whole.
But he couldn't.
Because on the other side of the bed, his son was still asleep. Small body curled up tight, mouth slightly open, breathing soft and thin.
He still had a son to raise. He still had a daughter in a hospital incubator waiting to come home.
He couldn't stay asleep.
Life kept moving.
Ye Chen got up every day, went to work, came home, picked up his son, cooked dinner, washed dishes, did laundry, got his son to sleep. His parents helped with a lot of it, but some things only he could do—like when his son woke up crying in the middle of the night and called for *Dad*. Like when his son asked *Where's Mom?* and there was no one else to answer.
What did he say?
*Mom went somewhere very far away.*
His son tilted his head and didn't quite understand. But he didn't ask again. A child's world is simple. As long as Dad is here, that's enough.
But Ye Chen knew that someday his son would ask again. Would ask harder, more specifically, in ways that would be impossible to answer. When that day came, what would he say?
He didn't know. He put that question away too, along with the photographs, pushed into the farthest corner of the closet.
He'd deal with it when the time came.
His daughter stayed in the hospital for a long time.
She started at under a kilogram and grew, little by little. Every hundred grams gained, the nurse drew a smiley face on the chart. Every time Ye Chen came to see her, he checked that chart first—any new smiley faces today?
There was. One more.
He looked at his daughter through the clear wall of the incubator. She was a little bigger than last time. Fewer wrinkles on her face. Her skin had shifted from red to pink. Her fingers moved slowly, like she was swimming through water.
*Mom is here every day.*
That was what Liu Ruping used to say every time she visited. Now that she was gone, Ye Chen took the words for himself.
*Dad is here,* he said quietly through the transparent wall. *Dad is here every day.*
He didn't know if she could hear him. But he said it every time.
Like a promise. Like an incantation. Like if he kept saying it, she would keep growing, keep growing, until one day she could leave this box and come home.
The memorial photo stayed sealed for almost a year.
More than three hundred days.
The kraft paper envelope sat in the farthest corner of the closet without being touched. Every time Ye Chen opened the closet to get clothes, he saw it. He'd look away, take what he needed, and close the door.
He didn't dare open it.
Not because he didn't want to—because he was afraid. Afraid that if he opened it, everything he'd worked so hard to press down would come flooding back out. The dreams. The images. Those moments in the middle of the night when he reached out and touched nothing but air. He was afraid he wouldn't hold together.
But one morning he woke up and heard a voice.
Not Liu Ruping's voice. His own.
It said: *Enough.*
Not *enough grieving*. Not *stop hurting*. It was: *Enough. You've been hiding long enough.*
He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the closet.
He looked for a long time.
Then he stood up, walked over, opened the closet, and took out the envelope.
A thin layer of dust had settled on it. He wiped it off with his palm, then slowly tore open the seal.
The photos inside were exactly as he'd left them. No fading. No yellowing. No change.
She still looked the same.
Head tilted, corners of her mouth just barely lifted, eyes crinkled into two thin lines.
Ye Chen picked up the photo and looked at it for a long time.
His fingers moved across the surface. Smooth. Cool. Nothing like her face. Her face was warm. Soft. It moved.
But this was the only version of her he could touch now.
He carried the photo to the living room.
There was a small family altar in the corner—a wooden shrine, nothing elaborate, with an incense burner, a pair of candleholders, and a few offerings arranged on a shelf beside it.
Ye Chen set Liu Ruping's memorial photo on that shelf, leaning it against the wall.
The photo wasn't large. About the size of a hand. Her face smiled out from it—quiet, a little shy, as if to say: *I'm right here.*
Ye Chen stood in front of the shelf and looked at the photo for a long time.
Then he lit a stick of incense, set it in the burner, pressed his palms together, and bowed.
When he turned away, his gaze fell on the photo without him meaning it to.
She was smiling.
That quiet, shy smile. The kind that seemed to know everything and say nothing.
Ye Chen looked at that smile, and something shifted in the stone in his chest. Not heavier. Looser. Just a little. But he felt it.
From that day on, the first thing Ye Chen did every morning after getting up was go to the altar.
Light incense. Press his palms together. Close his eyes. Pray silently. What he said was between him and whatever was listening.
When he finished, he would turn around.
Every time he turned around, he would see the photo.
Every time he saw it, something moved inside him.
Not pain anymore. Something more complicated than pain—a feeling like she was still here, just in a different form. Not in the kitchen cooking. Not on the couch watching TV. Not leaning against his shoulder. But there. In the photo. In that quiet smile. In the moment he turned around each morning.
As if she were still here.
Sometimes after turning away, Ye Chen would look back once more.
Just once. Quickly. Then he'd go do what needed doing—wake his son, make breakfast, get ready for work.
But that one look was the quietest moment of his day.
His daughter finally came home from the hospital.
Small and light. Holding her was like holding a bundle of cotton. Her eyes were large and dark, and she looked at everything with total seriousness, as if she were studying what the world was made of.
The first time his son saw his little sister, he leaned in and stared at her for a long time. Then he extended one finger and gently touched her cheek.
She scrunched her nose.
His son startled and pulled his hand back, then looked at Ye Chen. *She moved.*
Ye Chen laughed.
*Of course she moved. She's a person, not a toy.*
His son thought about this, then reached out again—this time touching her hand. Her fingers automatically closed around his, gripping tight, tiny fingers wrapped around slightly bigger ones.
His son's eyes lit up. *She's grabbing me!*
Ye Chen watched and thought: *If she were here, she'd laugh until she cried.*
But she wasn't here.
He kept the image anyway. Stored it somewhere inside him, alongside the dreams, in a place where it wouldn't get lost.
Life kept moving forward.
But there was a thorn in Ye Chen's chest that wouldn't leave. Not the thorn Liu Ruping had left—that one was too large to be called a thorn. It was a pillar. Immovable. He'd learned to live around it. This was something else.
Five years.
That number. The one he'd worked out during a sleepless night.
Five years after his mother-in-law died, his father-in-law followed.
He'd thought the pattern ended there.
It didn't.
Liu Ruping died. And the year she died was exactly five years after her father.
Five years. Again.
Coincidence? Fate? A curse? Ye Chen didn't know. He didn't believe in those things. But he couldn't stop thinking about it. Because the numbers were just sitting there, one after another, like links in a chain—every five years, another one closed.
He started to be afraid.
Not for himself. For the people around him.
After Liu Ruping died, he started counting. One year. Two years. Three. With each year that passed, the string inside him pulled tighter.
By the fourth year, he was thinking about it almost every day. *Next year. Next year is the fifth. Will someone else go?*
He couldn't say it out loud. It was too absurd. A *five-year curse*—that sounded like a horror movie, not a real life. But his life had become exactly that: absurd enough that no one would believe it if he told them.
The fifth year arrived.
Liu Ruping's third uncle—the one who came to Ye Chen's grandmother's house every New Year, the one whose visit had revealed the family connection between them—died of illness.
When Ye Chen heard the news, he was sitting on the living room couch. He went completely still.
The fifth year again.
Here it was again.
His hands started shaking. Not from fear exactly—something deeper. The feeling of a person who realizes they are trapped inside a loop they cannot escape.
He went to the funeral. Stood in the mourning hall and looked at the memorial photo of the third uncle, and in his head he was counting: *Who will it be in the next five years?*
He didn't want to think it. He couldn't stop.
That same year. Less than six months after the third uncle died.
Ye Chen's maternal grandfather died too.
Same year. Two people.
Ye Chen stood in his grandfather's mourning hall with his mind completely blank.
He thought about New Year's when he was small, going to his grandmother's house, his grandfather sitting in the rattan chair by the door with a pot of tea in his hands, watching the children run around the courtyard. His grandfather didn't talk much—same as Ye Chen—but when he smiled his eyes crinkled into a line, a little like the way Liu Ruping smiled.
No. Not *like*. Liu Ruping's grandmother and his grandmother were sisters, so there was always going to be a trace of resemblance in the bloodline.
These people. One by one, they were leaving.
Like leaves on a tree, one falling every five years. You stand beneath it and watch them drop, one by one, and there is nothing you can do. You just stand there. Wait. Watch.
Five years later.
Ye Chen's maternal grandmother died too.
He wasn't surprised anymore.
Not numb—something deeper than numbness. A kind of acceptance. He understood that this cycle wasn't going to stop. Every five years, like the tide. It pulled back and it came in. He couldn't hold it off any more than he could hold back the ocean.
He stood in his grandmother's mourning hall and thought about many things.
He thought about his grandmother holding Liu Ruping's hands and saying, *Don't let this connection between you be a reason to pull apart. Take care of each other.* Those hands, covered in wrinkles, holding on so tight, as if she were pressing every blessing she had into that one grip.
He thought about what Liu Ruping had said in the car afterward: *When your grandmother held my hands, I thought of my own grandmother.*
Now his grandmother had gone to find her sister.
Maybe somewhere else, they had found each other again. Maybe Liu Ruping was there too. Maybe they were sitting together, talking about things on this side—about Ye Chen and the children, about the people still alive and still trying to get through their days.
Maybe.
Ye Chen didn't know.
He only knew one thing—
He couldn't break this cycle.
Five years. Every five years. Like a clock, striking once every five years, and every time it struck, it took someone with it.
He didn't know who the next five years would take. He didn't dare think about it.
But he knew there was only one thing he could do.
*Live in the present.*
Four words. Easy to say. Light enough to print on a coffee mug.
But for Ye Chen, those four words had been paid for in blood and grief.
Every *present moment* had grown out of *loss*. Because he had lost so much, he understood—whatever he still held in his hands was precious.
His son waking up in the morning, rubbing his eyes, calling *Dad*. That *Dad* was precious.
The day his daughter learned to walk, wobbling from one end of the living room to the other, three steps and then down, down and then back up, up and then walking again. Those unsteady steps were precious.
His parents on the couch watching TV. The sound of his mother chopping vegetables in the kitchen. The sound of his father turning the pages of a newspaper. Those sounds were precious.
Every morning after praying at the altar, turning around and seeing that photo—her quiet smile, her shy smile. That one look was precious.
Ye Chen didn't know when the five-year cycle would end. Maybe it never would. Maybe it was all coincidence and there was no cycle at all. Maybe the next five years would bring nothing. Maybe they would.
He didn't know.
But he knew that whatever the next five years held, what he could do right now was live each day well.
Not *live brilliantly*. Not *make it count* in some grand way. Just: do what needs doing, love the people who need loving, say the things that need saying.
Because he had learned one thing—
Some things you think you can say tomorrow. But tomorrow isn't guaranteed.
Some people you think will always be there. But *always* was never real.
What were the last words Liu Ruping said to him?
*I really love you.*
She said it. In her final moments, she said the most important thing out loud.
And him? He'd said, *Get some rest. I love you too.*
It was true. But he'd said it so casually. Casually enough that every time he thought about it afterward, he felt like he owed her a better answer—something more deliberate, more weighted, something worthy of what she'd given him.
He never got the chance.
So he carved the lesson into himself—
If you love someone, say it. Not the throwaway kind. The real kind. The deliberate kind. The kind where the other person knows you mean it.
Don't wait. Don't put it off. Don't tell yourself *tomorrow is just as good.*
Because tomorrow might not come.
Ye Chen stood at the altar and lit a stick of incense.
The smoke curled upward, tracing a thin, wavering line through the air, then spread and dissolved toward the ceiling.
He pressed his palms together and closed his eyes.
He prayed silently for a while. What he said, only he and whatever was listening would ever know.
When he finished, he opened his eyes and turned around.
The photo was on the shelf, leaning against the wall.
She was smiling.
That quiet smile. That shy smile. As if to say: *Go on. I'm watching over you.*
Ye Chen looked at her.
Just once.
Then he walked to the kitchen and started making breakfast. His son would be up soon. His daughter needed to be fed. His father had already turned on the TV in the living room. His mother was out on the balcony hanging laundry.
Outside the window, the sky had gone light.
A new day.
He didn't know what this day would bring. He didn't know what the next five years would bring. But he knew that today, he was still here. His children were still here. His parents were still here.
And the woman in that photo was still here too.
In a different way. But still here.
*He finally understood—*
*Being alive is not something you're owed.*
*Every day is borrowed.*
*And if it's borrowed, you can't waste it.*
*He was going to live each day as—*
*The way she would have wanted him to live, if she were still here.*