The apartment was thick with the atmosphere of everyday life. The table was somewhat cluttered, piled with books, a water tumbler, a razor, cold medicine, and various other odds and ends.
A little decorative figure beneath the clock swayed back and forth. On the balcony, a few potted plants on the verge of withering were hidden behind a bicycle.
Li Duo's mother was busy in the kitchen. At the dining table, a little girl who looked to be a junior high school student of around twelve or thirteen was sipping soup while studying a vocabulary book.
The ticking of the second hand, the recitation of words, and the chopping of vegetables all washed over Li Daonian's ears at once.
He sized up the girl. From what the woman had told him just outside, her name was Wang Jia.
Hadn't Li Duo mentioned having siblings? One was surnamed Li, the other Wang—had her mother remarried?
In his mind, opening the door should have revealed a melancholic, lonely woman living by herself. How was it that not a single trace of the scars left by losing a daughter could be seen here?
There were no portraits of Duoduo, no award certificates, not even an urn. Could it really be that this woman had heartlessly abandoned Duoduo during the final stages of her illness?
Wang Jia raised her eyes and looked at Li Daonian. Finding that he was watching her as well, she withdrew her gaze and went back to her soup and her book.
"In junior high?" he asked.
"Mm." Wang Jia nodded, her expression somewhat shy.
Just then, Li Duo's mother came out of the kitchen carrying a plate of smashed cucumbers. She addressed Wang Jia, "Jiajia, Mom isn't going to walk you to school today. I'll wake your dad up and have him take you."
"Mm, make Dad get up quick, or I'll be late," the girl said, glancing at her watch.
The woman murmured "wait a moment" to Li Daonian before heading into the bedroom.
Sitting in the living room, Li Daonian could vaguely hear the commotion inside the bedroom—the sound of a man and a woman talking, followed by the rustle of curtains being drawn and the flush of the toilet.
Suddenly, a family portrait on the wall behind him caught his eye.
A husband and wife, with a pretty little girl between them.
The girl was a younger Wang Jia. Li Duo's mother and her husband were both wearing red coats. The entire photograph was framed, and they looked utterly happy.
The problem was that there was no sign of Li Duo in the picture at all.
When on earth had this family portrait been taken? Didn't Duoduo say she didn't have a dad? It sounded like her mother and father had a terrible relationship, perhaps even divorced.
Yet what he saw before his eyes was completely different from what Duoduo had described.
And why they had moved—that was all a total mystery.
Seven or eight minutes later, Duoduo's mother emerged from the bedroom. She had her hair pinned up and was wearing a trench coat and black leather shoes. Only now did Li Daonian realize that she was actually quite tall, exuding the refined poise of an urban career woman.
"Jiajia, Mom is heading out. I'll pick you up this evening, just wait for me at the intersection."
"Okay."
Li Daonian and Li Duo's mother left the apartment together.
Waiting for the elevator, the woman remained silent. Li Daonian spoke up, "Elder Sister, my name is Li Daonian, I'm studying at the university here. What's your name?"
Stepping into the elevator, the woman replied, "Just call me Deng Dan."
"Alright, Sister Deng, can you tell me something about Li Duo?"
Deng Dan's lips moved. She stared at the elevator floor indicator and remained silent for a long time. "We'll talk when I see her."
"Alright." Li Daonian fell silent. He knew Deng Dan's frame of mind was deeply complicated—caught somewhere between disbelief and anxious anticipation. Realizing he was a university student, she must have countless doubts swirling in her heart.
Still, that was fine. Deng Dan's rather cold personality spared him from having to give a long-winded explanation. Once mother and daughter met, everything would come to light.
Xu Shuangning sat in her chair as the morning sun in the East illuminated half the sky. The moment she heard the faint scuffling of footsteps coming from the eastern corridor, she felt her hand suddenly break free from her grasp.
"Duoduo!" she cried out.
Li Daonian felt a sudden gust of wind brush past the hem of his trousers, and then he heard a tearful, childish voice sobbing:
"Waaah, Mommy, Mommy, I've missed you so much! You're finally here, wuwu, why did you lie to me!"
He turned around.
Deng Dan froze dead in her tracks, staring blankly down at her lower legs as tears instantly streamed from her eyes.
A pair of small hands were hugging her legs, shaking them back and forth.
"Duoduo, is that you?" Deng Dan said, weeping.
"Wuwu, Mommy, wuwu, don't you recognize me? Why did you leave me for so long!" Duoduo cried.
Unable to bear watching the scene, Xu Shuangning turned away, blinking her reddened eyes to gaze at the distant high-rises.
Li Daonian hurried to urge Qiuyang Xiaobang to go block the park entrance, while he took a handful of flour and scattered it over Duoduo to make her visible.
The moment she saw Duoduo's physical form, Deng Dan—ordinarily a woman of strict and stern composure—could no longer stand on her own. She squatted down and embraced Duoduo, weeping together.
Li Daonian was a relatively sentimental person; a wave of emotion stirred in his heart, and he turned to look at the distant buildings alongside Xu Shuangning.
Feeling the small arms wrapped around her neck and looking at the tear-stained little face before her, Deng Dan had no capacity to make sense of how any of this was happening. She simply kept wiping Duoduo's tears with her hand, choking out:
"Duoduo, stop crying. Mommy's heart aches, Mommy's heart aches for you!"
"Mommy, why didn't you pay attention to me for so long? I was so lonely. I kept looking for you in the house, I kept looking—did you stop loving me? Were you going to abandon me?" Duoduo wiped the tears from her mother's face as well.
"No, no," Deng Dan buried her face in Duoduo's shoulder, fighting hard to hold back her tears. "Mommy thinks about you every single day, Mommy has always loved you!"
"Then why didn't you come see me for so long?" Duoduo asked.
Choked with emotion, Deng Dan could not utter a word.
Hearing this, Xu Shuangning could bear it no longer. Her eyes red, she walked over, squatted on the ground, and said to Duoduo, "Mommy was just too busy, of course she loves you! See, isn't she here to see you now?"
Seeing this, Li Daonian quickly chimed in, "That's right, how much Mommy loves you! Be a good girl, stay with the older sister for a moment while I talk with Mommy for a bit, okay? We'll talk more in a little while."
At that, Deng Dan stroked Duoduo's head and stood up. With her back to the others, she wiped away her tears and followed Li Daonian a short distance away.
"Sister, you might find this hard to accept, and you've seen it for yourself—there's no scientific explanation for this. But I can tell you why your daughter appeared," Li Daonian said softly.
Deng Dan wiped away her remaining tears and nodded.
"Those who are unwilling to leave only do so because of an obsession," he deliberately avoided using the word 'ghost' for fear of wounding a mother's heart. "Duoduo's obsession is you. She can't let go of you."
Hearing this, a wave of turbulence churned in Deng Dan's heart. She had no idea how this young man had managed any of this; from the knock on the door this morning until now, she had felt as though she were in a trance.
It had been many years since she last heard the name Li Duo.
"Because of me?" she murmured.
"Sister Deng, the dead cannot be brought back to life. Bringing you out here today was a difficult choice for me as well, but if we don't bring closure to this, Duoduo will be forced to wander this world forever, and that would be too cruel."
"Tell me everything in detail, from the time Duoduo passed away until today. Let's give her a good ending."