After Being Widowed For Ten Years - Chapter 1

On a dark, swaying autumn night, Pei Chongxi placed a bunch of white chrysanthemums in front of a clean, washed tombstone.

“An Rong, happy twenty-eighth birthday.”

The rain in the sky was heavy, thin, and dense, swept and scraped against her body by a sudden gust of wild wind.

In front of the tombstone, the woman in the black dress looked utterly numb. Her face seemed like that of an evil spirit crawling out of hell, drained of any color, making her look barely alive.

Her delicate fingers brushed against the rough tombstone, carefully tracing the black and white photograph.

The girl in the photo wore two low hanging braided pigtails and smiled with absolute clarity and innocence. A pair of pretty, vivid peach-blossom eyes looked out from the black and white photo, piercing straight into the eyes of the woman in the black dress.

Pei Chongxi’s eyes shuddered violently in response.

For a moment, she thought she saw the girl in the black and white photo smiling at her and blinking.

Looking closer, it was just an illusion.

“An An, when will you return to my side? Are you cold over there all by yourself?”

The woman in the black dress squatted halfway down, pressing her forehead against the icy tombstone, entirely ignoring how her body was nearly soaked through by the rain.

A flash of silver-white lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating a vast expanse of silent mountain forest.

The lonely streetlamps and the flashes of lightning in the sky were the only illumination.

If anyone else witnessed this scene, they would surely scream and flee, this was truly not an action a mentally stable person would make.

“Tell me, when can I go there to keep you company?”

Pei Chongxi caressed the tombstone with deep affection, finally placing a kiss upon the black and white photograph.

The blinking and smiling she thought she saw earlier were nothing more than the illusion of rainwater washing over the photo.

Pei Chongxi’s mouth murmured continuously, “An An, An An… I beg you, let me dream of you just once. I haven’t dreamed of you in ten years. Didn’t you say you would be with me forever? Why are you so heartless?”

The woman’s gaze was exceptionally resentful, as if looking at a heartbreaker who had deceived her of all her sincere affection.

Rain poured down over her head, her black hair clinging to her pale cheeks like seaweed.

It was not until the final bolt of lightning fell that Pei Chongxi slowly stood up.

Pei Chongxi stubbornly insisted on holding the black umbrella right over the top of the tombstone, refusing to let it get hit by a single extra drop of rain.

But under the howling wind and pouring rain, this action was utterly foolish and futile.

With Pei Chongxi’s movements, a strand of a pearl necklace swayed gently on her wrist.

Compared to her expensive jewelry and priceless dress, that pearl necklace appeared somewhat cheap, but its luster showed it had been well-preserved by its owner.

“An An, I’ll come to see you next time.”

Pei Chongxi’s fingers slid across the top of the tombstone, leaning down to kiss it one last time.

“Remember to come to my dreams tonight.”

Leaving her final words, Pei Chongxi held the umbrella, which was still rocking back and forth in the wind and left the cemetery.

Ten years. She had come to this cemetery to visit An Rong almost every single week, making the exact same request each time.

She only wanted to dream of An Rong, she had no other demands.

But why? Why could she never dream of her?

Pei Chongxi sat exhaustedly in her car, unable to bear thinking about the worst-case scenario.

The reason she didn’t dream of An Rong was that An Rong did not love her and was unwilling to meet her again, even in the spiritual realm.

“Impossible. Absolutely impossible.”

A string of paranoid, even somewhat venomous words poured from Pei Chongxi’s pale lips.

“If I die one day, I won’t separate from you either. My ashes will be mixed with yours, never to be parted.”

Even the person saying this knew it was impossible, because An Rong’s body had been completely cremated in a burning car, beneath the tombstone lay only a school uniform and a few fragments.

The classic red leather seats of the Porsche were stained with rings of water marks.

Pei Chongxi acted as if she didn’t notice, tossing the soaking wet umbrella onto the passenger seat.

The car’s headlights cut through the dark like a sword, carving out a road leading from the cemetery back to the city.

Pei Chongxi’s eyes were bloodshot.

“After evening self-study, didn’t you say you would buy me this car when you got rich in the future? I’ve bought it now, so why won’t you come and look at me?”

Ten years.

Ten years ago, on October twenty-third, it was An Rong’s birthday, and it was also the date she died in a car accident…

Her slender, distinct fingers gripped the black steering wheel. The necklace hanging from her left wrist swayed slightly with the motion of the car.

Drenched from head to toe and her body temperature gradually dropping, Pei Chongxi seemed to give up all her paranoid fantasies, letting only a single sentence of pleading slip from her lips.

“An An… let me dream of you just once. Just once is enough…”

In a small alleyway untouched by the streetlights, a slender girl in a white dress backed up repeatedly in terror.

Footsteps approached from not far away.

An Rong looked around frantically.

She didn’t know why she had suddenly appeared here.

“Help! Help me… Is anyone there to save me?!”

An Rong retreated beneath a low eave, hearing the footsteps draw closer and closer.

“Damn it, where exactly is this place?”

The girl with the two low hanging braided pigtails possessed a bright and beautiful face. Her pitch-black eyes still held the vivid agility unique to a young girl, though they were currently distorted by a layer of fear.

Just a second ago, her car had crashed through the guardrail on the winding mountain road and plunged down a cliff. How could she appear here in the very next second?

An Rong thought to herself, I still don’t know what my parents were so anxious to find me for…

An Rong’s memory was frozen at the moment the vehicle flew off the cliff.

It was her birthday, and her parents, who lived in the mountains, suddenly called saying they had urgent business with her.

The girl thought to herself, Could it be that my parents changed their ways and wanted to give me a surprise? She had scrambled to ask for leave and booked a ticket back, even feeling glad she could skip the monthly exams because of it, only to end up in a direct car crash.

An eighteen-year-old girl had no concept of death yet, when she opened her eyes again, she was here.

She was still wearing the little white dress her co-renting female classmate had bought for her.

“If you come any closer, I’m calling the police!”

“Little sister, do you even have a phone? Hahaha…” a punk with dyed yellow hair walked out under an umbrella in front of An Rong, tossing an old-fashioned brick phone in his hand.

“Hey, aren’t you young girls supposed to be very trendy nowadays? How come you’re using this piece of trash phone?”

The curly-haired punk behind Yellow Hair laughed out loud, “Isn’t it easy for a young girl to get money? Just find a guy, act cute, beg a little, and won’t the money just pour right into your hands?”

This drew another burst of raucous laughter.

An Rong’s hand was hidden behind her back, reversing her grip onto a stained wine bottle in the corner.

“I’m warning you, don’t come over, or else I won’t be polite!”

There were quite a few punks in front of her. An Rong could only keep backing up, and soon her back was pressed against the rough wall.

Rainwater splashed against the mud on the ground, dirtying An Rong’s little white dress.

An Rong softly murmured three words.

“Pei Chongxi… Pei Chongxi… where on earth are you?”

The eighteen-year-old girl subconsciously thought of the person closest to her.

The punks in front of her seemed to thoroughly enjoy the sight of her face twisting slightly out of fear, looking forward immensely to a tearful breakdown.

At the intersection, a Porsche stopped inside a deep, dark alley.

Feeling a sudden intuition, Pei Chongxi turned the steering wheel and drove the car into the narrow alleyway.

This was not the way to her villa.

The navigation system in her ear was recalculating a new route.

For no reason at all, Pei Chongxi’s heart thumped twice.

She caressed the pearl necklace on her wrist with her fingers and said, “An An, we’ll go home in a little bit.”

Having comforted herself with that line, Pei Chongxi was about to turn the steering wheel away, but in a flash of thought, she slammed her foot down on the gas pedal without any rationale.

Accompanied by the roar of the engine, the arrow like headlights pierced the darkness, illuminating a group of punks.

“Holy crap, how is this person driving? Do they not have eyes!”

“Bro, Bro, don’t get excited. Look at that car, we can’t afford to pay for it…”

Accompanied by a curse, the yellow-haired punk standing at the very front could neither advance nor retreat.

He wanted to shout and curse a few words, but the driver acted completely blind. Instead of stepping on the brakes, they hit the gas to drive straight through.

“Holy crap, are you crazy?!”

The yellow-haired punk kept cursing up a storm.

The person in the driver’s seat didn’t hear a thing.

A girl wearing a white dress appeared directly in front of the windshield.

The navigation system in her ear continuously broadcasted the noisy alert. “Recalculating route.”

Pei Chongxi shut the navigation off.

Her mind was almost entirely frozen at this moment.

The girl in the white dress stared at the luxury car in front of her, still shaken. Her face put on a brave front, but she was actually close to crying from the tension.

From Pei Chongxi’s angle, she could see a beer bottle gripped behind the girl’s back, as if she might throw it at the windshield at any second.

An Rong?

Pei Chongxi almost thought she was running a fever and seeing things.

The eighteen-year-old young girl assumed this car belonged to an accomplice of the punks, her face entirely full of wariness.

The overly blinding light made it hard for her to keep her eyes open.

Subsequently, she saw the car door open, and an icy hand grabbed her wrist.

“Let go of me! Who exactly are you?”

An Rong struggled to back away, but her small amount of strength was completely useless against Pei Chongxi.

After a few struggles, the wine bottle dropped to the ground, and she was forcefully pulled into the passenger seat.

“My phone! My phone!”

Pei Chongxi’s movements paused slightly. She looked down at the old brick phone that had already been crushed flat by the car tires.

Fiddling with her slender fingers through the pile of components, she fished out the SIM card inside, raising her hand to drop it into An Rong’s palm.

“Get in, put on your seatbelt.”

The spacious car slowly backed out of the alley.

Pei Chongxi drove the car to an open roadside and parked safely.

Her pitch-black eyes were practically glued to An Rong’s body.

“An Rong…” Pei Chongxi breathed An Rong’s name from her mouth. She leaned her body forward, saying infatuatedly, “Is it you? An An, is it really you?”

Now that they were far from danger, the terror on An Rong’s face finally faded away, her smile turning shy and bright once again.

She used her hand to carelessly wipe away the rainwater on her face.

“Thank you so much.”

After saying thank you, An Rong blinked her eyes and looked at Pei Chongxi again in disbelief.

“You look so much like Pei Chongxi… Are you a relative of hers? You look so young.”

An Rong clearly mistook Pei Chongxi for an older sister or someone of an older generation.

What a beautiful person, except her entire body exuded a gloomy, icy aura, completely different from her good friend Pei Chongxi’s style.

Just as An Rong finished speaking, a lightly scented handkerchief was suddenly pressed against her face.

An Rong saw that wrapped around the wrist holding the handkerchief was an incredibly familiar pearl necklace.

The sound of the car doors locking echoed in her ears.

“An An, be careful not to catch a cold. Let me wipe it for you.”