Did My Ex-Wife Agree to Remarry Me Today? - Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Feelings

A-Mei and Biscuit dashed into Li Zhou’s courtyard like a gust of wind. Immediately following them, the soft, rhythmic hum of machinery began to emanate from the two-story cottage in front of Chi Yun.

The sound wasn’t loud; it was reminiscent of the white noise one might listen to through headphones on a sleepless night. When the white seaside house and its courtyard lit up, the brilliance was striking.

Li Zhou liked keeping the lights on. This was a departure from her behavior at their shared home.

Chi Yun mused that here, Li Zhou likely used clean energy. At their house, she probably viewed it as pure waste. And waste was shameful. Chi Yun decided she needed to seek help from her eldest aunt, Long Xuan. Their home needed more equipment to integrate clean energy, while stripping away the ornamental but useless fixtures in favor of eco-friendly products. Her aunt excelled at such things, so she would delegate it entirely.

Chi Yun looked down and sent a message to Long Xuan detailing her thoughts, then caught up on other notifications. After tucking her communicator back into her pocket, she resumed her silent observation of the cottage’s structure.

The house looked quite large, complete with a covered walkway. She wondered where Li Zhou ate, where she slept. Did she have a sofa? Was the bed big enough for two?

As Chi Yun’s mind conjured several images, the scenes began to drift into a different, more intimate territory. Her neck felt a sudden itch, which she rubbed with the heel of her palm. Forcing the straying thoughts to shut down, she shifted her gaze to the ground to the sharp line on the pavement where the bright light of the courtyard met the darkness of the street.

She was standing on the outside of that circle of light.

Suddenly, Chi Yun felt a craving for a cigarette. She turned back to her car, found a pack, pulled one out, and clicked her lighter.

From inside Li Zhou’s house, A-Mei’s joyful voice rang out, punctuated by the milky yaps of the puppy. Chi Yun exhaled a thin stream of smoke.

The communicator in her pocket rang at an inopportune moment. The ringtone was categorized; Chi Yun knew exactly who was calling and who was rushing her. Yet, she didn’t want to leave just yet.

Just a little longer.

By the time she finished the cigarette, her mind and heart had quieted. She pulled out her communicator and calmly returned the call to the person at the top of her log.

The voice on the other end was placid but firm, offering polite advice: “Is it absolutely necessary to have the consultation today? We ‘working class’ people want to clock out. You can’t make it back in time anyway—can’t we reschedule?”

“Dr. Fu, I’m sorry for delaying your departure,” Chi Yun said with a soft laugh. She leaned down to stub out the cigarette in the car’s ashtray, then tossed the empty pack into the recycling bin, carefully sorting it.

Her tone, slightly raised, didn’t sound particularly apologetic. “Today is most likely the last time, so hang in there. You’re about to lose me as a patient, which should be a great liberation for you, Dr. Fu.”

The doctor, sounding reluctant, stated her bottom line: “Eight o’clock. Eight is the deadline. If you aren’t at my office door by eight, I’m turning off the lights and leaving. Calling the hospital director won’t help.”

“I’m on my way,” Chi Yun replied, unhurried.

“It’s 7:20 now. You’re still in Wuzhou, aren’t you?”

Chi Yun closed the car’s trash bin and sat in the driver’s seat. “I’m about to set off. I’ll drive a bit faster.”

At 8:00 PM sharp, Chi Yun appeared at the entrance of the Neuropsychology Department of Jianghua Brain Hospital.

What exactly was “Objectophilia”? Chi Yun hadn’t been entirely sure. Since middle school, some classmates had called her that because she was “excessively close” to a tree.

Chi Yun had loved the pear tree in the courtyard since she was a child. It was a playmate she had “rescued” and meticulously cared for. When explaining her feelings for “A-Li” (the tree) to her psychiatrist, Chi Yun had said more than once that A-Li responded to her. It reacted to her every action, which was why she trusted and loved it so much.

The psychiatrist had asked her to list these responses. Chi Yun couldn’t. She called it a “psychological tacit understanding”—something invisible and untouchable. A connection only she and A-Li shared.

The psychiatrist didn’t dig deeper into that topic. Instead, they moved to the next subject—the one that had truly caused Chi Yun to bind herself to the term “Objectophile.”

She had told the doctor: “I have sexual fantasies about A-Li. When I close my eyes, these images appear automatically.”

The doctor asked: “About a tree?”

Chi Yun said: “Not exactly about a tree. In my mind, I transform it into a person.”

The doctor caught that quickly: “So the object of your fantasy is a person? What does she look like?”

Chi Yun couldn’t describe the face of the person she shared these mental intimacies with. There were no features, only a feeling.

Chi Yun used that word again: Feeling. She said she might be in love with a feeling. The person in her fantasies gave her the exact same feeling A-Li did.

The psychiatrist suggested: “Is it possible you once met someone you liked, but due to some external force, you couldn’t be together, so you transferred that emotion?”

Chi Yun denied it. She insisted, repeatedly, that this feeling wasn’t brought about by a real person. she had never projected it onto anyone, nor had she ever felt her heart flutter for a human in the real world. This heart-pounding sensation was given to her by a tree.

After a series of sessions, the diagnosis came. The psychiatrist told Chi Yun that this wasn’t objectophilia. It had nothing to do with it; it was simply “freedom to love.” She didn’t need to deny herself because of others’ comments or suppress her feelings. There were others in the world like her; she should face it and accept it. The truly hateful ones were the people calling her names. She needed to learn to ignore them.

The psychiatrist’s words hadn’t succeeded in enlightening Chi Yun. She remained trapped in the word “Objectophilia.” She cared about the opinions of others and couldn’t filter out the noise in her head. She couldn’t argue with those who labeled her, nor could she bear the weight of the label itself.

Forced to choose, Chi Yun chose to distance herself from A-Li. She began to treat A-Li like an ordinary tree. Trees, after all, lived by the grace of heaven; sun and dew would sustain its life. It was tall and strong, unafraid of wind or rain. Nothing could easily destroy it. Besides, both her mothers were home, and her grandmother a professor of botany visited frequently. What was there to worry about?

Using school as an excuse, Chi Yun grew distant. She rarely went home and filled her holidays with activities. She stopped talking about A-Li something she used to love doing. She no longer bragged about its blossoms or fruit, nor did she hug its trunk to whisper her troubles.

Chi Yun took the energy she had poured into A-Li and funneled it into her class and social circles, gradually becoming a person who was perfect in every aspect. She was warm, polite, and attentive. Soon, the “Objectophilia” rumors vanished.

Looking back, Chi Yun should have been as happy as someone who had won a war. But she wasn’t. She was more troubled than before. That was why she had sought out Dr. Fu again.

Fu Xinyu had given Chi Yun many pieces of advice, generally falling into two categories:

1. Accept the emotion. Who cares what others say? The feeling belongs to you; your happiness is what matters.

2. Transfer that emotion to someone you have a crush on. Like a breakup, you might like one type of person in this stage and another in the next. Keep an open mind.

Chi Yun was stubborn and contradictory. Her response to both was that she could neither ignore the criticism nor transfer the feeling. She could do neither, so she was stuck in pain. A closed loop. Every time she came, the doctor gave the same advice. But Chi Yun never truly implemented it.

The turning point came last winter when she met Li Zhou.

That period was the most anxious and grueling of Chi Yun’s life. Dr. Fu, who usually ran for the exit the second her shift ended, had to work two extra hours for Chi Yun every day.

Last year, Chi Yun’s career reached a breakthrough, her social status solidified, and more people began to admire her. Partners wanted to unite companies through marriage; the offers were many. The company belonged to Aunt Mu, but she was semi-retired. Everything was up to Chi Yun.

Chi Yun wanted the company to thrive, but she wasn’t willing to sacrifice her marriage to someone she didn’t love. She knew what it felt like to love, and through her mental fantasies, she knew the joy it brought. Living day and night with someone she didn’t like would drive her mad.

So, she rejected them all with every polite excuse she could find until she ran out of excuses. She was in a corner, not knowing how to handle future “invitations.”

Then, at a charity event, she met Li Zhou.

Perhaps the desperation of her situation amplified her emotions, but the moment Chi Yun saw Li Zhou, she was certain: if she were to marry, it could only be to this woman.

Li Zhou was too much like A-Li.

Chi Yun couldn’t extract the virtues of a tree and place them on a human, but the feeling they gave her was identical. When she sat in the office and told Dr. Fu about the surge in her heart, the doctor suggested: “Then spend more time with her. Maybe she’s your savior.”

The word “savior” was better than “emotional transfer.”

For the first few days, Chi Yun truly treated Li Zhou as a savior. But the more they interacted, the more she found A-Li’s shadow growing heavier on Li Zhou. She wasn’t sure if she was just desperate—taking the feeling A-Li gave her and forcing it onto Li Zhou, a deliberate “transfer.”

Chi Yun was confused and conflicted. She didn’t want to let go of her feelings for Li Zhou, but she didn’t want to betray A-Li. She wanted to define the two, to find the boundary. It would be fair to Li Zhou and give her a sense of closure regarding her feelings for A-Li.

The “contract marriage” was Chi Yun’s own idea. She hadn’t discussed it with anyone. At the time, she and Li Zhou were barely acquaintances; she only knew Li Zhou needed money and was being harassed by a persistent investor.

Chi Yun had the wealth to cover whatever Li Zhou needed. And she faced the “arranged marriage” dilemma. By marrying Li Zhou, that problem was solved. During the one-year term, she could slowly untangle her feelings for A-Li and Li Zhou.

Unfortunately, during that year, Chi Yun didn’t figure it out. Instead, it became even more of a mess.

Why hadn’t she considered that A-Li and Li Zhou might be the same person?

In this world, there was no precedent for a pear tree becoming a spirit. Long ago, there were no dragons, but then they appeared. Later, people didn’t believe in phoenixes, yet phoenixes and dragons were products of the same era they had simply lived in seclusion.

Why couldn’t her A-Li be the first of the pear trees to take human form? Or maybe just one of many who refused to reveal themselves?

The night she received the divorce certificate, Chi Yun hadn’t slept, thinking it all through. Then came the search for evidence.

A-Li was three hundred years old, and its blooming season was erratic. At their house, it bloomed whenever it wanted. Her grandmother said no pear tree bloomed more than three times a year. Yet her A-Li, if she begged it, would quietly bloom a single flower for her at night so she could taste the nectar.

It had tough bark. On nights with howling winds, when windows and wooden ladders smashed against it, it remained unscarred. A small dog bit it once it left no mark, but the dog lost a few teeth. Chi Yun had once secretly bitten the bark too. It felt resilient, but not in a way a tooth couldn’t dent…

And looking at Li Zhou, the evidence was also clear. Li Zhou, who had no intersection with her past, took her childhood album. She would bring her pear fruits as sweet as the ones A-Li produced.

And when she was moved… she carried the scent of flowers.

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