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Alternative
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Jiang Man lost her memories, with her mind trapped four years in the past. When she awoke, she discovered she had a husband. He was handsome, wealthy, and a gentleman. He wore crisp, impeccable shirts and thin-rimmed gold-framed glasses he was refined and gentle.
He told her that they were a loving couple and that she adored him deeply. Yet, strangely, every time he drew near, she felt an instinctive fear and a desperate urge to run away.
After losing her memories, Jiang Man frequently had nightmares. In these dreams, the gentlemanly husband she knew would transform abecoming paranoid, deranged, and gloomily unpredictable. He even took her to their own graves:
“Do you like it?” He pulled her into his arms. “You like white, so we’ll make our tombstones white. You are my wife; even in death, we will be together. Don’t ever think about leaving me.”
These deranged declarations of love left her drenched in cold sweat. Between reality and dreams, tenderness and paranoia, Jiang Man could no longer distinguish which version of him was real. He had woven a web of tenderness, and she was the insect caught within, bound by spider silk, unable to break free.
Until one rainy night, amidst a heated argument, she finally asked for a divorce.
“Let’s get a divorce. I don’t think I love you.”
Upon hearing this, the man merely lowered his eyes and asked in a low voice: “Manman, am I not satisfying you somewhere?”
“You’re too gentle,” Jiang Man shook her head. “I hate gentleness the most.”
After a long silence, the man suddenly let out a low laugh, which grew louder and louder until his shoulders shook with it. He removed his glasses and tore off his tie with one hand, as if ripping away his mask of refinement.
“That’s perfect. I’ve grown tired of pretending, too.”
Outside the window, the storm raged on. He bowed his head and kissed the top of her hair, savoring the way she trembled in his arms.
