Amnesia

A young woman with fair skin lay on the hospital bed, around twenty years old. A bruise was swelling on her forehead, and her features were delicate and refined.

Her eyelids fluttered as she woke from a deep sleep.

“She’s like one of those long, narrow people. If she hadn’t curled up, she might’ve stopped after a few rolls. But once she tucked herself into a ball, she was nice and round; she rolled all the way from the top to the bottom.”

“There’s some intracranial bruising, a mild contusion on the knee, and a scraped elbow. The doctor said it isn’t serious.”

“Zhu Qing is just a little jinx. Other people get a week of bad luck; she gets the VIP annual package.”

The moment Zhu Qing’s consciousness returned, her head started pounding. Hearing those gossiping remarks, she got so angry she was instantly wide awake.

“Qian, Can, Can,” she ground out each syllable, “get lost.”

Qian Cancan was chewing on a guava. She turned around, lifted an eyebrow, and grinned. “Well, look who’s awake. Bad luck incarnate.”

She casually ended the call, then reached over and pressed the nurse call button for Zhu Qing.

Zhu Qing opened her eyes and looked around. She vaguely remembered falling, but she had no memory of what happened after that.

It was just like when she’d had her appendix removed as a child under general anesthesia. The doctor had told her to count to three, and before she even finished, she’d drifted into the sweetest sleep of her life.

She’d slept so deeply she’d been completely out of it, cut off from the world. When she woke, she’d still been dazed and hadn’t known who she was or where she was.

That was exactly how Zhu Qing felt now.

“Does anything else hurt?” Qian Cancan came over and circled her as if she were inspecting an exhibit, clicking her tongue in admiration. “Look at this selfless, noble soul, sacrificing herself to save the flowers of the motherland. You really are something.”

Zhu Qing rubbed her temple and let out a confused, “Huh?” “What happened?”

Qian Cancan said, “A little kid was climbing the stair railing. They were about to fall, and you rushed over to catch them. You did catch the kid, but then you twisted your ankle and rolled all the way down the stairs in one nice, round tumble.”

Zhu Qing: ...

She could hear the sarcasm in Qian Cancan’s voice.

Successfully saving someone and then immediately tumbling down the stairs herself; yes, that did sound a little stupid.

“Who were you talking to on the phone?” Zhu Qing struggled to sit up. Her head was a little dizzy, and her whole body ached sourly, as if she’d been beaten.

Qian Cancan had been her childhood friend and best friend for years. True to her name, she was rich, loved showing off, and was always bright and dazzling. She was also excellent at making things up in her head and could spin a whole drama even when nobody paid her any attention.

Zhu Qing was too lazy to bicker with her. Qian Cancan didn’t have many friends, so the fact that she was using such a familiar tone to complain about Zhu Qing made Zhu Qing curious who it was.

“Qian Chu,” Qian Cancan said casually.

“Who’s Qian Chu?” Zhu Qing asked as she rinsed her mouth with a cup of water.

Qian Cancan looked surprised. “Your wife’s assistant.”

“Pfft—”

Zhu Qing sprayed out a mist of water.

She coughed hard, her face turning red as she choked out, “Wh-what?”

Her eyes went round as marbles. She felt like she’d grown a fake ear.

Where did a wife come from?!

Qian Cancan’s freshly curled bangs drooped from the spray. She took out a tissue to wipe her face, then expressionlessly tossed the soaked tissue onto Zhu Qing’s face.

“Get this straight,” Zhu Qing said, throwing the cup aside. “Wife... as in some idol I like? A fictional character?”

She and Qian Cancan both liked to call any pretty woman “wife” whenever they saw one. Was Qian Cancan talking about that kind of wife?

Qian Cancan’s gaze slowly changed as she looked at her; she said seriously, “Yes, you do chase stars, but I’m talking about your real wife.”

Zhu Qing started trying to remember whether she had some habit of collecting figurines.

Qian Cancan reminded her, “You’re already married.”

Zhu Qing: ...!?

Without waiting to see Zhu Qing question reality, Qian Cancan hurriedly grabbed the doctor who had just arrived, panic in her voice. “This is bad. She seems stupid; she doesn’t remember she has a wife. Doctor, please take a look.”

The doctor carefully asked about Zhu Qing’s condition and preliminarily determined that she had partial memory loss.

“Didn’t I just attend my graduation ceremony? I haven’t even gone to pick up my diploma yet,” Zhu Qing said, looking blank. “How could I not remember getting married?”

The doctor adjusted his glasses and answered every question she had. “Because you forgot.”

Zhu Qing protested loudly, “If I forgot, how would I know I forgot?”

Neither Qian Cancan nor the doctor paid her any attention.

Qian Cancan was frantic. “How could this happen? The scan looked fine!”

The doctor was very calm. “Short-term memory loss is a fairly common form of amnesia. The brain’s repair ability is strong; generally speaking, if there’s no organic injury, there’s no need to panic.”

Qian Cancan pressed, “Can she recover?”

The doctor reassured her, “There’s a fairly high chance. Short-term memory loss doesn’t affect patients much, especially when the forgotten period is only a little over a year. I suggest the patient relax and live positively.”

Amnesia could be big or small. Some people woke up one day and didn’t even remember who they were; that kind of case would affect a patient’s mental health. But for someone like Zhu Qing, whose head showed no detectable injury and who had only lost a little over a year of memory, the hospital didn’t really treat her as a “patient.”

After the doctor left, Qian Cancan patted Zhu Qing and said in the tone of someone counting her blessings, “At least you’re not stupid.”

Zhu Qing stared at her suspiciously. “Is this your prank? Did your family open a new hospital? You even found a doctor to come play along; the act is pretty complete. I’m such a fun-loving person—how could I possibly get married so young? You’re trying to fool me, aren’t you?”

Qian Cancan rolled her eyes. In her heart, she thought: You were the one who shamelessly chased after your wife. Once you got together, you stopped drinking, stopped going to clubs, and went straight home after work. You moved in fast and got engaged fast; how can that be blamed on getting married young?

Qian Cancan pulled over a mirror and held it in front of Zhu Qing, then cupped her hands. “Please look.”

Zhu Qing stared at the mirror. No matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t see anything different. “What am I looking at? Admiring my beauty? I’m still this gorgeous.”

Qian Cancan rolled her eyes again and shouted, “Look at your dark circles! They’re gone! The dark circles that have hung under your eyes since high school, more stubborn than the stains on the plastic chairs outside my family’s barbecue shop, are gone!”

Zhu Qing immediately felt like she’d discovered a new continent. “Ooooooh?”

She had thought she’d just put on makeup to cover them, and hadn’t realized her skin was actually bare-faced now.

“How could I possibly have skin this good?” Zhu Qing stared at Qian Cancan in shock. “Did you put hormones on my face?”

Qian Cancan was utterly impressed by her habit of assuming the worst of everyone and the most malicious explanation at every turn. The last shred of pity in her heart vanished, and she said darkly, “You want to know why?”

Sleep-deprived, perpetually staying up late Zhu Qing nodded furiously.

Qian Cancan smiled as kindly as a laughing Buddha and spoke slowly and steadily.

“Because, ah, you’ve become a good wife and mother.”

Zhu Qing: !!!????

Qian Cancan said with full announcer-level passion, “One year after marriage, you went from a rock-and-roll girl who never came home at night and could drink anyone under the table, to a virtuous wife and mother who washed her hands and made soup, never messed around, and was perfect for home and family. You never came home later than ten anymore, and you never went out to be wild or have fun. But you were content, happy, and willing. You! Are no longer the nightclub-rolling girl of your youth! You! Have become a love-brained romantic obsessed with love! You...”

Zhu Qing covered Qian Cancan’s mouth in terror. “Don’t say ghost-story lines in broad daylight.”

Qian Cancan pulled her hand down and, under Zhu Qing’s frightened gaze, slowly took out her phone.

“Since your own phone got smashed into six pieces, all the evidence is here now.”

Zhu Qing’s shocked gaze shifted to the smartphone in Qian Cancan’s hand, as if she could stare straight through it.

“Where do you want to start? With your everyday photos together? Or the wedding photos? Forget it; let’s go straight to the kiss.”

With her heart pounding and her hands trembling, Zhu Qing took Qian Cancan’s phone.

It displayed a social media post from nearly a year ago. The post was private, and the caption was a long, sentimental blessing celebrating Zhu Qing, this lifelong single girl who’d finally, against all odds, gotten someone to want her, complete with a nine-grid photo set.

Zhu Qing had just started reading the sentimental caption when Qian Cancan, quick-eyed and quick-handed, tapped open the photos.

Their pictures instantly filled the whole screen.

The first was of the two of them kissing by the sea. Someone had lifted Zhu Qing up with a hand under her thigh; Zhu Qing’s hands rested on the other person’s shoulders as she lowered her head and kissed them.

Both of them were dressed very low-key in silk fishtail gowns, casting a hazy silhouette against the glittering sea.

Seeing her own intimate photo so suddenly, Zhu Qing felt a strange, unfamiliar discomfort, as if someone had peeled her face off and pasted it onto someone else’s.

She endured the unease and kept looking. As she looked, her attention slowly drifted toward the other person.

It had to be said: the photos were taken beautifully. Composition, lighting, atmosphere; any random shot could have passed for professional work.

“You can go home and look for your marriage certificate. You really are married, and you even had the wedding on an island overseas,” Qian Cancan said as she swiped through the photos one by one. “Look at this; isn’t this you?”

Zhu Qing was still blankly unable to piece anything together when she suddenly noticed one of the photos. “Wait!”

“Who’s this?” Zhu Qing pointed at the little girl in the frame, where she and the other person were each holding one of the child’s hands. “I have a kid with her too!?”

“This is Xiao Bao, your wife’s child,” Qian Cancan said. “You really treasure their mother and daughter.”

As the photos kept sliding past, Zhu Qing was still dazed, but she did recognize that it was indeed herself. She fell into a blank, frozen state and muttered, “I... I got kissed.”

Qian Cancan slapped Zhu Qing’s thigh hard. “Exactly! You’ve been impure for ages!”

Zhu Qing: ...

She rubbed her face and looked at Qian Cancan straight on, her tone heavy. “Say it. Who is she?”

The person in the photos looked vaguely familiar; not familiar in the sense of someone she knew personally, but like a face she’d seen somewhere before.

Setting aside that strange sense of familiarity, what was even more shocking was how beautiful she was.

“She looks like a celebrity. Did I make a ton of money this past year?” Zhu Qing quickly dismissed that possibility. After thinking it over, she turned hopeful eyes toward Qian Cancan. “Did you pay for me to get a wife!?”

Qian Cancan had no strength left to be angry. She really wanted to post a social media update titled: *How Does Your Unreliable Friend Challenge the Limits of Human Intelligence After Losing Her Memory? Live Stream, Come Quickly.*

With a smile that was all teeth and no warmth, Qian Cancan said, “I really couldn’t afford that.”

Before Zhu Qing could speak, Qian Cancan opened a search page and found a picture.

“Li Lan; a rising icon, the new star who slaughtered the trending list on Ripples Night; stunning and cold, a temptress of the mortal world...”

Li Lan!?

The person on the screen hit even harder than the social media photo.

Li Lan was a model. When she wore makeup and looked straight at the camera, she had an intense vitality.

Combined with her cool, exquisite features, when her eyes lowered slightly, there was a domineering air slipping from the corners of them; her exceptional bone structure and skin gave her a face with no blind spots from any angle.

Those celebrities whose names were always on TV, whose popularity was sky-high, were reduced to nothing by Li Lan under the sharpness of a high-definition lens.

She really had found a celebrity to be her wife.

Zhu Qing sat down hard on the bed. The injury on her head throbbed faintly. She rubbed her face hard, so overwhelmed that shock and confusion crackled over her like two bolts of lightning, frying her senseless. “What did I ever do to deserve her as my wife? What is going on..."

Photos were hard to fake, and Qian Cancan definitely wouldn’t have laid a trap months in advance just to trick her. There was only one explanation for everything: she really was married, and her wife was Li Lan.

That meant the stunning, abstinent-looking big star was, without a doubt, her wife.

A real, bona fide wi-ife.

Wife!!!?!!!!

Zhu Qing could only stare blankly, speechless.

Seeing Zhu Qing finally returning to the realm of normal people, Qian Cancan thought for two seconds and said, “I get it. I asked the same thing back then.”

Zhu Qing turned to her. Li Lan and she were as different as heaven and earth; they were people who should never have crossed paths, so how had they ended up together?

“Tell me everything,” Zhu Qing said.

Could Li Lan actually like her plain, ordinary type?

Did she get tired of mountains of meat and fish and want a “virtuous and homey” partner? But Zhu Qing wasn’t that either! She liked clubbing and parties; she wasn’t homey at all!

Qian Cancan exposed her mercilessly. “I took you to a banquet. You got drunk, slipped into Li Lan’s room, and then did that and that. Afterward, you ran off so fast, and it wasn’t until Xiao Bao ran into you that you finally admitted it.”

Zhu Qing’s mouth fell open into a big “O.”

That rough-and-shameless style really did sound like her. Zhu Qing couldn’t find a retort for a moment; after a few seconds, she said suspiciously, “I’m the kind of person who’s only eaten pork but never seen a pig run. How could I just go and... do that to someone right away? Don’t you think that’s a little absurd?”

She had never even been in love, never even kissed anyone. To say she’d gotten reckless while drunk; how was that any different from asking an elementary school student to solve an Olympiad math problem?

Qian Cancan’s tone turned odd. “Yeah. Because you didn’t understand anything, you really did a number on her. Li Lan had an event to attend the next day; you nearly delayed something very important for her.”

Before Zhu Qing could say anything, Qian Cancan turned her head and, with an expression mixed with pity and mourning, delivered the verdict.

“But it doesn’t matter now. She wants a divorce.”

Zhu Qing barely got her breath back before she nearly choked. “Wait, why are we getting divorced again?”

Qian Cancan snapped, unable to hold back any longer. “Because you don’t fulfill your partner duties, and you hit her!”

Zhu Qing: !!

Was she even human!?

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The story begins, la la la la [heart]

TL Note:

“鬼火少女” (literally “ghost-fire girl”) is slang for a flashy, reckless delinquent teen (search google for images); I translated loosely as “nightclub-rolling girl”