He took care of me day and night,
patient to the point of reverence.
Little by little, I got better.
I began to imagine the future.
I wanted to marry him.
But he refused.
Until one night, after a business dinner,
he drank so much that he vomited blood from a gastric hemorrhage.
I stayed by his bedside the entire night.
When dawn came, his eyes were red as he finally agreed to marry me.
But my family opposed it.
So I made a deal with them.
As long as Barry succeeded in his career,
the price I would pay
was never stepping back into the family again.
I gave up my status.
I gave up my career.
I gave up my last retreat.
At the time, I thought we would love each other forever.
He would achieve everything he wanted,
and I would be the place he returned to.
But I never imagined this.
Not long after the wedding,
his career took off in leaps and bounds.
He founded his own company.
And the young women around him
only grew more numerous.
At first, he still tried to hide it.
Later, I argued.
I fought.
I broke down.
To keep him,
I chose to retreat again and again.
But my retreat
only earned his complete recklessness.
Until today.
I was finally tired.
My mother asked me,
“Do you regret it?”
I asked myself the same question.
When I didn’t answer for a long time,
my mother’s voice remained calm and resolute.
“In seven days, I’ll book your flight.”
“That man…
it’s time you married him.”
I murmured a low “Mm,”
and hung up the phone.
The receiver fell silent.
The next second,
my stomach felt as if it were violently clenched by something,
spasming fiercely.
My vision went dark.
With the last bit of consciousness I had,
I pulled the car over to the side of the road.
My fingers trembling,
I dialed an emergency number.
Before I could finish speaking,
my consciousness cut out completely.
When I opened my eyes again,
I was already lying in a hospital bed.
The sharp pain in my stomach had been temporarily suppressed,
leaving behind only a hollow, dull, aching sensation.
The doctor stood by the bed,
hesitation written all over his face.
“Your family…”
He paused.
“They didn’t come?”
Then he hesitated again.
“Your condition…”
“I know my condition.”
I interrupted him.
My voice was so calm
that even I found it unfamiliar.
“At this level of pain,
there’s no strength left for sorrow.”
The test report was handed to me.
Stomach cancer.
And it had already metastasized.
Beyond medical help.
I stared at that thin sheet of paper
and suddenly smiled without a sound.
How ironic.
Back then, to cure Barry’s chronic gastritis,
I sought out an old traditional Chinese doctor
and secretly learned from him.
I filled pages upon pages of notes,
changed recipes endlessly,
and cooked medicinal meals for him every day.
Eventually,
his stomach healed.
And now,
I was the one who would finish paying this karma for him.
In a way…
it was a complete ending.
The doctor prescribed painkillers
and told me there was no longer any need for aggressive treatment.
I nodded,
as if he were talking about someone else.
As I passed the nurse’s station,
a few nurses whispered among themselves.
“The patient in Bed 7 is really lucky.
Almost died on the road.”
“They called his husband for help.
Not a single call got through.”
“Good thing a kind passerby stopped,
or he really wouldn’t have made it.”
I lowered my head
and glanced at the admission bracelet on my wrist.
“Bed 7.”
The words pressed coldly against my eyes.
If I had died just like that…
Would he regret it?
In this world,
aside from Barry,
the only person I still knew
was his brother.
Suddenly,I really wanted to go and say goodbye to Osiris.
