The 99th Divorce

When Shen Zhilie heard that, he picked up his bowl of beef noodles and turned to face a different direction.

Yu Lili sat down to rest in the hotel. Shen Zhilie suggested taking Old Mrs. Shen out to the popular park nearby for a walk. As the local, Yu Lili naturally provided them with a list of things to do and places to visit in Kingstown.

They were out for a whole afternoon. Around 2 p.m., they started feeling hungry. They randomly picked a place to eat. Afterward, they continued exploring the city the rest of the afternoon away. By the time they returned to the hotel, it was nighttime.

After dinner, Yu Lili told them she still needed to work. She said goodbye to the old lady and headed home.

As she stood at her own door, she felt for her keys. Upon opening the door, she was faced with familiar surroundings. The invisible strings that had been tied around her heart and body suddenly loosened.

She was home. She was finally home.

Although this home had no family or loved ones, it was the only place on earth where she felt safe. It was good to be back.

Yu Lili pulled out a set of pajamas and headed into the shower. As the hot droplets of water cascaded down her body from the top of her head, she felt herself relax even more.

After showering and changing into pajamas, Yu Lili applied a face mask that she usually couldn’t bear to use. She then switched on her digital screen and started to sketch.

Nearly 30 minutes later, it took the chime of her cell phone to break her out of her reverie. It was 10 p.m. and bedtime.

Yu Lili washed the face-mask off her face, switched off her digital screen, and laid on the bed. But, she couldn’t fall asleep. Throughout the whole day, her heart had felt like a dry fountain in the middle of an abandoned park. It suddenly felt as if that dry fountain had come to life, spilling the water that had lay dormant underneath for so long.

Since it was late at night, the silence mimicked the atmosphere of being deep underwater. The loneliness buried deep within her heart revealed itself while she was alone in that silence of the night and quietly seeped into the essence her being.

It overwhelmed her completely. The sadness filled her heart. She had faced life and the world with a splendid smile on her face and flowers in her hair, but no one could have guessed the intense loneliness she carried.

She endured until she couldn’t anymore. When the loneliness finally won out, it ate her up bit by bit from the inside.

If you won’t have me, I’ll kill you and commit suicide.

The tears glistened as they fell from the corners of her eyes. Yu Lili stared up at the ceiling, with a calm and peaceful heart.

Out of nowhere came a sudden heartache and unexplainable pain. That statement had been made in the heat of the moment. How could she ever bear to kill him? There was no way she could ever bring herself to do that.

As if there was something piercing her heart, every beat seemed to come with a bolt of dull pain. Yu Lili turned over in bed. She hid her head under the covers, burying the heat from her tears along with it.

She found it difficult to breathe, but she refused to emerge from under the covers. She felt the heat suffocating her from within. Her tears stained her face and soaked the sheets.

In the end, she could resist no further and came out of the covers for air. The coldness in the air seemed to douse her and jolt her up. Yu Lili started gasping for air. Perhaps it was because of asphyxia or some other reason, but her vision was blurred. She couldn’t see.

Is this what Ou Ming’s world is now like?