To Covet (GL) - Chapter 1

Ten years have passed since I last saw Yu Zhouwan.

Back then, she was “the daughter of a colleague,” as my father put it. She was just here for a few days because her parents were traveling and couldn’t look after her. Nothing more.

My father put his arm around me and pointed to the little girl who was a full head taller than me. “Come on, sweetie, say ‘hi’ to your older sister,” he said to me. “Your sister, Wanwan.”

Yu Zhouwan was carrying a slightly worn backpack. Her head was bowed and she kept her eyes down the whole time, staying silent through all our warm welcomes. For three days, she drifted through the house like a quiet shadow, and then we never saw her again.

I had affectionately called her “Sister Wanwan,” but it never occurred to me to ask her full name.

Now, ten years later, I’ve run into her again-at my own birth mother’s funeral.

Before any of this happened, I had already learned the whole truth as a member of this family. I knew about the fact that the same blood flows between us, and about the messy love triangle from the previous generation.

The woman standing next to him now is his second wife. But Yu Hanyang had known her for years before he met my mother-they had even been on the verge of getting married. I don’t know why that relationship fell apart. After he broke up with her, Yu Hanyang quickly got together with my mother. That woman then disappeared for five or six years until she reappeared, bringing with her a little girl who was older than me and a paternity test report.

I guess that’s when he began to weigh his options between the two families.

On one side was an ordinary civil servant he met on a blind date. On the other was a corporate executive with his child. Yu Hanyang wasn’t a very capable man. He had been in Hucheng for so long without even getting a stable salary. For him, this wasn’t cheating; it was just a practical choice for his future.

My birth mother, Yang Chun-the one whose name is carved on the tombstone-repeatedly tried to contact her nominal husband before she died, hoping to entrust him with the last two years before I turned eighteen. Of course, she failed. Yet, Yu Hanyang showed up to the funeral on his own.

He even brought his new wife and daughter, a seemingly perfect family of three.

The door of the cremation chamber shut with a loud boom, and a brief dizzy spell sent me back to a night nine years ago.

Yang Chun repeatedly told me not to get involved in the adults’ business. Although I was used to the sound of arguing and things being thrown around the house, I never dared to come out. But today the fight went on for an especially long time. Restless, I couldn’t help but pull open the door a crack to look outside.

Yu Hanyang was choking Yang Chun and calling her a bitch. Yang Chun’s deadened eyes caught sight of me in the shadows. With a sudden burst of life, they widened, and her nails dug deep into the skin on Yu Hanyang’s hand. Blood first oozed into the gaps between her fingers, and then trickled down. Yu Hanyang finally let go, and Yang Chun was thrown onto the floor like a chicken that had been bled dry. She rolled her eyes for a moment before finally catching her breath.

She crawled to pick up a paring knife from the floor, but by then, Yu Hanyang had already slammed the door and left.

I never saw him again after that.

I often have the delusion that Yu Hanyang actually killed Yang Chun that night. Who was it that woke up in her body afterward? I don’t know. Yang Chun’s soul was sucked away by the man who had been deceiving and tricking her the whole time. Later, she desperately tried to find what she’d lost in other men, but of course, she failed. When you throw up something you’ve eaten, all that comes out is sour filth.

I think if Yang Chun saw the man who was usually so cold to her now intimately holding another woman’s shoulder before the moment of silence began, she would turn into a vengeful ghost to curse him.

But, unfortunately, there are no ghosts in this world.

Yang Chun had very few relatives and even fewer friends. I was seeing the guests off when, as I was about to turn and leave, Yu Hanyang stopped me.

“Yu Keyi, stop,” he called my full name. “You’re coming back with me.”

He meant back to his current home.

“Okay,” I no longer had the energy to break down or go crazy. Because of my exhaustion, my attitude was especially polite. “I’ll go back and pack my things.”

My gaze fell on the girl next to him. She looked to be about my age, and she was the same as ever-a cold face. Her features had matured since she was a child, and the similar traits between our faces were even more obvious now.

“This is your sister,” he said, pointing to Yu Zhouwan.

I glanced at Yu Zhouwan. She still had a slight height advantage, so I had to look up a little to meet her eyes.

“Sister.”