Leave Me Alone Read Online Free Page B

operation.’ After a two-hour car journey she seemed tired. Thinking back to that fateful night, I wondered whathad been going through her mind when she accepted my advances. And Zhao Yue would have been long asleep while all that was going on. What had she been dreaming of?
    Whenever I thought of Zhao Yue, I became upset. For many years, I’d seldom considered her while I’d been away from home living my life of debauchery. Zhao Yue also often went to care for my parents and indeed recent evidence suggested that my mother and father were closer to her than they were to me. At Spring Festival last year they’d presented us with a written dedication for our new home which had read:
Unfilial son, filial daughter
. Zhao Yue’s salary was lower than mine but she’d stumped up most of the deposit for our apartment. The day before when I got home, she’d been eating her dinner of a pack of cheap instant noodles and my heart had suddenly ached. After more than five years, I thought, I’d played around enough. It was time to settle down, live respectably, love my wife well.
    At that very moment it began to rain — the river water billowed, the leaves shook on the trees. I saw lightning split the sky and vowed dramatically, This time when I get back to Chengdu, I’ll settle my debt to the company and try my best to lead a decent life.
    Ye Mei went out to get something to eat while I stayed in the room smoking cigarettes and critiquing my life. When Ye Mei got back, she took one of my cigarettes without asking and lit it, then gave me a piercing look. When I asked her what was up she just carried on staring straight at me. Nervously, I said, ‘Are you suffering from a nervous disorder?’
    Ye Mei kicked off her heels and lay on her back, sprawledacross the bed. ‘Screw you,’ she said, and took another drag of her cigarette. ‘Come and enjoy me one more time.’
    I didn’t know what to feel. I said, ‘First, it’s not nice to curse people. Secondly, you’re my best friend’s fiancée now, so there’s no way we can do that again.’
    Ye Mei said, ‘When did you start to be a good boy? Don’t you remember how persuasive you were that day?’
    She sprang up suddenly and dragged me onto the bed. She was surprisingly strong.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Li Liang decided he would hold his wedding party at the Minshan Hotel and he asked me to arrange the banquet and the cars. When I wanted to know what his budget was, he started bragging.
    ‘Fifty tables, each table 2000 yuan. At least twenty cars, nothing lower than a Lexus.’
    ‘Such a big spender,’ I said. ‘Have you got money to burn?’
    He laughed pointedly. ‘I have to have a big wedding to make everyone jealous.’
    Li Liang always chose his words carefully, so this comment wasn’t necessarily throw-away vulgarity.
    Not for the first time, I couldn’t help wondering whether he knew what had happened between Ye Mei and me. The day of the abortion he’d called me and when I asked himwhere he was he said he was driving with Ye Mei. Like an idiot I almost blurted out that he was lying. I was thinking, you big fibber, Ye Mei is in the hospital right now. Li Liang had giggled, then hung up.
    After the abortion, I’d told Ye Mei about this and she said, ‘Li Liang may be weird, but you’re a dickhead.’
    That evening Ye Mei had been unbridled and crazy. Strong wind and rain buffeted the window. Ye Mei’s wild hair was all across my body while her hands tore roughly at my own hair.
    ‘Can’t this be gentle?’ I asked.
    She gnashed her teeth and snarled, ‘No way.’
    I’d never imagined this girl’s body could contain such power. She was like a female wolf whose cub has been killed, snapping at my body a bite at a time. It scared the hell out of me.
    As she came, Ye Mei lay on top of me and cried. Her hair was soft and her skin was slippery. Her tears dripped one at a time onto my face; cold, bitter and astringent, making me remember things past. I was full of