"I'd rather be alone, and even if I have to surrender everything, including myself, I only wish for her to remain clean and pure. That night, I overheard her conservation with Qin Yinan on the phone about dress-testing. Images of her in the Red Garden in her wedding dress filled my mind. 3 am but couldn't sleep from stress in the heart. Was downstairs taking the pills when she ran into me. Was panicked beyond belief, stammered when I asked her if she wanted to drink water. Eventually, found a random reason and escaped as soon as I could. When she told me good night, I only had enough clarity left in me to reply with a simple, 'night'.
"The handful of tranquilizers cannot calm me down even when I'm back in my room. The lights in the house are still on, and they are blindingly bright. However, my world is as dark as it could be. There will never be a ray of light that shoots through the darkness like that fall in 1996, October 8th."
