Chapter 2: I Want to Eat Fish Again

Fang Ran's accident happened in the autumn two years ago.

That afternoon she had driven alone to the art museum, and on the way back, at an intersection, a car running a red light hit her from the side. Fei Qiang was in a meeting at the station when he got the call. He remembered standing up after he hung up, the legs of his chair scraping loudly against the floor, and after that he couldn't remember how he'd gotten himself out of the building.

The surgery took six hours. The doctor came out and said her life had been saved, but her retinas had suffered severe damage, and there was an impairment in her visual system's perception of color.

Fei Qiang asked, can it recover?

The doctor said, hard to say, it will take time to observe.

Later he understood that "hard to say" meant it could not recover. When Fang Ran woke up, the world she saw was gray-white, like a faded old photograph, everything the same temperature, the same weight. She used to love orange most of all; now that color was no different to her from gray.

Fei Qiang brought her home, bought orange curtains, orange flowers, replaced the floor lamp's bulbs with warm-toned ones. She glanced at them and said thank you, in the tone of someone replying to an unimportant email.

Her paintbrush was set down, and never picked up again.

She sat in the chair in her studio, staring blankly at the blank canvases, sometimes for a whole afternoon. When Fei Qiang came home from work and saw her there in the doorway, not knowing what to say, he would go to the kitchen to cook, bring the food out, and the two of them would eat quietly, clean up quietly, sleep quietly. He didn't know how to help her; all he knew was to stay by her side.

That stretch of time was long, long as if it had no end.

Until one day, Fei Qiang saw an article online saying that fish were rich in some nutrient that had a certain supportive effect on retinal repair. He knew the reasoning didn't hold up, but he wanted to try, wanted to do something, even if it only made her a little happier.

He went to the market and bought a live fish, carried it home. It was the first time he'd ever killed a fish; he fumbled with it in the kitchen for a long while, clumsily, making a mess of things. When he brought out the fish soup, Fang Ran was already sitting at the dining table waiting for him, and when she saw him come out, she smiled faintly.

That night she went into the studio and closed the door.

About a week later, on an ordinary morning, Fang Ran sat at the dining table holding her teacup while Fei Qiang fried eggs in the kitchen.

She said, I want to eat fish again.

Fei Qiang poked his head out from the kitchen, glanced at her, and said, okay, I'll buy some after work today.

On his way home from work he went to the market and picked out a grass carp; this time he was a bit more practiced, and the kitchen wasn't left in as much of a mess. While the fish soup was simmering, Fang Ran stood at the kitchen doorway, hand resting on the frame, waiting quietly. He stirred the ladle at the stove, occasionally glancing back at her; she just stood there, silent, watching the pot.

He thought she was hungry.

The fish soup was brought to the table, and she drank two bowls. That night she went into the studio again, and this time stayed very late; when he fell asleep, the studio light was still on.

Some more time passed. That morning, she said again that she wanted to eat fish.

That day happened to coincide with a review from his superiors, and Fei Qiang spent the whole day filing case documents; by the time he got off work, it was already dark. He left the station and went straight to the fish market outside the residential complex. But by the time he arrived, there were no fish left in the tanks — the vendor said old Mr. Long from the complex was celebrating his birthday today, and the Long family had bought up all the fish.

Fei Qiang had no choice but to go home empty-handed. When he got there, Fang Ran was cooking in the kitchen; she had stir-fried two dishes and set them on the table, no fish. Feeling a bit guilty, he said he'd make it up to her another day.

She said, it's fine.

She smiled and served him rice.

They ate an ordinary dinner together. Fang Ran ate very quickly that day, finishing in a few minutes. She got up and carried her own bowl to the kitchen: "Hubby's washing dishes today. Poor thing!"

She smiled at Fei Qiang, turned, walked into the studio, and gently closed the door. Everything seemed perfectly normal.

Outside the window the night was deep, the streetlights below stretching the shadows of the complex's trees long. After Fei Qiang finished washing the dishes, he leaned back against the sofa, thinking about going to the market tomorrow, his eyelids beginning to droop.

Suddenly a scream rang out from downstairs.

It was a woman's scream, very sharp, torn ragged by terror, standing out with unusual clarity in the night. Fei Qiang's body tensed by reflex — he was a policeman, and he knew what a sound like that could mean. He got up at once, pushed open the door, and ran downstairs.

The streetlights of the complex glowed dim yellow. Already many people had come out from the various building entrances, gathering behind the flowerbeds, in that corner few people ever passed through. The crowd formed a circle, murmuring something in low voices.

On the ground was a trail of dried blood, extending out from the edge of the flowerbed, dark in the lamplight, black, spreading outward along the cracks between the paving stones.

At the end of the bloodstain, there was nothing at all.