章 111: Are You Our Father?
Kang Jun's inadvertent interruption was just that, an interruption. It didn't change the trajectory of the situation. Castor asked a question and was waiting for an answer. Gu Sheng heard the question and he must now give an answer. Standing quietly beside her brother, Pollux was also waiting for an answer, staring at Gu Sheng with unblinking eyes.
"I don't exactly know the entire story...," Gu Sheng said, stalling for time.
"Tell us all you can. What mom told you," Pollux said, staring at him with somber eyes.
Gu Sheng winced inwardly. What An Ning told him and what he knew were exactly the last things he wanted to tell her kids. He was very uncomfortable with the situation and he had a nagging feeling that the twins had deliberately set him up. They dragged him from the palace with the excuse of letting him give them a tour of his nice little house with the pond and willow tree but it was actually to pump him with information he was very much unwilling to give up. Something must have happened, something that An Ning or that idiot Nian Zhen did that triggered the twin's curiosity. And of course, instead of getting it straight from the horse's mouth, they settled on him, their mother's friend and confidant, to find out what the secret was.
"Nian Zhen is...,"
Before Gu Sheng could finish his sentence, however, a voice interrupted him.
"Gu Sheng, can you take Ban Chao and Kang Jun to the palace? Everybody's having breakfast. I'm sure Bao Chan is hungry and so is Kang Jun. Appreciate the help."
Nian Zhen stood at the door with An Ning beside him. Their faces were grim and there was a look of panic on An Ning's face that Gu Sheng had never seen before. She looked resolute yet frightened as she stared at the twins. The same expression can be seen on Nian Zhen's enigmatic face but it was tempered by concern when he saw the expression of the girl standing frozen beside him.
Gu Sheng gave An Ning's hand a comforting squeeze when he passed by her, while motioning to Ban Chao and Kang Jun to follow him. Ban Chao was slow to react, watching the twins and Nian Zhen with her mouth open, forcing an extremely embarrassed Kang Jun to drag her away.
Their bickering voices drifted away. There was a plopping sound as a big fish jumped out of the water. It made a bigger splash when it dove back into the pond then uncomfortable silence.
The two camps stared at each other wearing various expressions on their tense faces. Castor was icily polite. Pollux was regal and silent. An Ning obviously terrified. And Nian Zhen calm yet worried. None was willing to break the impasse until Nian Zhen stared straight at Castor and said, "Ask away. I assure you, you'll get answers from me."
He held An Ning's hand, which felt cold and clammy in his clasp. An Ning had panicked when she woke up this morning to see the twins gone and Nian Zhen in the room with her. He was sitting on the same chair, his upper body sprawled on the bed beside her. She was using his outstretched arm as a pillow. He was anchoring her body to his tightly with his other arm. Their faces were so close, they were practically fused together, their hair draped on the bed like two silken banners of black silk.
An Ning had looked at him and realized what had happened. She was not angry with him. She understand his longing and his desire, the need to be closer to each other overriding everything else, even propriety and the need for secrecy. She could understand because she was beginning to feel the same, swept away by his passion and his desire for her. She didn't know if she loved Nian Zhen. It was probably too soon. He may have Richard's soul and his memory of them together but like him, she was different, too. She inhabits the body of a woman who may look like her, but she didn't have the full memory of that An Ning's past besides the snippets the time tunnel for whatever reasons had allowed her to see.
But she was not so insensitive nor blind not to see the sorrow and pain in Nian Zhen's eyes every time he looked at her. There were moments when she was tempted to ask him, what did you sacrifice your soul for to come back? How was it possible that you are back? What happened from the time your soul left your body to the time you acquired this current body? Ceres once called your kind a soul eater. What does that mean? I am afraid to love you, Nian Zhen. I am afraid of the darkness that clings to you but I really don't have a choice, do I?
She kept these thoughts to herself. She realized that in this relationship, she had allowed him to take the lead most of the time. He was impervious to hesitations and protests anyway. He was always in a hurry. To posses and love her. To introduce himself to his children. For them to become a family, like all these things have been out of his grasp for too long he cannot wait to make them a reality. Nian Zhen was hungry for her, hungry for a life with her, hungry just to be together with her. And that darkness, the darkness she sensed yet never asked him about, seemed to cling to him tightly as his passion intensifies. How do you say no to a man who says he loves you while his eyes look at you like he was already damned?
It was perhaps the first time in her life that she was scared to know the answer.
But now their children needed to know some answers as well. If one were to strip the supernatural in her and Richard's lives, the plain truth of it was simply this, that Richard fell in love with another woman on their wedding day and she divorced him. That was the first arc of their lives together, her and Richard after they got married.
Then she met his brother and started going out with him. She didn't remember the reason why that old An Ning would chose to go out with the brother of the man who betrayed her but Han must have been some kind of special to let her disregard his relationship with her ex-husband and still chose to be with him.
And after that what happened? Richard died. And the second arc of their lives started, intriguingly enough after his death. She and Han started a life together or at least tried to before Richard intervened and everything went down hill after that.
Who was Nian Zhen to the twins? Their father or the vengeful spirit that tried to fuck their mother's and their lives? Does the soul even have rights when the body it presently occupies was not even its own? What happened to the old An Ning? Is she dead and her body frozen somewhere in space? Did souls have rights when their identities have been blasted into the sand of time, forgotten and never to rise again?
"Are you our father?"
The question was asked. Finally, hopelessly. And An Ning, still frozen and stunned where she stood, was surprised to hear the sound of something like yearning in the young voice. Castor stood before his father trying to sound and look like an adult but he was after all only a boy, a thirteen year old kid who still plays tag with his sister and considers his mother the best mom in the world. He wasn't adult enough yet to hide the hurt in his eyes, or his eagerness, or the hidden wish in his heart.
"Yes," Nian Zhen whispered.
Castor's lips trembled and his eyes watered. Unable to bear the sight of his dear face in tears, An Ning ran to him and gathered him tightly in her embrace.
"Hush, darling, hush," she whispered, hugging him even as her other arm clutched tightly at Lux, who buried her head on her mother's neck and wept uncontrollably.
An Ning's eyes sought Nian Zhen's and he came to them, tentatively at first then with fierce protectiveness as he tightly enfolded them in his strong arms, as he wept and shuddered and let out all the longing and fear and regret and pain he had been holding in for so long now. In the end, it was his children who embraced him, who tried to comfort him, who generously showed him their acceptance of him, and who watched as their mother dried his tears, quietened his sobs, and just as quietly and firmly held his hand in hers.
And just like that, the four of them were together as a unit, as a family. Nian Zhen's appreciation of their generosity was evident in the way his eyes sparkled when he looked at the twins. He told them what they needed to know without asking. For him, it always began when he and An Ning were children. That for him was the start of their life together, the first arc of their story, the beginning of their journey.
The twins listened to him with eyes round as saucers. An Ning had always been sparse with her words. They knew she didn't remember anything of her childhood and grandma and grandpa weren't there to tell them anything either but they were fascinated as they listened to Nian Zhen recount his and their mom's life together as children. An Ning was also fascinated since this part of her life had been hidden from her because of the memory loss but Nian Zhen it seemed remembered and kept everything under lock and key, waiting for a time to share it with the children he thought he would never have a chance to know ever.
"Mom and I grew up together. We went to the same school, the same university," Nian Zhen said, his smile soft and gentle as his eyes traveled to An Ning's blushing face. "She was not as pretty as she is now but she was charming."
"Was she a tomboy?" Pollux asked, looking at her mom consideringly.
"No, she was a big baby. Always falling on her knees and crying to dad to help her up," Nian Zhen teased, his hands reaching to An Ning as it always had, as it always will.
"I was not," An Ning scoffed, turning her little nose up. "Mom said I was a little darling."
"You were, darling, but you were also a little hellion," Nian Zhen smiled.
"Tell us when you were at school together with mom, dad," Castor said, shocking Nian Zhen and An Ning.
Nian Zhen's hands trembled as he gripped his hands together, stopping the impulse to embarrass the boy by embracing him like a madman. Pollux, however, put a thin arm around Nian Zhen's waist and leaned against him trustingly. Nian Zhen's control broke. Holding his daughter tightly in one hand, he tentatively stepped closer to Cas, ruffling the boy's cowlick which refused to be tamed. The boy's head was already on a level with his chin. Cas smiled, trying to flatten his hair to hide his embarrassment but failing as his face blushed a fiery red, pleased as punch at his father's unexpected gesture.
"Well," Nian Zhen cleared his throat. "Well, mom and I were together in uni. I went alone at first but then she followed me."
"Why do I feel that I am not going to like where this is going next?" An Ning asked, pretending outrage.
"Because it's the truth, darling. You followed me to uni and I let you," Nian Zhen laughed. "Your mom was a very good student," he said, resuming his tale, "and she had lots of admirers. She was this cute, easy going Asian that everybody liked. She was a very popular member of the drama guild..."
"I was?" An Ning interrupted. "What the heck was I doing in that group?"
"You wanted to be an actress, darling. At least for five minutes until you discovered you had stage fright."
The twins laughed. An Ning pouted but joined in their laughter because it was rather funny, that part of her she didn't remember. She sounded young and foolish. An actress. It was rather hilarious that she could have as whimsical a dream as that. Who would have thought?
"Mom and I, we loved each other but something happened which...I will not get into that...that part of it," Nian Zhen said, stammering. "Suffice it to say that it was my fault. I hurt mom and I forced her to...to leave me." He stopped and seemed unsure if he should go on or not. But then he took a deep breath and continued. "I died you see, darlings. I died. That's why I couldn't be with mom when she was pregnant with you. Why I wasn't there when you were born. I didn't want to. I wanted to be with you and mom more than anything."
"Maybe you should..." An Ning stopped. Even she didn't know what she wanted to say.
"I have to say it, darling. My children need to understand what happened," Nian Zhen again took a deep breath. "When I say I died, I was referring only to my physical body. My soul, however, was alive and aware. I don't know why it happened that way. I only know that part of me was still conscious and I wanted to go back, to my wife and my children. I wanted to let you know that I was still alive, that I was still capable of hearing you, seeing you although you can't hear or see me."
"You floated around as a spirit all these time?" Pollux asked, her gentle eyes on her father. "And you can see us but can't talk to us. It must have been hard on you, daddy."
This gentle girl with her loving and generous heart, An Ning thought fondly, looking at her daughter with a heart close to bursting.
"It was, darling," Nian Zhen said, smiling lovingly at his daughter. "I tried to be with you all the time so I won't miss a single thing of you growing up. But then I found the time tunnel. I don't know why it was kept open considering your gran and grandpa had been missing for years. I just sort of checked it out of curiosity but then weird things started to happen. I suddenly found my soul inhabiting this body. The body of a prince who died in battle many years ago. But even then, I longed to be with you and your mom. I was kind of selfish, darling. I thought if Ning Ning were here I could tell her how I feel and maybe...," Nian Zhen's voice trailed off.
They could see and imagine. Dead and yet not dead, his soul wandering as a ghost, trapped in an endless loop of touching but not being seen, or seeing without being a part of or even acknowledged as there. The time tunnel must have come to him as a gift from somewhere. For it fueled his dream of going back and when that proved impossible since he remained a spirit within the realm of the modern world then another idea took hold of that refused to be dismissed. Why not take An Ning along with him then? On this side of the unseen world where he could be seen, could be heard, could even be touched, a world where he could be the woman he betrayed yet longed for with the remainder of his ghostly life.
An Ning suppressed the aching of her heart as she held Nian Zhen's hand in her hand. The warmth of it have become dearly familiar, along with his beautiful face and that smile that could move mountains. And yet...the power of this kind of dreaming, the intensity of making it real, even the force to make it happen, all of it demanded the loss of something in exchange. And even she didn't know in what form it would eventually come to demand payment, the loss of which will likely burn them all to hell.
But that thought was sealed deeply in her heart as she watched the man who call himself her husband, laugh and charm her children. This, the now of Nian Zhen's dream, was all that mattered anyway. They were together, him and her and the children. That had always been the longed for ending of all lovers going on separate journeys anyway. That somewhere, in the vast possibility of lost chances and coincidences, their roads will finally cross and converge and time will heal all wounds and fate will bring them back together again.
Nian Zhen threw his head back and laughed at something Castor said, Pollux giggling by his side. An Ning was content to watch them, her heart feeling light and serene.
The fish peeked his head above the water. There was a plop and another then a much bigger splash that caused the waters to ripple and the air to converge. When the silence resumed, the fish was gone.
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