For seven years, Xu Jianwan grew sick in silence in her marriage, despaired in silence, and finally died in silence.
When she left, her husband Lu Jiming was choosing a veil for his junior colleague’s wedding dress. It was raining on the day of her funeral. Beneath a black umbrella, he took a work call and never heard the faint sound of her urn sinking into the earth.
Life moved on. He wore the shirts she had ironed, ate with the tableware she had chosen, and walked across floors she had polished until they reflected his image. Yet the collars of his shirts would inexplicably come loose, the soup spoon kept slipping from his hand, and every evening the floors reflected a light that was far too harsh.
Then, late one night, drunk, he stumbled in the corner of the storeroom and picked up a button that had fallen off an old shirt.
As he turned it over, he saw words carved into it, deep and shallow, again and again with a fingernail:
“Lu Jiming, I’m in so much pain. Please save me.”
Seven words. Three punctuation marks.
Through those long years unseen by anyone, his gentle, quiet wife had used the last of her strength to carve an unheard plea for help in the place closest to his heart.
By then, she had long since gone cold and turned to ash.
The rain kept falling, as if it would never stop.
The writing is good but the content is too annoying. Scared to tears.