Six years ago, he carried her out of the darkness. Six years later, she’s a newcomer in the Forensic Pathology Department, and he’s a forensic scientist. She recognizes him at a glance, but all he remembers is the faded red cord.
When she was seventeen, Liang Jichu was trapped in the dark. As the door opened, a man came in, bringing the scent of disinfectant mixed with sandalwood soap. He crouched down. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll get you out.” She remembered that scent.
At twenty-four, Liang Jichu holds a scalpel at the scene of a mass murder in West Kowloon, as calm as a machine. Gao Yanbo crouches beside a pool of blood, his lab coat carrying a faint scent of disinfectant. Her fingers tremble. It’s him. But he has forgotten that girl. He only thinks the faded red cord on her wrist looks familiar.
Gao Yanbo is thirty-four this year. His wife died of illness, and he had felt only a sense of duty toward her, never love. He thinks he is ten years older than Liang and, as a widower, unworthy of her. But Liang Jichu doesn’t care. When her condition flares up during a power outage, she gradually calms down in his arms. After someone drugs her at a bar, his is the only voice she recognizes. Again and again, she moves toward him. “Gao Yanbo, I don’t care about your past.”
Every time he backs away, she takes another step closer, until she is abducted and locked in a lightless room, and her childhood trauma erupts in full force. Gao Yanbo, always so composed and restrained, goes mad. He runs red lights, smashes down doors, and holds her while trembling. In the hospital room, his eyes red, he says, “A-Chu, I love you. I’ve loved you for a long time.”
She thought he was her light, but she is his, too. No matter how brightly the neon lights of West Kowloon shine, they can’t outshine the lamp he always leaves on for her in the master bedroom.
“Yanbo, do you regret marrying me?”
“I regret it. I regret not marrying you sooner.”
