One Night, One Day, One Year, One Lifetime

Five

This year, spring seemed to have arrived particularly early. It was not even March when the leaves on the trees begun to sprout.

As my condition steadily deteriorated, I was forced to do something every wealthy person had to do – write my will. I did not wish to write my will, for within my last words, there would only be five words: Gao Fei, I love you. I thought that I would be the first and the last person in this world who would write such a will.

In my letter, which was the only way I could continue to convey to Gao Fei my feelings after I died, I wanted to tell him that I loved him. Except, I still had a responsibility in handling my assets. In my father's lifetime, whether it was from legal or shady dealings, he had succeeded in amassing a sizeable fortune. I did not know exactly how much my inheritance was worth, but if one were to set about calculating my worth, perhaps I would rank among the wealthiest people within this city.

In the end, I left the entirety of my father's corporation to a young man my father had been grooming before he passed away. His name was Chu Yun, and he was a person my father had personally selected from tens of people to be my husband after he learned of my illness. Chu Yun held the documents within his hands, but did not accept them. I was already exhausted, so I did not say anything else.

Chu Yun was an upright person. If I had never crossed paths with Gao Fei, perhaps I would really have married him.

I said to Chu Yun, 'This is not simply a fortune which fell from the skies. After you have taken control of it, you must put your heart into maintaining it. You will be forced to think through your every word and action, for your life will no longer belong to you, and you alone. You will become the life of this corporation. If something goes wrong, you will be the first to bear the brunt of it. If you crossed the law, you will also have to bear the consequences. I have never thought of this inheritance as a blessing.'

I believed that not only did this sum of money guarantee a lifetime devoid of financial worries, but it also bought a person's freedom. Back then, I had chosen to abandon this inheritance for this reason.

I also left to the orphanage a sizeable amount of money, but of course, it was impossible for them to depend solely on me. As a charity organisation, the orphanage also sought aid from other organisations. Though it was my creation, it had long transcended into something which no longer belonged only to me.

Other than that, what remained were the two mansions of my family. One of them was my ancestral home, the house my father had lived in when he was alive. The other was the house Gao Fei and I currently lived in, a house which was devoid of warmth no matter how I tried to transform it into a home.

I thought that I should leave the house my father had lived in to Gao Fei's parents. No matter how they dealt with it in the end, whether they would choose to rent it out or sell it, at least, it would ensure that the two of them would live the rest of their lives without financial worry. And this would be the last gesture of sincerity I could give to them as their daughter-in-law.

As for the home I was living in, I could not bear to give it to anyone. Even if this was a house as cold as the wintry seas, it was still the home I once shared with Gao Fei, a place with memories I treasured. In the end, the only person I wanted to give it to was Gao Fei, but I understood his temper all too well – he was a proud and stubborn man, and he would never accept this.

So, I would let our house remain standing. Even as it fell into dilapidation with the passing of years, it would continue to exist as an eternal testimony of the days I had once spent with Gao Fei, an undeniable witness to the relationship we once shared.