Chapter 69: Side Story

It took Yin Xian ten years to grow a small company of ten people into an international engineering giant.

At forty, his career was at its peak, and he had everything that most people envied. He was surrounded by potential marriage partners, but he never married, dedicating all his energy to his work.

At forty-three, he started noticing that his memory was getting worse.

At first, he thought it was due to age, stress, and fatigue, so he didn’t pay much attention to it.

Gradually, he began to forget his friends and important partners, couldn’t remember work details, and couldn’t recall things he had done recently.

He felt a sense of repression and panic deep inside, but Yin Xian didn’t stop working. He continued to put on the mask of a leader every day to face his work.

As this continued, one day, he woke up to find himself wearing a suit, walking on the road without shoes.

He had no memory of how he had changed clothes and ended up there.

Then, Yin Xian’s condition deteriorated rapidly.

He could no longer go to work; then, he couldn’t read, write, or do calculations; eventually, even the most basic daily tasks, such as dressing, getting out of bed, and brushing his teeth, became difficult.

Close friends urged him to seek psychological counseling, but Yin Xian was unwilling.

He handed over the company to trusted partners and retreated behind the scenes.

He stayed at home every day, never going out.

His soul felt trapped in a transparent glass jar; although he could see the outside world, he could never perceive or integrate with it. He had spent his life rushing forward, but suddenly, he couldn’t remember why.

His friends brought him pets to keep him company: expensive cats and dogs, talking parrots, rare turtles and fish, miniature pet pigs… Yin Xian refused all of them.

Until one day, he voluntarily bought a rabbit.

It was an ordinary house rabbit, white, fluffy, with a chubby, silly face.

He couldn’t explain why, but he felt the need to have such a rabbit.

Yin Xian named the rabbit Feifei, a name he liked and came up with instantly.

With Feifei’s company, his mental state improved a little.

Thus, he lived aimlessly until the age of forty-seven.

One morning, Yin Xian woke up and saw his rabbit lying motionless in its nest.

It had died.

He was suddenly struck by a sharp pain, unable to describe what drained his spirit, but he completely collapsed.

…Yin Xian was taken to the hospital.

He narrowly escaped death, and soon, he was strongly advised to undergo psychological treatment.

After being diagnosed by a doctor, Yin Xian was found to have Dissociative Amnesia, along with Depression and Avoidant Personality Disorder.

The psychologist initially tried medication treatment for Yin Xian, but since he had a long history of taking psychiatric medications, the results were not effective. After multiple therapy sessions, the doctor struggled to pinpoint the cause of his condition. The most frequent thing Yin Xian repeated in conversations was: “Feifei is gone.”

Feifei, the rabbit he had raised.

It had passed away naturally, and it drove him to the brink of collapse.

There were more deep-seated traumas that Yin Xian couldn’t remember or express.

After much consideration, the team suggested he undergo Hypnotherapy to find the cause of his condition.

Yin Xian knew that only two paths lay before him: to end his life or to try this final hope.

Hypnotherapy could potentially go wrong.

The therapist led him into the world of his subconscious, but still, no useful information was found. It was believed that Yin Xian’s traumatic memories existed in a layer beneath the subconscious, in the unconscious world.

However, the subconscious version of Yin Xian refused to enter the unconscious, to confront the past trauma. Even though the therapist worked hard to create a guide for him, he refused to trust it.

The treatment reached a deadlock, and Yin Xian’s condition worsened.

He turned to alcohol to numb the pain, hoping for a moment of peace of mind. He didn’t know what he was searching for. After getting drunk, he folded the wrapper of his gum into a paper crane, writing on its wings with each stroke.

As he wrote, his headache worsened. He crumpled the crane and tossed it into the corner.

He remembered nothing…

A breakthrough came during the 23rd Hypnotherapy session.

A new guide appeared in the subconscious, descending noisily from the sky while sitting on a paper crane.

The young girl had an angry expression, glaring with wide eyes. She harshly told the subconscious version of him: she was his ex-girlfriend, Wang Jiexiang, and she had been hurt by him. She was still very angry and determined to make him remember her.

Then, in six rooms, she stormed through them, unlocking each door.

He awoke from the last hypnosis session.

After staying in the unconscious for so long, Yin Xian had been a vegetable, lying in a hospital bed for months.

When his ability to speak returned, the therapist came to record his progress.

To his surprise, all of Yin Xian’s lost memories had returned. This meant that with continued treatment, there was a high chance he would never relapse.

…

At fifty years old.

Yin Xian had lived half his life.

He suddenly awoke from a long dream, feeling physically drained. Looking into the mirror, he was shocked to realize that he had aged.

After finishing his psychological treatment, Yin Xian walked out of the hospital.

He walked down the street with his hands behind his back. A young couple passed by him, walking so close that the girl’s hand was tucked into the boy’s coat pocket, radiating sweetness.

The earth had shed its winter chill, and spring had arrived.

Yin Xian went to Lingyuan.

At the columbarium, among many compartments, hers occupied a small one.

Thanks to the staff’s cleaning, the glass in front of her compartment was spotless.

The yellowed photo, showing the lovely young girl, remained unchanged after twenty years.

She still stood in front of Yinyuan Bridge, waiting for him, her crescent-shaped eyes squinting in a smile.

Yin Xian picked up the photo and wiped her face, looking at it again and again… slowly pressing it to his heart.

He remembered her.

He remembered her name, that she liked rabbits; he remembered her asking in frustration why fried rice couldn’t have chili; he remembered her happily holding a rabbit keychain, spinning in circles at home; he remembered the snowy day they first met, when she sat on the supermarket’s rocking horse, crying so heartbreakingly to the song “Forget-Me-Not”…

Yin Xian thought, Jiexiang had wanted to return to her hometown.

She had stumbled out of the mountains, but part of her heart had remained there. She missed her carefree childhood, missed her mother, and longed for the warmth she never fully received from her family.

So, Yin Xian came to Wang Jiexiang’s hometown for the second time.

This time, he brought her with him.

He didn’t drive; just like before, he took the bus.

The mountain road was smooth and wide, and the view was filled with the pure, fresh green of the mountains.

The old tree at the village entrance was lush with leaves. Under the tree, there was a man holding a child. As Yin Xian approached, the man waved at him.

It was Wang Jiexiang’s younger brother, Wang Jiehao.

Her father and grandmother were no longer alive, and her younger brother was her only remaining close family.

Before coming, Yin Xian had contacted him and explained his purpose.

The last time he saw Wang Jiehao, he was still a little boy.

Now, he was married and had children of his own.

Yin Xian brought some gifts for him, which Wang Jiehao accepted without hesitation.

Jiexiang was buried beside her mother’s grave.

Her resting place was in a spot with a broad view, where one could see the mountains, a whole range of lush green peaks.

Yin Xian told Wang Jiehao to go ahead.

He sat in front of her grave and stayed with her a little longer.

As he left, Yin Xian remembered the path down the mountain.

He would come back often to visit her, until the day he could no longer walk.

He had come with a jar, and now his arms felt empty. Yin Xian’s steps halted at the foot of the mountain. He couldn’t help but turn around, but he could no longer see her tombstone.

Dragging his sickly body, even though he walked slowly, he was still out of breath and exhausted.

He found a patch of shade under a tree and sat down to rest.

A spring breeze brushed through the wild mountains.

Looking up, he caught sight of a cluster of flowers in full bloom.

As he walked closer, he saw that the light brown branches held spherical flowers. These clusters of flowers were made up of many tiny blossoms, all gathered together to form a warm, yellow-white ball.

He asked an old man passing by what the flower was called.

The old man said, “It’s called Jiexiang.”

“Jiexiang?” Yin Xian froze for a moment.

Years ago.

She had knitted him a sweater, with a round collar and long sleeves, in a special shade of smoky blue. The stitches were neat and even. When his fingers touched the hem of the sweater, there was a small bump, and when he flipped it over, there was a little fluffy flower hidden inside.

“If you don’t like the flower, you can cut it off.”

Wang Jiexiang scratched her head awkwardly.

He asked, “What flower is this?”

She smiled but didn’t answer…

Years later.

Wang Jiexiang stayed in her hometown.

Yin Xian brought a branch of Jiexiang flowers back home.

The Jiexiang flower tree was also known as the Dream Tree. The legend goes that if you place a Jiexiang flower under your pillow, it will bless you with sweet dreams, help you escape misfortune, and lead you to your true love.

——————

Author Note:

At this point, the story of “To Your Island” is complete.

The flower language and legend of Jiexiang flowers are sourced from the Chinese Garden Network’s encyclopedia, beautifully written. For those interested, you can search “Jiexiang Chinese Garden Network Encyclopedia,” and it should be the first result.

Originally, I wanted to tell a story of reconciliation. Little Rabbit Island came to me.

—”That guy doesn’t seem to love you that much, doesn’t care about you that much. I know you won’t accept this, you’ll look through every little detail to find proof of his love.”

I knew this story would be hard to write and niche, but once I had the initial idea for Little Rabbit Island, I knew I had to write it.

Today, I have finished Little Rabbit Island. Thank you for the three months of companionship, thank you for giving me the strength to keep writing. I hope this is a story worth reading twice.

Lastly, I wish for you, and for all of us, no matter whether we choose to turn back or move forward, to have the chance to reconcile with old wounds.

We will meet again in the next story.