Scarring Jasmine-Chapter Thirty Eight Renewal

11/28/2024 Thursday 39-54F Rain

Jasmine’s face was stitched. After the doctor and maids left, Zhao sat by her bedside, holding her hand and begging: “Jasmine, please say something to me!” 

She pulled her hand away but kept her eyes on the roof beam, “I am an ugly woman now; I have no use for you anymore. Please free me, this is the only thing I want from you.” 

Zhao choked with sobs, “Jasmine, you are stupid; you didn’t have to hurt yourself. How can I face the rest of my life? You will leave me in guilt every day! Without you, my life will be entirely empty!”

“I am not that important. Soon you will forget about me.” Jasmine struggled up from the bed, and walked to the dresser, “Let me go now. I only want my freedom, and never to see you again.”

“If that’s your wish, I will let you go. But you can wait until your cut is healed.” 

“No, I will go right now. It won’t get healed here.” 

“Where will you go?”

“Somewhere.”

“Please wait for one more night, I will go get some money for you tomorrow. You can’t go out without money.”

“I won’t take anything from you again!” She changed her clothes, wrapped Yu’s earrings and First Madam’s emerald ring in her handkerchief, and held a hat with veil in her hand. At last, she turned to Zhao, “Farewell.” Then she put on the hat and walked to the door.

“Jasmine,” Zhao called after her, “do you really hate me that much?”

Jasmine didn’t answer. Her back vanished in the deep night of the garden. Zhao sat at the bed, staring in the direction from where she disappeared. About two minutes later, a servant hurried into the room, asked: “Master, Madam wants to leave. She said that you agreed.” 

Zhao waved his hand numbly: “Yes, let her go.”

The doorman took the order and left. Zhao felt like in a dream—as if It weren’t true; she neither cut her face, nor left. They would live a long, long life together; there would be a lot of happiness for them to explore. True, he hadn’t given her a big wedding, and that Peach Blossom Dock house hadn’t been built. But she couldn’t go! He couldn’t live without her!

He rushed to the gate and found that doorman. “Where is Madam?” He asked anxiously.

“Master, Madam went west a while ago.” 

He ran along the street toward west, then came to a crossroad. She wasn’t there; she wasn’t anywhere. She must have been swallowed by the endless darkness and the empty streets. He had lost her! Zhao slumped on the ground, crying heartbrokenly.

He had lost her forever.

Jasmine was hiding at a corner. She knew that Zhao would come out to look for her, thus she went west first; after the doorman shut the door, she turned back and squatted under someone’s eave behind a big bonsai tree. She heard Zhao’s cry, like a fatally injured wolf’s howl. It sounded so painful; it kept attacking her ears. Her instinct almost pushed her to run to him, to hug him, to comfort him; but the pains from her face and her body drew her back to reality. She finally gained the chance to free herself; she shouldn’t go back. Or else she would be locked up by him again and forever.

He was Zhao; he was a solitary wolf; he would heal his wound alone then return to his hunting fields; he didn’t need anyone. 

She knew where she would go--It was a place about which she had been dreaming since she was fifteen years old; and now she had one more reason to go there.

She couldn’t go to her mother and brother’s house, where for sure Zhao would go to find her. She didn’t want to burden anyone or let anyone know her plan. This time, she must stand on her own!

At last, Zhao’s howl lowered and lowered, until nothing could be heard. Then someone closed a door; the world resumed its silence. 

Jasmine left that eave before dawn, then waited at a corner opposite a pawn shop. When eventually it opened at eight o’clock, she went in and pawned First Madam’s emerald ring. Perhaps because she dressed like a lady instead of a desperate poor girl when she pawned Zhao’s jade pin, she got seventy-seven silver coins. With the money, she stopped a rickshaw, and was pulled to the train station. She was lucky; she was able to buy ticket on that day’s first train to Shanghai which would leave in ten minutes. Every minute she stayed there was a risk for her; she could be caught at any time!

After boarding the train and finally when it started to move, Jasmine breathed out. In an instant, all the anxieties and pains were gone, she had thrown everything far behind. “Goodbye my hometown, goodbye my past.” She was heading for an unknown yet exciting future, she mustn’t be fearful!

She took a renewal breath.