“Come any closer, and I’ll jump.”
The twenty-year-old girl’s voice was choked, her eyes brimming with tears.
She stood at the edge of the harbor; just one step back, and her body would be swallowed by the waves.
The couple standing opposite her didn’t take a single step back.
Lạc Lạc’s face showed deep satisfaction, yet she still tried to maintain a facade of innocence.
She clutched An Phong’s arm and said fearfully, “An Ge, this isn’t right.
If the Mạc family finds out, we’ll be in trouble.
Your career has just begun, and I don’t want you to…”
An Phong gently stroked Lạc Lạc’s head and said softly, “The weather forecast isn’t good today. If she dies, it’ll be because she slipped.”
Mạc Gia Kỳ was only twenty years old, too young to truly grasp human love.
Her feelings for An Phong were one-sided; she had disregarded his feelings to establish a binding marriage. What she faced today was her own making.
The sky was pitch black, and a few raindrops mingled with Mạc Gia Kỳ’s tears.
If she didn’t jump, they wouldn’t let her go. Still immersed in her sorrow, Mạc Gia Kỳ was suddenly terrified to see An Phong pull out a gun and point it directly at her.
“Are you really this heartless? I’ll sign the divorce papers. Can’t you give me a way out?”
Mạc Gia Kỳ wanted to kneel and beg the man in front of her; humans are naturally afraid of death and desire to live.
All her ambitions, so many places in the world she hadn’t seen—she really couldn’t die like this.
Even more, she didn’t want to believe that the man she loved had pushed her to this dead end.
Mạc Gia Kỳ, filled with disappointment and sorrow, took a step back.
The weather forecast was very accurate today; the storm’s winds created huge waves, swallowing the one-meter-seventy-tall body.
An Phong opened an umbrella for Lạc Lạc, and they left, thoroughly satisfied.
Relying on her family’s immense wealth and her parents’ prominent status in high society.
She mistakenly believed herself to be superior, walking with her nose in the air wherever she went.
She used her money to force An Phong to agree to the marriage; he, swallowing his anger, agreed to marry someone he considered worthless.
Little by little, a storm had gathered, and An Phong would one day return everything to her. That day was today.
Mạc Gia Kỳ had bound his body, but she couldn’t bind his emotions or his heart.
An Phong, starting with nothing, had step by step built his own company, becoming a wealthy man. Even if not as rich as the Mạc family, he no longer had to bow his head and endure as before.
Mạc Gia Kỳ had failed to see Lạc Lạc’s true face early on, always believing she was a good friend.
Always supporting her actions, even if they were wrong, she’d go along with them, cheering her on most enthusiastically. But in reality, they were all instigations.
She had no right to resent Lạc Lạc. If they hadn’t met from the start, there would be no betrayal like today. If she had been clear-headed from the beginning, everything would have had a better ending.
She should blame herself for living such a flawed life.
Mạc Gia Kỳ’s body drifted further and further away, sinking to the bottom of the sea.
On the day she died, not a single ray of light shone down. Should one say she deserved to die, or that she was foolish?
If only she hadn’t fallen for An Phong that day, a fourth-year student about to graduate. If only she hadn’t befriended Lạc Lạc, a girl who always pretended to care about others.
“Mom, I want to marry An Phong! Please agree quickly, I really like him.”
“I’ve already investigated. An Phong’s family background is very difficult; there’s no reason to refuse.”
“Dad, I want to marry him.”
“No, no, if I don’t marry An Phong, I won’t marry anyone in this life.”
“I told you, I only want to marry him.”
Every single word now turned into a painful memory, all summed up by two words: “If only.”
If only the Mạc family hadn’t spoiled her so much, if only they had disciplined her strictly, even if it meant using a whip, if only Mạc Gia Kỳ had been the biological daughter of Mạc Gia Uy and Túy Liên.
It would be better to endure excruciating pain than this present moment, soon to be separated from them. The suffering of the dead is but fleeting; those left behind are haunted by sorrow until the end of their days.
Darkness enveloped her, along with an undefined floating sensation. True freedom, indeed.
But who truly wants this freedom, who can accept it, a life not yet halfway lived?
Before dying, she hadn’t dared to ask herself if anyone would mourn her passing besides her parents. Having been turned away and betrayed by others, she had withdrawn so completely that she didn't even dare to entertain the delusion that outsiders would sympathize.
Mạc Gia Kỳ, however, carried a sliver of fragile hope, asking the pitch-black sky, asking the encroaching storm, asking the land that was slowly receding.
Could she start over?
Carrying that question down to the deepest depths, her tears mingled with the sea; the young girl’s regret was no longer discernible.