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墨書 Inktalez
The smell of disinfectant pierced my nostrils like a rusty wire as I stared at the mottled ceiling. The curled flakes resembled decaying skin, glinting a bluish-gray under the fluorescent lights. The intravenous tube swayed before me, like a cold centipede burrowing into the purple veins of my hand. The rhythmic drip of the medication intertwined with the beeping of the Fetal Monitor, creating a web that tightened around my temples.
Suddenly, the sharp sound of high heels clicking against the floor tiles echoed down the corridor, and the familiar scent of Jasmine Essence wafted into the room before her figure appeared. This fragrance reminded me of the night I was abandoned in the snow, its cold, piercing aroma mingling with the cries of a baby, shattering like glass shards before the rusted iron gate of the orphanage.
"Xia..."
A hand painted with nude nail polish parted the blue curtain, revealing carefully curled chestnut hair cascading over her Dior-clad shoulders. The diamond ring on her ring finger reflected a cross-shaped glimmer under the fluorescent light, piercing my retina like a sharp scalpel. Instinctively, I curled my fingers but knocked over a glass on the bedside table.
As the crystal cup shattered on the floor, blood-red droplets rolled down my palm, bursting into crimson flowers on the white sheets. The tiny shards embedded themselves in my palm, reminding me of the birthday cake I had bitten into at eight years old—the cheap cream that the Welfare Home Mother had acquired by saving up scraps for three months, mingling with a gasoline taste that formed a hard lump in my throat.
"When you had the nurse leave me on the steps of the orphanage all those years ago, did you forget you ever had a child?" I smiled as I watched blood seep into the sheets like dark clouds. The pain made my vocal cords tremble but could not compete with the dull ache tearing at my heart. Outside, dark clouds loomed low, and the leaden gray light outlined her rigid false eyelashes, resembling a delicate porcelain doll suddenly cracking.
She suddenly knelt on the floor tiles, her Chanel chain bag hitting with a muffled thud. Her meticulously cared-for hand grasped at the hem of my patient gown, and her diamond watch pressed painfully against my knee. "Mom has uremia; the doctor said direct relatives have the highest success rate for transplants..." Her voice dripped like honeyed poison, each word crystallizing in the air as Bing Ling. "If you’re willing to donate a kidney, Mom will take you home right away."
A cold breeze swept through as it lifted the curtain. I focused on the marks from her recent photon skin treatment on her nape. Seventeen years ago on that snowy night, this woman wrapped in Mink Coat had handed over a bruised baby to a duty nurse; she too had a butterfly-shaped birthmark on her neck. Now that mark had been faded to a light brown shadow by expensive beauty treatments, much like her fleeting guilt reflected in her eyes.
"Do you remember the dump behind the orphanage?" I pried open her hand coated in hand cream; bloodstains marred her pearl manicure, reminiscent of sparks flying in that fire years ago. "When I was eight, a private investigator you sent found me. He said if I died in that fire, all rights to Xia Family inheritance would go to my brother."
Her expression as she slumped to the ground resembled a marionette paused mid-performance, her hair fixed in place by hairspray. I tore open my patient gown; scars crisscrossed across my chest and abdomen raised goosebumps in the cold air. Those centipede-like protrusions spread from my collarbone to my navel, chronicling that man-made hell at sixteen—when an arsonist poured gasoline while I held onto that birthday cake bought with three months' worth of scraps from Welfare Home Mother.
The Fetal Monitor suddenly emitted an ear-piercing alarm. I ripped out the IV needle from my hand; blood splattered across her pale cheek like spilled vermilion paint. "Now you want my kidney?" The glass shards dug into my soles without me noticing as I gripped her collar tightly, veins bulging on my hand. "Why not just butcher me for soup? After all, Mrs. Xia can turn even her own flesh and blood into stepping stones."
Her meticulously drawn lip line began to twist as Chanel lipstick smeared into a grotesque wound. As chaotic footsteps echoed down the corridor, I released my grip and chuckled softly: "The security is quick to respond; did you arrange this beforehand?" My blood-stained fingers traced along her trembling mouth. "Let me share a secret—with last year's DUI incident for my brother, my kidney was already pierced by steel pipes."
The pearl necklace shattered and scattered across the floor, rolling into the dusty corner beneath the bed, like fallen lies slipping into shadows. I watched her being assisted away by the bodyguards, and suddenly I was reminded of that rainy night when I was sixteen. The black car splashed through puddles, drenching the sack I used to collect scraps. In the back seat, a boy chewed on chocolate wrapped in gold foil, his features strikingly similar to hers. The chocolate wrapper he carelessly tossed out glimmered in the muddy water, reflecting a cold light like that of a diamond ring.
The cold wind swirled with the scent of disinfectant in the hospital room, and the alarm of the fetal monitor gradually faded into a ringing in my ears. I curled up in the blood-stained sheets, counting my heartbeats until a frail hand gently covered my eyes. "Girl," said the Welfare Home Mother, her apron still carrying the smell of kitchen grease, "spit out the glass shards."
The taste of rust spread between my teeth as I bit down hard on the glass fragments in my mouth. This was the first lesson she taught me about survival—if an abandoned baby cannot cry, then learn to swallow tears like shards of glass. Until she pried my chin open with her frostbitten hands, a sigh mixed with grease wafting into my ears: "The cashmere blanket that wrapped you? I sold it for three hundred." Her murky eyes reflected my twisted smile. "Enough to buy three cans of infant formula."
The bloodstain on the sheets gradually congealed into a dark brown, reminiscent of the snow from the night I was abandoned. The green light of the fetal monitor cast eerie ripples on the wall, while at the intersection of seventeen years ago and tonight, that unchanging jasmine fragrance lingered in the air.
(End of Chapter)
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