When Fate Brought Us to Wuyun: Chapter 1

 

When Fate Brought Us to Wuyun

Chapter One: Two Women, Two Lives

The rain had just stopped in Chengdu.

Drops clung to the balcony railing of Lín Yìqīng's apartment as she stood quietly beside the window, watching the city disappear beneath a veil of mist.

Behind her, her twins were asleep.

Her daughter had one tiny hand wrapped around a stuffed rabbit. Her son had kicked away his blanket, as he always did.

Lín smiled faintly.

They were her entire world.

And yet, lately, she had begun wondering whether she still had a world of her own.

Five years earlier, she had married Jiǎ Tānzhuó after their parents introduced them through a blind date.

She had been nervous that first day.

He had arrived late, apologizing with an embarrassed smile.

"You must think I'm terribly unreliable," he had said.

She had laughed.

"Perhaps. But you still have five minutes to change my mind."

He did.

For the first year, their marriage felt almost magical.

They worked hard. They saved money. They ate simple dinners together and dreamed about buying a home.

Then came the questions.

"When will you have children?"

"Your husband needs a family."

"You shouldn't wait too long."

Lín tried to smile through it.

Eventually, she became pregnant.

When the twins arrived, she thought the endless expectations would finally stop.

They didn't.

They multiplied.

Her mother-in-law criticized how she fed the babies.

Her father-in-law complained about household expenses.

Relatives offered advice she had never asked for.

And whenever Lín looked toward her husband, hoping he would say something, anything, Jiǎ Tānzhuó remained silent.

Sometimes his silence hurt more than their words.

One evening, Lín stood in the kitchen holding a grocery receipt.

"I spent this much because the children needed formula and medicine."

Jiǎ Tānzhuó barely looked up from his phone.

"I know."

"Your mother said I spend too much."

Silence.

"Jiǎ Tānzhuó."

He finally looked at her.

"What do you want me to say?"

Lín stared at him.

"I want you to say that I'm not doing something wrong."

He looked away.

"My mother worries about the children."

Lín's fingers tightened around the receipt.

"And who worries about me?"

He had no answer.

That night, Lín cried silently so the twins would not wake.

The next morning, she packed their clothes.

She did not leave forever.

She simply needed fifteen days where nobody told her how to breathe.

So she took her children and travelled to Wuyun.

She thought she was running away.

She didn't know she was running toward something.