That’s where I was after eighteen months. I didn’t want to see or talk to her, and I’d no longer allow her to set foot in my world. The paradox, of course, was that my love for her would grow. Her corpse would remain in a sarcophagus where I kept her closer than I could in reality. And I continued believing in that unchanging world, which I was at peace with. It was as if Shui Ling simply went on living her life, and it made no difference whatsoever to me.
