Apparition
Luo An Hai never thought that one
day she would be witnessing her own funeral.
Last thing she remembered was that
she was on a plane headed to the UK to finalise a cooperation program. If she
had succeeded, that company’s director would be in her camp, and then the
position of President Luo will definitely be hers.
She knew she would win, she could
taste it. Who could predict at the final hurdle, she’d die in a plane crash.
Realising her death was imminent, she wanted to cry and wanted to laugh; after
decades of boardroom battles, she was so close to the goal only to fall short.
She struggled for so long,
desperately holding on to her position in the Luo conglomerate, desperately
grabbing everything, not allowing anyone to take away anything that she
believed belonged to her especially that woman and her son. She had sworn that
she will never let them live peaceful lives. They would never live comfortably.
Alas, at the last moment, she was defeated by fate in an airplane crash. She
was not willing - in the moment of the crash, Luo An-Hai’s heart was aggrieved,
she was unwilling to let go of everything she had worked and fought for.
When her eyes opened again, she was
floating in the air; beneath her she could see her funeral being held. She saw
her father standing before her grave, his hair was white, his face was lined
and haggard and he shook with palpable grief.
An-Hai was stunned at this display of emotion from her father. She had
not seen her father for a long time, but she had not looked this old.
Since he brought that woman and her
son into the house, their relationship turned to freezing. She no longer called
him father and became antagonistic. She rebelled, and behaved contrarily. She
made sure that he was never happy with her; she embarrassed him at every turn.
She lived recklessly for she believed he never cared for her mother. Yet her
mother only loved him; a man who married her for money but her mother had no
regrets. She remained dedicated to the marriage, but all she had was loneliness
and depression till her untimely end. It hadn't been long, only three months,
after her mother’s death that her father remarried and brought her stepmother
home.
He and the woman had been having an
affair while her mother was alive, her father tired to divorce her mother, but
her mother refused so her father left their family home and stayed with that
woman and her son in the house he bought for them. In the face of her father’s
ruthlessness and scorn, her mother fell into depression and wasted away.
It was all that woman’s fault! An-Hai stared with resentment at her father’s
wife, she looked sad, but An-Hai scoffed in disdain, full of ridicule. She knew
that woman was just pretending. Hypocrisy!
To that woman, An-Hai never showed
kindness or respect. Every time she saw her father’s wife, her heart was full
of hate because that woman stole her mother’s happiness. With such an ordinary
person who was not half the person An-Hai’s mother was with regard to
character, family background or appearance. But to An-Hai’s father, there
seemed to be only that woman, even though she had been married and had a child,
her father still had this woman in his heart with no room for her mother. When
she married into the Luo family bring with her son, they created a happy world
of three, with An-Hai left in the shadows; cold and alone. The successor to Luo
was she, but her father wanted to raise him and give him the Luo name and the
company.
An-Hai's gaze moved to the tall man
wearing a black suit. His face was expressionless, almost cold.
An-Hai sneered. Why did he attend
the funeral? More hypocrisy, she was dead yet they were still pretending. As
her sides, her fists were clenched as she stared at the man, full of hate and
still unwilling to let him win. But what could she do? She was now dead, just a
ghost, she could do nothing. Luo An-Hai closed her eyes, resentment burning
her, her fists trembling.(So much trembling)
She watched till funeral was over.
She had nowhere to go, so she followed her three "relatives" back to
the Luo mansion, thinking to herself that their behaviour was ridiculous.
Was this still her home? She
wondered as they entered the mansion.
It was not, she concluded. From the
death of her mother, after the woman and her son began to live here, it stopped
feeling like home. But she insisted on staying there, despite everything, so
that nasty woman and her child wouldn't win. It was hers and her mother’s home.
An-Hai looked on with empty eyes, she came home but no one could see her. At
night, in the huge house, there was only silence. Where should she go? Where
was home?
Her solemn apparition drifted to
her room, but it was occupied. She was shocked to see the man lying on her bed
holding a picture frame. It was a picture of her; she had her chin up gazing
defiantly and arrogantly at the camera, her smile haughty and wild. Why was he
in her room? She just died did he want to clear out her room? Remove all traces
of her ever being there? An-Hai watched bitterly, her fists clenched, waiting
for his next action.
She waited a long time, but the man
remained in the same position; eyes on the photo, until dawn did he get up and
leave the room. This made An-Hai frown, she did not understand; what this man
was up to, but she felt he must be up to no good. So she remained there and
waited to see how he would capture what belonged to her. She watching the man
take the position of president of Luo, watched him growing older, watched him
handle the Luo company, watching him spend the night in her room; every night.
She did not understand why he did not clear out her room, but kept everything
the same, the way she left it the day she died. An-Hai was puzzled but she
could not ask or understand. But with a heart full of increasing questions and
doubt, she continued to watch.
On her birthday, the man brought a
small cake into her room. Lit the solitary candle on the cake, and watched it
melt, before leaving he stroked the sides of the picture frame. She watched him
do this year after year.
Her father and his mother died; she
watched the man send them off. Only he now remained in the huge house.
Did he not want a wife? As
president of Luo, there were many women vying for his attention, but he
remained cold. Neither did he seem to be interested in men. No hint of scandal.
An-Hai watched the man, he remained seemingly indifferent yet lonely. He spent
all his free time in her room, spent all that time looking at photos of her.
Yet his dark eyes remained expressionless, she could never tell what he was
thinking. It made her so irritated.
He adopted a boy, raised him to
adulthood and groomed him to be his successor. One day, he suddenly collapsed.
The doctor said it was lung cancer. In addition, the man suffered from
malnutrition with gastric ulcers and stress from overwork. If he did not take
care of his health and rest well, his illness would become fatal. An-Hai
watched the man’s calm expression; it was so abnormal. There was no panic, but
calm calculation. It seemed as though he’d been waiting for this moment,
An-Hai’s heart felt tight and painful, watching the man’s eyes. She thought of
him rarely eating, so much so that his tall and straight stature gradually
shrivelled. He always woke up in the middle of the night to come to her room
and stayed there till dawn. Seeing his dull and lonely eyes, An Hai felt
inexplicable sadness.
Regardless of the doctor’s
righteous discouragement, he insisted on going home and refused treatment; no
surgery or chemotherapy. When he got home, he went to her room sat on her bed
quietly looking pictures of her. An-Hai silently watched.
Upon his death, An Hai witnessed
his funeral; he was buried next to her. She drifted into his tomb; she raised
her hand slowly coming to touch the photos on the tombstone. Complex emotions
coursed through her as she stared at his photograph. She gently touched his
face; he had been such a beautiful man. She thought of him holding that old
photo frame which held that arrogant picture of hers, he’d raised the frame to
his lips and she seemed to hear him whisper,
‘An-Hai, ‘
‘Fool.’ She cried. Her ghostly
tears silently fell, what had been resentment and wilful ignorance was replaced
with deep depression and pain. It really hurt. An-Hai clutched at her chest,
her fingers trembling. She did not understand. She was dead, so why did her
heart hurt so much. Her tears kept on falling to the ground as her apparition
gradually disappeared and all that was left was a hoarse voice.
Fool ...
‘Fool ...’
‘Miss! Miss! Miss!’
Luo An-Hai opened her eyes. Her
vision was blurry, but visage was familiar; younger than her last memory of
that face.
‘Miss, are you alright? Did you
have a nightmare?’ The woman looked worriedly at An-hai, helping her wipe the
tears off her face, thinking the young Miss must have been dreaming of her dead
mother.
‘Chen- Chen Ma?’ An-Hai was shocked
to see the woman; she remembered that Chen Mama left when An-Hai turned 20, to
live with her daughter who had been pregnant.
Chen Ma was at her funeral, crying
in her son's arms.
And now ... An-Hai looked
frantically around - this is her room, scenery she was familiar with.
Seeing her young Miss looking lost,
Chen Ma was even more distressed.
'Miss, did you dream of your
mother? The poor dead woman must be aggrieved, she did not die long before the
master remarried and now bringing his new wife and her son into the house…'
Chen Mama said sadly. Poor young Miss, losing her mother at a young age, her
father who should be caring for her is cold to her. The young Miss has nobody
to protect her; she will surely be bullied by that mistress and her child!
Woman and son moving into the
house…? An-Hai was puzzled, her heart beat elevating as things begin to fall
into place.
‘My mother has been dead for three
months, right?’ she asked
‘Yes, only three months and that
woman cannot wait to get her foot into the door. How can master do this to his
dead wife?!’
Her suspicion was confirmed, but An
Hai dared not believe it, she tried to remain calm, ‘Chen Mama, please return to
your duties.’
‘Miss?’ Chen Ma looked at her pale
face and asked, ‘Is everything alright? Are you in any discomfort?’
‘I’m alright.' An Hai smiled
tightly trying to reassure Chen Ma, ‘You go first, I will come down on my own.
Is my father back yet?’
‘Yes. The driver informed us they
will arrive in ten minutes and the master wants you downstairs to welcome
them,' As she finished the sentence, Chen Ma looked angry. Knowing her Miss is
up against that woman and her son but the master as well, is young Miss simply
forced to accept this lot in life. But she was only a servant after all; she
could not speak up on the young Miss’ behalf.
‘Once I am done washing, I will
come down,’ An Hai tried to look calm, but hidden under the quilt, her hands
clenched.
Once Chen Ma closed the door, she
quickly jumped out of her bed and ran to her full length mirror. She saw her
own self staring back at her. She wore her usual blue silk pyjamas. She had
body that was developing nicely; she had slender graceful limbs, her hair was
the colour of chestnut, it gleamed in the sunlight. She was mixed ethnicity but
her oriental features were more pronounced in her beautiful face, she had
clever eyes and lovely pale white skin. She was fourteen years old and only
mildly proud and rebellious. The bright and clean mirror displayed her visage
sharply, but An-Hai could not quite believe it. Even though her suspicion had
been confirmed, An Hai was still afraid of her reflection.
She knew that this sort of thing
happened in novels and dramas that were popular these days, but she could not
imagine such a farfetched plot could happen to her.
She died in a plane crash, became a
vengeful ghost, and then returned to the past; back to age fourteen to the day
her life changed.
The day, she, the successor of the
Luo empire, became an outsider in her own family.
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