In the first few months, he could hear the man's muffled and stifled sobs almost every night.
It was like a lone wolf king mourning under the pale moon.
Later, when the time came for school, one day after class, his father—silent for years—suddenly said to him, "You look very much like your mother, especially your eyes and brows."
The man wasn't lying. He even brought out the locked-up photographs.
Before that, his father had never let him into that room, nor allowed him to see a single photo of his mother. Even stepping foot into the garden would result in loud scolding.
His mother in the photo was still beautiful—long dress, black hair, her hands placed in front of her as she faced the camera with a faint smile, like a delicate orchid hidden deep within a valley, gentle and serene.
This was his mother at age twenty.
Before she had met his father.
As for the photos they took together afterward, she had burned them all.
That was for the best.
