Three a.m. The hospital hallway was suspended in silence, the fluorescent lights buzzing faintly overhead, their pale glow stretching across the floor like long, tired shadows.
Su Rui sat on the bench outside the ICU, fingers locked together, palms sweaty.
She couldn't sleep. Couldn't walk away either.
That conversation—if it even counted as one—had been so brief, but it cracked something open in her. A glimpse into an emotion that didn't feel like hers.
It wasn't the body.
It was the way Lin Yueying had spoken. The tone—gentle, slow, hesitant—like a voice wrapped in warm gauze.
Not like the tough banter of cleaning staff. Not like gossiping aunties. It was something she hadn't heard in a very, very long time.
It sounded… like a mother.
Her chest tightened.
That word hadn't touched her life in decades.
Until now.
—
She was five when her foster family moved again, into a rundown shophouse.
The adults were busy with boxes. She had been sent downstairs, told to play in the storage room.
The place was crammed with old furniture, broken props, forgotten store displays. In the far corner stood a cracked glass case, housing two half-body mannequins in faded lace dresses. Their painted faces were chipped, one had part of its mouth missing.
She didn't know what they were.
She just stood in front of them for a long, long time.
Eventually, she walked up to one, reached out, and touched its fingers. Cold. Plastic. Unyielding.
Still, she didn't pull back.
Instead, she threw her arms around the mannequin and whispered:
"Mom…"
She waited. There was no reply.
"Mom," she said again.
Then she cried.
A quiet, shaking cry—no sound, no tears. Just trembling, and the aching choke of something she didn't understand.
She burned with fever that night. Slept for two days straight.
After that, she never spoke of it again.
Never said "mom" again either.
Because even as a child, she'd understood: that mannequin was hollow.
It wasn't her mother.
And she… probably wasn't anybody's daughter.
—
The memory crept in like water through cracked walls. Cold, but impossible to ignore.
Su Rui looked down. Her fingernails were digging into her palms.
She took a deep breath and stood. Slowly, she walked back into the ICU.
She didn't know who Lin Yueying really was. Didn't know why she felt this strange pull toward her.
But she couldn't deny it.
That voice, that softness—it stirred something deep inside her.
She stood beside the hospital bed, watching the sleeping woman's face.
A face that shouldn't have felt familiar. And yet… something about it tugged at her. Drew her closer.
Like a string, buried long ago, being gently pulled.
She suddenly wanted to ask:
"Have we met before?"
But she didn't say it.
She just took a breath, like someone who never believed in miracles but decided to pray anyway, and murmured:
"You have to wake up. You… still haven't finished what you wanted to say."