Whisper by Chang Yu-Ko

Author:Chang Yu-Ko
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Regnum Books International
Published: 2022-07-28T02:54:36.192917+00:00

Minako

The taxi, body gleaming, pulled up outside a McDonald’s on Wenxin Road.

Kuo Chen-shan left the taxi, her suitcase dragging behind her, her body fatigued beyond measure.

She had spent the night of the confrontation sobbing in her Beijing hotel room, an hour’s sleep as dawn broke outside her only rest. By the time she woke, the number of missed calls from her husband had reached twenty-six. But there seemed no point in talking to him, so she booked a return flight to Taiwan.

That was all their marriage had been worth, it seemed. Twenty-six phone calls.

She couldn’t help but remember an earlier argument with her husband. It had been when they were first dating, a fight which had almost led to them separating. Chen-shan deliberately ignored his attempts to reach her while he made close to a hundred calls, sitting for an entire day in a nearby café so he could watch the entrance to her rented apartment. All so when she finally emerged, he could kneel and beg her forgiveness.

If he really wants to win me back, he’ll do that again. He’ll be waiting for me at the airport.

He was not. Her husband was no longer that young man so dedicated to her in heart and soul. She boarded the plane and returned to Taiwan, and at no point did anyone attempt to stop her.

Walking through the courtyard entrance to the apartment building, she felt a sudden wave of hatred for the place she lived. She paused by a pond to look at a tall black monolith visible between the other skyscrapers.

It was the New Taipei City Hall—the curtain wall of dark glass that formed its side turned toward where she stood. Designed by a famous Swiss architecture practice and popular with the locals, she had always found it an ominous presence, and now she realized why.

It’s my gravestone.

No, not a gravestone. The mouth of a tomb waiting to swallow me up.

Why didn’t I realize that when I moved in? She knew it was because she had been too busy enjoying the facilities. The spacious atrium, luxury meeting rooms, and boutique cinema. There were rooms for tasting tea and wine, cookery classrooms, a beauty center, karaoke rooms, mahjong rooms, a gym, and a spa. At first, her head had spun at it all, never imagining that after a single year of living that dream life, her family would be scattered to the winds and she trapped in her tower, with nothing to look forward to but death.

Chen-shan tried to shake free of those negative thoughts but failed. She felt herself trapped in a dark maze, unable to find a way out. Rather than an exit, she found something unexpected, a niggling sense of something she was meant to remember. After a moment it came to her, like a locked door suddenly opening.

Inside, a voice which spoke of revenge.

You have to fight for what belongs to you, it told her.

Where do I know that voice from?

She ran through various possibilities until she remembered where she had heard it before.

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