“Who told you that? Norah?” The only person they both knew who was aware of her amnesia was probably Norah.
“Yeah.”
Thelma didn’t understand what he meant by bringing up her amnesia, but she said, “I did lose my memory, but losing my memory and not remembering the past doesn’t mean that some things never happened.”
Thelma didn’t want to say much to him. She turned to leave, but Eric suddenly grabbed her hand. His movement was urgent, as if grabbing her fingers was just an instinctive action.
Thelma’s expression turned cold. Eric realized his mistake and quickly released her hand, saying, “Sorry.”
“Do you have something else to do?”
“I…” He looked at her, silent for a long time, then asked, “If I said I regretted it, would you believe me?”
“Regret?”
“Yes, I regret it. Do you think I deserve it?”
“…”
She didn’t quite understand Eric. He was being inexplicably strange, suddenly saying these things to her, specifically telling her he regretted it.
Thelma felt a bit angry and tried to remain calm as she said, “You don’t need to tell me this. I’m already married with children and living happily. Whether you deserve it or not has nothing to do with me.”
Hearing this, he paused for a moment, then let out a bitter laugh, “Sorry, I spoke out of turn.”
The small temple wasn’t very big; on both sides were paths leading into the village. Because the temple was very dilapidated, it had no windows, so standing here, they could see across to the other side of the temple.
Thelma and Eric had nothing more to say. She was about to leave when she inadvertently saw a familiar figure appear on the other side of the temple. She recognized it was Connor.
Just as she had something to ask him, she planned to cross the temple to find him. However, as she walked into the temple, she noticed that Connor was dragging someone along with him, or rather, he had pulled that person all the way here.
Seeing this, Thelma was about to call out to him but swallowed her words. The person Connor was dragging was someone Thelma recognized; she was the silly daughter-in-law from the plump woman’s family.
She saw Connor pull her outside the temple, hurriedly lifting the sleeves of her thick floral cotton coat. After a long struggle, he finally managed to roll the sleeves up. Thelma didn’t know what he saw on her arm, but his body suddenly stiffened, and he stared blankly at the silly daughter-in-law’s face, retreating as he said, “No, no, no, I must have mistaken her for someone else. I definitely mistook her for someone else.”
After saying this, he hurriedly fled.
Thelma found it very strange. Connor, an old cadre, was usually calm and composed. What could he have seen that made him lose his composure like that?
The silly daughter-in-law stood there, still dazed. Thelma walked out and saw her tracing her elbow with her fingertips, making a strange sound as she did so.
Thelma glanced at her elbow and noticed what seemed to be a scar. She felt puzzled and moved closer, only to see that it wasn’t a scar but a birthmark, a butterfly-shaped birthmark that she had seen before.
In a photo of Connor with his girlfriend, there was a similar birthmark on her arm.
“She didn’t die; she went missing fifteen years ago.”
“It was fifteen years ago. Back then, there weren’t as many surveillance cameras, and she went missing while they were on vacation in a very remote place. Over the years, Connor would often return to search for her, but he still hasn’t found her.”
“That girl is a pity. If things had gone well, she would definitely rival today’s popular stars.”
“They reported it to the police, and a large number of officers were dispatched, but they still found nothing. It was as if she had evaporated from the world.”
Thelma recalled the things she had heard. She suddenly thought that this place seemed not very far from where Connor’s girlfriend had gone missing. She couldn’t help but suspect that Connor had taken on this documentary project because the filming location was close to where his girlfriend had disappeared.
Thelma could hardly believe it. She looked at the woman in front of her, her gaze vacant, hair disheveled, face waxy yellow, missing a few teeth, and dirty all over, smeared with some brownish-black substance that she couldn’t identify.
She couldn’t connect her to the delicate-looking girl she had seen in the photo.
Why was this happening? Why was she here?
In that instant, Thelma suddenly realized why she had felt strange when she first entered this village.
Nowadays, transportation in the country is developed, and many rural youths choose to work in big cities, so most of those left behind in the villages are the elderly, children, and women. However, in this village, there were clearly more men than women.
