Dr. Chen arrived thirty minutes after Shen Jingwei left.
He was in his fifties maybe, with graying hair and kind eyes behind wire-frame glasses. He had a folder tucked under his arm that Wanyin assumed was her medical records.
"Miss Xu, how are you feeling this morning?"
"Like I'm trapped in someone else's life," she said flatly.
Dr. Chen nodded like he expected that answer and pulled up a chair next to her bed. "I heard you had some visitors. Your mother and sister came yesterday, and Mr. Shen was here this morning."
"He doesn't believe me." Wanyin picked at the edge of her blanket. "About the amnesia. He thinks I'm faking it."
"Are you?"
The question was direct but not accusatory. Dr. Chen was watching her carefully, clinical but not cold.
"No." Wanyin met his eyes. "I really don't remember. The last clear memory I have is from five years ago. Everything after that is just... blank. Like it never happened."
Dr. Chen opened his folder and pulled out some papers. Brain scans, she realized. Images of her skull, her brain.
"The damage to your hippocampus is significant," he said, pointing to a dark spot on one of the scans. "This area is responsible for forming new memories and retrieving old ones. The trauma from the accident caused bleeding and swelling. In some cases, this can result in retrograde amnesia, exactly what you're experiencing."
"Will I get the memories back?"
He was quiet for a moment. "Honestly? I don't know. Some patients recover their memories fully over time. Others get fragments, pieces that don't quite fit together. And some never remember at all. Your brain is essentially protecting itself right now. The memories are likely still there, locked away. Whether they come back depends on healing, on triggers, on factors we don't fully understand yet."
So she might never know. Might never remember what made her throw her life away for Shen Jingwei.
Part of her thought that might be better.
"Mr. Shen asked me to confirm the diagnosis to him directly," Dr. Chen continued. "I'll be speaking with him later today. But Miss Xu, I need you to understand something. Memory loss after this kind of trauma is real and documented. However, what you do with that information is up to you."
Wanyin frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that amnesia can be an opportunity. A chance to make different choices than the ones you made before. You're not the same person you were three weeks ago. You don't have to become her again if you don't want to."
The words settled over her like a blanket. Or maybe like armor.
She didn't have to go back. Didn't have to return to being someone's mistress, someone's secret. She could be who she was five years ago, before everything went wrong. Before Shen Jingwei.
"How long until I can leave the hospital?" she asked.
"Your physical injuries are healing well. The ribs will take another few weeks but you can manage that with pain medication. I'd say another three or four days of observation and then you can be discharged." He paused. "Do you have somewhere to go?"
That was the problem, wasn't it? Shen Jingwei owned her apartment. Her family didn't want her. She had no job, probably no money of her own.
"I'll figure something out," she said for the second time that morning.
Dr. Chen didn't look convinced but he didn't push. "There's a social worker on staff who can help you look into temporary housing options if you need. I can have her come by."
"Yes. Please. That would be good."
After he left, Wanyin spent a long time staring out the window. The view wasn't much, just the hospital parking lot and some bare trees. It was late March, still cold. Spring hadn't quite arrived yet.
Her phone was on the bedside table. The nurses had given it to her yesterday. It was cracked from the accident but still worked. She'd been too scared to look through it.
Now she picked it up with shaking hands.
The lock screen was a photo of her and a man. Shen Jingwei. They were at some fancy restaurant, dressed up. He had his arm around her waist and she was smiling, leaning into him. She looked happy.
Wanyin felt sick looking at it.
She unlocked the phone. The passcode came to her fingers automatically even though she didn't consciously remember setting it. 0603. June third. She had no idea what that date meant.
The first thing she saw was messages. Hundreds of them. Most from a contact saved as "Jingwei ♥".
She scrolled through, her stomach getting tighter with every line.
"Where are you?"
"Wanyin, this is childish. Come back."
"Answer your phone right now."
"If you don't respond in five minutes I'm coming to find you."
"You're being unreasonable. I told you I can't leave Meilin right now, the timing isn't right."
"Stop ignoring me. You know I hate when you do this."
The messages went on and on. Demanding, controlling. Some of them were sweet, little "I miss you" texts or "thinking about you" messages with heart emojis. But most of them were just... orders. Expectations. Him telling her what to do and when to do it.
There were voice messages too. She pressed play on one.
"Wanyin, where the hell are you? I'm at the apartment and you're not here. You were supposed to wait for me. Call me back immediately."
His voice was sharp, annoyed. Like she was an employee who'd missed a meeting.
She deleted it. Then she went through and started deleting all his messages, all his voice mails. Watching them disappear felt good, like erasing proof that this version of her had ever existed.
There were other contacts in her phone. Some she recognized from her old life - former modeling colleagues, her agent from before. But most were numbers she didn't know. She scrolled through the call history.
Almost every call was either to or from Shen Jingwei. Sometimes ten, fifteen times a day. A few calls to her mother, none to Qian. One number labeled "Manager Chen" that she'd called several times in the days before the accident.
She tried calling that number. It rang four times before a woman answered.
"Wanyin? Oh my god, is this really you?"
"Um. Yes? Who is this?"
There was a pause. "It's Chen Li. Your manager. Or I was, until... wait, are you okay? I heard about the accident."
Manager. Wanyin sat up straighter, ignoring the pain in her ribs. "Can we meet? I need to talk to you about something. It's important."
"Of course. When are you getting out of the hospital?"
"A few days maybe. Can you come here?"
Another pause. "Wanyin, I don't know if that's a good idea. If Shen Jingwei finds out we're talking again—"
"I don't care what he thinks. Please. I really need your help."
Chen Li sighed. "Alright. I'll come tomorrow afternoon. But I can only stay for a little while. And if anyone asks, I was never there."
She hung up before Wanyin could ask what she meant by that.
The rest of the day passed slowly. Nurses came and went. They brought her lunch that tasted like cardboard. The social worker stopped by with information about women's shelters and transitional housing. Wanyin took all the pamphlets even though the thought of going to a shelter made her want to cry.
How had she ended up here? How had she gone from being a successful model with her whole future ahead of her to being a kept woman with nowhere to go?
Around 5pm, there was a knock on the door. Wanyin tensed, thinking it might be Shen Jingwei again.
But it was Qian.
Her sister looked different than she had yesterday. More uncertain. She was holding a small bag.
"I brought you some things," Qian said quietly. "Clothes for when you get discharged. And your toothbrush, some other stuff from your apartment. I... I have the spare key. Had it from before we stopped talking."
"You went to my apartment?"
"Our apartment," Qian corrected. "The one he bought for you. Yes. I figured you'd need clothes that weren't covered in blood."
Wanyin didn't know what to say. Yesterday Qian had been so angry, so hurt. Now she was here bringing her things.
"Thank you," Wanyin said finally.
Qian set the bag on the chair and turned to leave. Then she stopped.
"The doctor called Mom. Confirmed the amnesia is real." She still wasn't looking at Wanyin. "I'm sorry. For not believing you yesterday. I just thought... I thought you were playing games again. Like you used to."
"What do you mean, like I used to?"
"You'd break up with him and then take him back. Over and over. Sometimes you'd call me crying, saying you were done, saying this time was different. And then two days later you'd be back with him like nothing happened. It got to the point where I couldn't believe anything you said anymore."
Wanyin absorbed that. So she'd been stuck in a cycle. Breaking up, going back. Just like women in abusive relationships did. The thought made her feel cold.
"I'm not going back this time," she said. "I don't know who I was before, but I'm not her anymore. I can't be."
Qian finally looked at her. Her eyes were red like she'd been crying. "You really don't remember anything? Not even the good parts? The beginning, when you first met him?"
"Nothing."
"Maybe that's better." Qian's voice cracked. "Maybe you're lucky. Because remembering how good it was at the start... that's what kept you going back. You kept thinking you could get back to that. But jiejie, that version of him was never real. He was always like this. Controlling. Possessive. You just couldn't see it until it was too late."
She left after that and Wanyin was alone again with her thoughts.
Controlling. Possessive. Those were the words people used for abusers, weren't they?
Had she been in an abusive relationship and not even realized it?
She looked at her phone again. At the messages she hadn't deleted yet. The ones that said "I love you" mixed in with the ones that said "You're being dramatic" and "Stop overreacting."
Classic manipulation. Love bombing mixed with gaslighting.
How had she not seen it?
But then again, maybe she had. Maybe that's why she'd been trying to leave that night. Maybe some part of her had finally woken up.
And maybe the accident, horrible as it was, had given her a second chance.
A chance to be someone different.
Someone free.