In Her Name, I Fell into Eternal Slumber

The Loveless Dog

I lay on the hospital bed, my gaze hollow, my heart full of mixed emotions. The words they said, like sharp blades, deeply pierced my heart. Li Rongrong and Zhang Wenliang’s betrayal was almost unbelievable. She had once been the wife I trusted, and I thought our relationship was unshakeable. But in an instant, everything crumbled. I had thought I understood her, thought I knew everything about her, but now the reality was so cruel, shattering all my illusions.

“Heh, this is truly amusing.” I muttered lightly, bitterness lacing my voice. Pain spread across my chest like threads, and I realized how ridiculous I had been all these years. I thought I was doing everything right, trying to be a successful person, trying to be a decent man, a respectable husband. But now I understood, I wasn’t. My ridiculousness was so obvious, so easy for others to see. I was the joke, and I didn’t even realize it. It’s almost laughable.

After all the effort I put in to cover up my vulnerabilities, thinking I could hide everything and present myself as a strong, capable man, it turned out I was so transparent, so easily seen through by others. All the things I did, the love I gave, it was all just a source of amusement for them. I thought I had built a life worth being proud of, but instead, I had just built a facade that was easily torn down.

After Li Rongrong and Zhang Wenliang left, I was left alone in the room, isolated on the hospital bed, feeling abandoned. My six-year-old daughter, Wang Jiajia, stood by my bed, her face showing obvious annoyance.

“When are you going to wake up already? It’s so annoying,” she complained. “You can’t even make money lying in this bed. Do you know how much this is costing? How could I have such a useless father?”

Her words hit me like a heavy blow, driving straight into my chest. I had always thought of myself as her father, her protector, her hero. But now, I realized she saw me only as a burden, someone who no longer served a purpose—someone who was simply draining resources without being able to contribute. The feeling of being so casually dismissed by my own daughter left me breathless.

I couldn’t help but ask myself: What did I do wrong? Why was I never loved? Why did I only receive pain and neglect, despite all the effort I put into being a good husband and father?

“You really are awful. No wonder no one loves you,” Wang Jiajia added coldly, as if I was the most unlovable person in the world.

Her words were like a dagger, driving deep into the most vulnerable part of me. Maybe Li Rongrong and Wang Jiajia had known from the beginning—maybe they had always known how little I had ever truly been loved. It was just that I had never faced this reality. I had always been searching for love, thinking that if I gave all of myself, someone would love me in return. But it seemed that no one ever would.

The anger within me swelled, and with it, I finally managed to open my eyes. Wang Jiajia’s face immediately filled with fear. She took a step back instinctively. She had been so arrogant and dismissive toward me before, but now, just like her mother, she was afraid of me. The words she had just spoken must have made her nervous.

“Dad, you’re finally awake,” she said, her voice shaky, as if speaking to a stranger rather than her father. I suddenly realized that this child, once so reliant on me, now looked at me with a mixture of indifference and calculation. Her eyes no longer carried the trust and innocence they once did.

I wanted to shout at her, to demand answers, to ask why she had betrayed me. But my body was still too weak to produce any sound. All I could do was blink weakly, feeling as though I were trapped in my own body, unable to escape.

Just then, doctors and nurses rushed into the room, their expressions filled with surprise and concern when they saw I had regained consciousness. But Li Rongrong did not share their joy. She entered with a false smile, but her eyes held a flicker of displeasure. Perhaps she thought my waking up was untimely, a disruption to her “good times” with Zhang Wenliang.

I knew exactly what she was thinking: my waking up meant she and her daughter would have to face me again. They would have to resume the charade of a happy family. This was undoubtedly a burden to them, especially to Li Rongrong, who would now have to juggle this new reality while maintaining her “perfect” public image.

Li Rongrong stood at my bedside, pretending to be concerned, her voice full of feigned warmth. “You’ve finally woken up. How do you feel? We’ve been so worried about you.”

I had no desire to respond to her feigned concern. Instead, I weakly handed her the divorce papers. “Sign it.”

Her face immediately turned pale. “What’s this supposed to mean?” she demanded angrily. “Wang Peng, don’t you know how much I’ve worried about you while you’ve been unconscious? How much we’ve both been hoping for you to wake up? And now, you wake up and want a divorce? What did we do wrong?”

She stood there, playing the victim, as if I was a terrible person for waking up and wanting to end this farce of a marriage. But I no longer cared about her performance. I sneered, looking at her with disdain.

“Li Rongrong, you didn’t think I could hear everything, did you? Even when I was lying there in a coma, I could still hear your conversations.”

Li Rongrong’s face instantly drained of color, her eyes widening in shock. I continued, my voice cold: “Do you want me to tell everyone about how you and Zhang Wenliang have been carrying on behind my back right in front of me? Or maybe you want me to keep quiet about how you’ve been deceiving everyone, including our daughter?”

I turned to Wang Jiajia, my gaze sharp. “And you, since you already knew your mom had found a new ‘dad,’ why pretend in front of me? Why play this fake game of pretending everything was normal?”

Seeing that I knew everything, Li Rongrong no longer tried to hide it. She sneered. “Wang Peng, I understand you’re angry. I get it. But let me give you a piece of advice: divorce isn’t something you can just say on a whim. If you really want to divorce me, you’ll be alone for the rest of your life. Someone like you, who’s so desperate for love—do you think you’ll survive on your own?”

Her words were full of threats, but I no longer felt fear. I had come to realize that her idea of “loneliness” was just an attempt to keep me under control. She thought she could manipulate me with her coldness and warnings, but she was wrong. I was no longer the man who would settle for scraps of love.