Fu Xueli came to this cemetery at this time every year. She held the paper money and fresh flowers she had bought temporarily on the way, slowly climbing the steps.

On the tombstone was an old black-and-white photo of a man and woman smiling faintly. The man was handsome, the woman gentle and graceful. Both in their youthful appearances.

—Fu Xueli’s biological parents.

She stared blankly at that photo, her eyes blinking reflexively, not knowing what to say. She set down the white chrysanthemums and then crouched weakly to one side, spacing out for a long time. After quite a while, she remembered to burn the paper offerings.

“Dad…” After a slight pause, she called out with difficulty, “Mom.”

After the words left her mouth, her nasal cavity swelled with unbearable sourness, and the scalding tears in her eyes finally couldn’t help but fall. She hurriedly raised her hand to wipe them away randomly, smiling bitterly. “Actually, I know… I might have done something wrong, but only today do I dare admit it. Isn’t that very cowardly and weak?”

“There’s a fool who loves me very much, very very much.” Fu Xueli rested her chin on her knees, curling her entire body up, lighting the fire as she choked out, “I always thought he had told me everything.”

Fu Xueli felt her lips trembling. As she spoke, she began to laugh at herself, but the tears just wouldn’t stop flowing.

She knew that actually, Xu Xingchun wouldn’t tell her anything, so she also pretended not to know anything.

But Ma Xuanrui’s words were each like a heavy hammer, smashing fiercely at her heart.

Crushing and pulverizing the layer of self-deception that Fu Xueli had always used to comfort herself. Making her feel like all her blood vessels and tendons were severed, her internal organs completely frozen.

Fu Xueli struggled to breathe, stopping mid-speech, pausing for a moment. “You gave birth to me, but maybe that was just a mistake. These past few years, I feel like I’ve been living like a joke. I’ve resented many people—resented Uncle, resented you both, I’ve even resented him. I resented him for why, when I couldn’t give him lasting love, he had to abandon me and disappear from then on.”

“I’m so afraid of loneliness. I couldn’t bear to part with him, but he hasn’t come back all these years.” Fu Xueli felt salty wet tears falling into her mouth. “I’ve also thought about going to find him, but day after day I was afraid I would make the same ridiculous mistakes you did.”

“I just felt he deserved a better girl.” She buried her head deeply. “But I know, I didn’t dare admit it. These were all high-sounding excuses that let me feel at ease and live my life properly.”

Yes.

Only now did Fu Xueli dare to admit—after all these years, Xu Xingchun had never, not for a single second, given up on liking her.

Since childhood, Fu Xueli could clearly see the people around her, who matched with whom, who wasn’t suitable with whom.

She knew people from two different worlds shouldn’t be together.

This was a principle she had always understood.

But she still let Xu Xingchun down all these years.

Letting him feel sad and hurt alone for so long.

In the blink of an eye, dusk gradually fell. Only Fu Xueli sat quietly alone, insisting on watching the paper burn to nothing. As if once this flame burned out, the past could be completely clean, carefree and worry-free.

“Xu Xingchun, I’ve thought it through.”

The instant Fu Xueli finished this sentence, there was silence on the other end of the phone.

Having cried for too long, her voice was completely hoarse. She paused before she could continue. “If you want to hear it, I’m in Lin City. I can come find you right now.”

“…Where are you?” Xu Xingchun asked.

Fu Xueli insisted, “I’ll come find you.”

After quite a while on the other end, he finally broke the silence and said a place name.

—The place where they broke up.

It seemed like many years had passed, yet also like only a few days. Nothing in this university had changed—familiar to every tree and plant, every building and pavilion. After seven o’clock in the evening, the streetlights on campus lit up. Many students walked back and forth in groups, teachers and college students mixed together, difficult to distinguish. Below the girls’ dormitory building, there were pairs of couples embracing inseparably like glue.

This was the university Fu Xueli had attended.

The streetlights were dim, the faint light blurring his face. Xu Xingchun sat there motionless. Still wearing yesterday’s police uniform that had become somewhat dirty, doing what he had done for so many years, day and night, in the past.

Waiting for her.

The instant Fu Xueli sat down beside Xu Xingchun, she trembled slightly, almost imperceptibly.

The air held sticky moisture, making normal breathing impossible.

The two didn’t know how long they sat quietly—three minutes, five minutes, or longer. She finally spoke, her speech very slow. “Xu Xingchun, I want to tell you something.”

“…Mm.”

Fu Xueli took out her phone and set an alarm.

Only five minutes.

She knew he was looking at her, then said, “You should know what this means. I can finish talking within five minutes.”

A suffocating tightness in her heart.

Fu Xueli said the sentence she had rehearsed hundreds of times in her mind. “Today is my biological parents’ death anniversary.”

Like many years ago, that day was also a very ordinary death anniversary.

After visiting the grave, at home with the photos displayed, Fu Yuandong, Fu Chenglin, and Fu Xueli ate a meal together.

This was an annual ritual. After eating, Fu Xueli had made plans with friends and left after greeting them. Because she had grown up with Fu Yuandong since childhood, she didn’t have particularly deep or strong feelings for her biological parents.

It was snowing on the anniversary day. She wanted to hail a cab on the roadside but couldn’t get one no matter what. Getting impatient from waiting, Fu Xueli could only return home, planning to take the car keys and drive herself.

After opening the door, the living room was extremely empty. Aunt Qi had also gone somewhere unknown. There was basically no one, only an extra pair of shoes.

Fu Xueli found it strange.

Wanting to call out to someone, she then walked upstairs.

The study door was ajar. She saw Fu Yuandong pouring wine while sighing and shaking his head. Fu Xueli heard her mother’s name.

Her movement to push the door paused. She stood there without making a sound.

The family dog lay lazily not far away, wagging its tail languidly as it watched its owner’s strange behavior.

Fu Yuandong’s friend beside him consoled, “It’s been so many years. You’ve raised Ajuan and Akun’s daughter this big. They won’t blame you.”

Fu Yuandong sighed heavily. “If it weren’t for me urging Brother Kun to go home and resolve things, he wouldn’t have lost his life, and Ajuan too…”

The friend quickly said, “They were going to split up anyway. Ajuan had long lost feelings for Akun. Back when they were young, no one knew such a thing would happen.”

Fu Yuandong said, “They wouldn’t have died in that kind of place. I was young and reckless then, only thinking about doing business, only thinking about being with the person I loved. Brother Kun saw what was between me and Ajuan. I wronged him. Thinking about it all these years, we supported each other through the early years…”

—Hearing these words, Fu Xueli went crazy.

Unable to digest this information, she immediately felt suffocated, stepping back two steps, feeling her entire worldview was about to be overturned.

Countless previous confusions surged up madly.

Why hadn’t Fu Yuandong married all these years?

Why could she occasionally sense that Fu Yuandong always showed her an excessively sorrowful expression?

Why was Fu Yuandong better to her than to Fu Chenglin?

Why did her cousin and uncle both refuse to talk about that aunt?

Why did Fu Yuandong always say he owed her?

Oh…

So that’s how it was…

Fu Yuandong and Fu Yuankun were preparing to do a project together, but the partnership fell through when funding couldn’t keep up. At that time, they were already negotiating contracts, having social obligations every day. During that period, the two also argued fiercely over Fu Xueli’s biological mother.

One rainy night, Fu Yuankun kept avoiding meeting Fu Yuandong. Fu Yuandong ran to their house, and the two had another big fight. Finally, Fu Yuankun angrily slammed the door and left, with Ajuan closely following after him.

Late at night, the road was too slippery. A drunk driver happened to hit and kill both of them.

Fu Xueli didn’t hysterically rush in to confront them. She just numbly walked downstairs and walked alone in the snow for a very long time. Until she had no strength left and collapsed by the roadside, did she feel tears surging out.

Yes, she didn’t have the courage to confront Fu Yuandong, because she knew she simply couldn’t hate someone who had raised her.

But what was love?

Why did everyone use love as an excuse, making it seem natural for people to become so dirty?

Was love important, or was responsibility more important?

Those few days, she didn’t want to return to that home at all, staying at school, but going to bars to get drunk every night.

When she returned at night, Xu Xingchun waited below the dormitory building every day.

Day after day.

Fu Xueli couldn’t get over that hurdle in her heart. She could only vent all her negative energy onto Xu Xingchun. She began to avoid, even fear this overly solid relationship.

Smoking, drinking, clubbing, fighting—she did all these things.

But truly loving someone with her heart, she really, truly might find it difficult to persist.

There were no exceptions, right?

In the end, all love would become utterly disgusting.

“Xu Xingchun, can you please stop looking for me in the future?” Fu Xueli swayed unsteadily, falling every two steps, but wouldn’t allow Xu Xingchun to approach. Until finally she plopped down onto a chair, unknowingly with tears flowing all over her face.

She was dead drunk, her heart feeling twisted to the point of rotting, yet her mouth shouted, “Xu Xingchun, I’ve wanted to break up with you for a long time. I wanted to break up with you in high school. Can you please stop clinging to me? Can you please not like me… I really feel so tired. You all talk about love, but what is love? Does love let you all become so selfish?!”

“I’m begging you, let me go and let yourself go too.” Fu Xueli’s eyes held genuine, real pain.

Xu Xingchun sat on the chair, accompanying Fu Xueli as she cried for half the night. He vaguely heard her choke out that she wanted to go back to before.

Looking at the deep night sky, Xu Xingchun asked in a very soft voice, “Fu Xueli, do I really make you this miserable?”

But when she was 14 years old, Fu Xueli had fought with her uncle and ran out angrily to find him.

It was also such a cold night. On that park bench, Xu Xingchun wore thin pajamas.

She also cried uncontrollably. He covered her with his jacket, enduring the cold wind for a long time. She asked between sobs, “How long will you stay with me?”

Xu Xingchun said, “A lifetime.”

After a long time, Fu Xueli asked, “Aren’t you cold then?”

He answered, “Cold.”

She said, “I’m cold too.”

“The jacket is on you.”

“Xu Xingchun, I seem a bit happier now.”

“Mm.”

“Are you unhappy?”

“Seeing you cry, so I’m unhappy.”

“I’m happy now.”

Xu Xingchun raised his hand to touch her face. “Good.”

Fu Xueli hugged him. “Xu Xingchun, my happiness and your happiness, which is more important?”

“Your happiness.”

She finally broke into a smile through her tears.

The sky between the building clusters was like a deep blue curtain. Xu Xingchun’s silhouette was blurred and delicate in the scattered lights of the night.

He had clearly promised then to stay with her for a lifetime.

But the current Fu Xueli cried even harder than that time. There was an incomprehensible despair and sadness in her eyes that he couldn’t understand.

—My happiness and your happiness, which is important?

—You.

—Of course it’s you.

Fu Xueli woke up in pitch darkness. Her head was splitting with pain, carrying the dizziness of a hangover. She lay on a soft bed, not knowing where she was.

“What time is it?” she asked in a hoarse voice.

“Not yet five o’clock.” Xu Xingchun sat in the space between the foot of the bed and the doorway, his head lowered. “You’re awake.”

She made an affirmative sound.

At this time, a phone alarm rang in the room. Fu Xueli sat up holding the blanket. “You set an alarm?”

“Yes.”

“Turn it off.”

“No need to turn it off.” Xu Xingchun asked, “Do you remember what you said last night?”

“I remember.”

“Have you thought it through?”

“……”

“There’s one more alarm. Tell me when you’ve thought it through.”

Hesitating only for an instant, when the alarm rang for the second time, tears rolling in her eyes, gritting her teeth, she still forced herself to say, “Let’s break up.”

After a long while, he said, “Okay.”

She heard the sound of the door being gently closed.

Xu Xingchun’s last words were, “I’m leaving.”

Fu Xueli knew she was crying, making no sound, only shedding tears.

This was their last meeting before their reunion.

Also the scene she hadn’t dared to seriously recall all these years.

Before coming to find Xu Xingchun, she had specially washed her face.

At this moment, two lines of tears hung on Fu Xueli’s cheeks. Without makeup, her skin was nearly transparent white. Without her usual glamorous makeup, she was extraordinarily clean and pure.

A few words could finish telling the past. Heat welling up in her eyes, Fu Xueli said, “Because of my parents’ situation, I became confused about love. I was completely trapped. Back then, I thought the existence of love was meaningless, only making people hysterical and covered in wounds in a relationship.”

“So I was weak. I only wanted to escape, at the cost of hurting you. But I’m very shameless. I like to lie. I still liked you, so I always couldn’t control myself from looking for you. It’s just that I temporarily had no way to give you a permanent promise, and was afraid to admit my own mistakes.”

Xu Xingchun pulled out his heart and gave it to her. She couldn’t see it, pretending he didn’t hurt.

I’m sorry.

Really very sorry.

So now she was getting her retribution.

For ordinary people, love is appreciation and enjoyment. But for Xu Xingchun, Fu Xueli’s love was food under starvation, was an absolute necessity, was the last life-saving straw.

Then with what kind of feelings did he let her go?

Immersed in such pain, already on the verge of collapse himself, he still never gave her a single word of blame.

Fu Xueli wanted freedom, so Xu Xingchun gave it to her.

Fu Xueli said she feared confinement, so Xu Xingchun concealed even the most intense pain, as if nothing had happened, willing to die rather than not let go.

She finally got her wish in the end, but never could forget him.

Though not much time had passed, it seemed like a century. Xu Xingchun sat quietly for about several minutes.

In the distance were a few sparse, not very clear silhouettes. The light bulb overhead grew increasingly dim. He tilted his head slightly, raised his hand, and wiped away her falling tears.

The movement was gentle and meticulous, familiar as if done countless times.

Fu Xueli froze.

Xu Xingchun found his voice again, saying very calmly, “…Right now, I don’t want to hear ‘I’m sorry.’ I only want to know—you’ve thought it through, so do you want to be with me?”

Whether it’s guilt.

Or love.

Or just wanting to compensate, he accepted it all.

Before she could react, her phone was taken away by Xu Xingchun. The alarm was turned off one second before it rang.

She was encircled in his arms.

Fu Xueli’s voice faltered slightly. She opened her mouth with difficulty. “I don’t know how to love others.”

“I’ll teach you.”

Her voice heavy with tears, “I’m afraid in the future…”

Afraid of what?

Afraid their relationship would repeat the same mistakes?

Or afraid she would still trample on Xu Xingchun’s full sincerity.

But Fu Xueli had a vague premonition that this time, being with him, they probably wouldn’t be able to separate anymore.

Xu Xingchun’s lips gently and tenderly pressed against her ear, at an extremely low volume, burning yet restrained—

“Fu Xueli, even I’m not afraid, so what are you afraid of?”