I went home and slept for two days, clinging to the delusion that all of this was just a dream, that once I woke, everything would be fine again. But when I woke, reality remained exactly as it was.
“These are the ashes of martyr Zhou Haiyan, along with his personal effects. According to what he wrote in his will, all of this is to be handed over to his fiancée, Ms. Tang Heqing.”
I froze completely where I stood.
Among his effects were over a hundred sketches of me, and a diamond ring.
Just when I’d thought I’d fallen behind his footsteps, looking back, I realized he had been watching my retreating figure for years upon years already.
I couldn’t help but shake, a bleak, hollow smile pulling at the corners of my mouth.
I slid the ring onto my finger—it fit perfectly.
Looking down at the wooden box cradled in my arms, I said softly:
“Zhou Haiyan, I’ve come to take you home.”
Outside, the wind was fierce, autumn heavy in the air, the road scattered with withered yellow leaves, some drifting through the sky, others already fallen and settled.
I walked with grief filling my eyes, nothing in my heart but boundless sorrow and stillness, each step feeling as though it weighed a thousand pounds.
Suddenly, something bumped into me—a three-year-old child chasing after fallen leaves along the road, his mother following close behind to watch over him.
The little boy instinctively bowed his head and apologized to me. “Sorry, grandma, I didn’t mean to bump into you.”
I turned to look at him. “It’s alright.”
But he kept staring at me intently, confusion written all over his face.
I kept walking, and behind me came his young, innocent voice, full of bewilderment. “Mama, didn’t you say people with gray hair are all called grandma? But that one was clearly a big sister, wasn’t she? That’s so strange.”
“Shh, sweetheart. If that big sister looks strange to you, it’s because she’s living through a pain you can’t understand yet.”
The little boy watched the retreating figure, uncomprehending. The sky slowly darkened, the sun sinking toward the west, and she walked on, swaying unsteadily, her prematurely gray hair blending into the bleak autumn scenery around her.
…
Passing a flower shop, I stood outside. “Boss, one bunch of sunflowers, please. My husband never liked chrysanthemums.”
I carried them home to the little alley.
The osmanthus tree in the courtyard was in full bloom, its petals scattered across the ground by the wind.
I sat down on the sofa Zhou Haiyan always used to sit on, gently resting my hand on the wooden box.
As if it were him, alive, right there.
“Zhou Haiyan, did it hurt? Back then?”
They said in the video he never made a single sound the whole time, never shed a single tear.
“Look, I got you your favorite sunflowers.
“I won’t be giving you a birthday this year. The date’s already passed, and wishes don’t work past their time anyway.”
I paused. “I won’t ever give you another birthday, actually.
“I’m sorry. For dragging you down. If only I hadn’t had that father of mine—I’d rather have been an orphan.
“You were such an idiot. You took ten yuan as a protection fee, and you really did end up protecting me for ten years.”
…
I rambled on and on, saying so many things, and maybe he’d grown tired of listening, because right then our front door was knocked on.
I opened it to find a man standing outside in a trench coat, tall and lean, unease etched across his brow. He looked at me for a long moment, his gaze settling on my hair, a thin mist of tears gradually rising in his eyes.
I opened my mouth. “Senior, why are you here?”
Seeing he had no intention of leaving, I stepped aside to let him in.
He sat down on the sofa across from me. “I noticed something was wrong with you, so I came to check on you.
“You two knew each other, didn’t you?”
I held up my hand, showing the ring. “He was my husband.”
He fell silent for a moment, then spoke, his voice gentle, carrying a note of comfort.
“I’m sorry. My condolences.”
I let a faint smile tug at the corner of my mouth, while inside, my heart wept blood.
The room stayed quiet for a long while.
He suddenly spoke. “In October, the poplar leaves at Kanas turn the most brilliant gold. In November, the snow scenery at Shangri-La is pure and pristine white. In December, the hills of Tengchong are covered end to end in cherry blossoms.
“What I mean is, a person has to keep looking forward—there’s still so much scenery ahead. When I was twelve, my father passed away, my mother was diagnosed with cancer, and my younger brother was only seven. I was exactly where you are now. But I gritted my teeth and kept going, and by some miracle my mother’s illness was cured, my brother grew up bit by bit, and once I made it past that hurdle, everything slowly got better. I started going out to see the mountains, the rivers, everything this world has to offer—even a single wildflower could bring me joy.”
I stated the facts, calm and matter-of-fact. “But you still have your mother, and your brother. I have nothing left at all.”
His expression turned earnest. “If you ever need it, I’d be more than happy to stay by your side, for as long as you want.”
The unspoken meaning behind an adult’s words doesn’t need to be said outright.
I didn’t know exactly when his feelings toward me had grown beyond what a senior and junior colleague should feel, but I had always, genuinely, thought of him as a senior colleague and nothing more—he’d helped me so much over the years, taught me so much.
But a person only has one heart in this life, and mine beat for one person, and one person alone.
“Having had him was already enough for me.”
A shadow of disappointment crossed his eyes.
“Senior, it’s getting late. Thank you for coming all this way today. I think I’d like to sleep now.”
“Then get some rest.”
At the door, he hesitated for a moment, then turned back.
“Then let me reserve a spot with you for the next life, ahead of time. I’ll take my place in line, right behind him.”
He left without waiting for my answer.
But there would be no next life for me.
This human world was too bitter—so bitter that there was nothing left in it for me to hold onto. I wouldn’t be coming back in the next life, so as not to drag him down all over again.
I carried the urn, step by step, into Zhou Haiyan’s room, and lay down on his bed.
So much time had passed that his scent no longer lingered in the room at all.
I thought, perhaps I really am a terrible person.
That must be why heaven kept taking back, one by one, everything I ever had, punishing me by turning everything I held onto into ash slipping through my fingers.
The road of true love is never smooth. Love meets every hardship, and love is itself every hardship.
Everything the old folks used to say was a lie. They said two people whose names can be strung together share a deep fate—but there was never any fate between us at all.
Ping’an Alley—Peaceful Alley—had never once been peaceful.
Countless memories of the past rewound before my eyes, like a film playing back, and I watched my own life unfold as if I were only a bystander to it.
The story’s beginning had never been a match for the endless upheaval that followed.
The lament I’d voiced at fourteen finally struck home in my heart, all these years later. It turned out this life of mine had been destined, from the very start, to be one long, muddy, impassable road.
In a daze, I found myself back at that day. Only this time, I didn’t walk into the alley, didn’t push open that door—instead I turned back, tormented by the darkness, until it swallowed me whole. Perhaps that would have been the best ending after all.
I would gladly trade away my chance to be reborn in the next life, in exchange with heaven.
First, in exchange for a world at peace, forever free of drugs. Second, in exchange for never again seeing peaceful seas and clear rivers— for never again seeing Haiyan and Heqing.
My whole body grew steadily colder, my breathing thin and labored, a thick taste of blood churning in my mouth, trickling down from the corner of my lips to my chin, to my ear, finally blooming across the white sheets like a brilliant, terrible flower.
Standing at the very edge of life, looking back, I saw the platform leading to the underworld crowded full of the departed, waiting there to welcome me home.