Sheng Sui, as long as you still need me, I will always be here.

“She’s already left.”

Under the scorching midday sun, the slender woman’s figure could no longer be found in the street-side flower shop. Liang Xubai squinted his eyes at the glaring light outside the window.

Withdrawing his gaze and turning his head, the man looked toward the back door leading to the small alley and sighed deeply: “Come out.”

The room was filled with fragrance, leaving only the faint sound of the clock’s hands moving.

Click. Click. Click.

The casual expression disappeared from Liang Xubai’s face. As he stood up and strode toward the back door, he caught a whiff of faint smoke and couldn’t help cursing under his breath.

Including the flower shop, the entire courtyard layer behind the small alley was something he had casually bought. Liang Xubai occasionally smoked in the open-air alley.

In his memory, Zhou Shiyu never smoked, and due to his illness, he rarely touched alcohol or other stimulating substances.

The man who didn’t smoke or drink was now leaning against the gray stone white wall, his tall, thin frame slightly hunched, his prominent neck bones visible when he lowered his head, disheveled hair half-covering his brow and eyes. When his thin white shirt was puffed up by the cross-breeze, there was something decadently seductive about him.

The man’s well-defined left hand held a short cigarette between his fingers, the crimson tip flickering against his fingertips, as if it would burn down to his cold, pale skin the next second.

White smoke particles scattered in the wind. Liang Xubai saw that Zhou Shiyu’s left hand holding the cigarette bore no watch strap, allowing dozens of scars to show hideously on his skin. The words that had rolled to his lips were swallowed back down his throat.

A few years ago, he had asked Zhou Shiyu why he didn’t undergo skin reconstruction treatment, but insisted on using watch straps instead.

“Having bare skin exposed gives me an omnipresent feeling of streaking.”

That had been Zhou Shiyu’s answer at the time.

Yet now the man let his wrist remain exposed, just like he had decided to completely and utterly reveal his most wretched side to Sheng Sui.

When Liang Xubai had originally urged him to be honest, he had only thought of truthfully revealing the real medical condition.

He hadn’t expected Zhou Shiyu to directly dig out those rotting bones and flesh from his body and display them to Sheng Sui in an almost cruel, straightforward, and clear manner.

He didn’t even leave Sheng Sui any space for imagination or beautification. One diary and one painting were enough to shatter all her attempts at remediation.

“Aren’t you afraid she’ll really be scared away?”

As soon as Liang Xubai spoke, he felt the question was too cruel. After a moment, he curled his lips: “Though this is very much like your personality—either don’t touch at all, or do it completely at once.”

“Because there’s no other way.”

The cigarette’s sparks were carried by the gentle wind, the brilliant crimson falling on his wrist, creating ripples of pain around the skin.

Zhou Shiyu looked down, quietly watching the fleeting light spot on his wrist instantly extinguish, his sandy voice carrying the granular quality of tobacco saturation: “Either continue lying to her, or drag her down without letting go.”

Holding the cigarette butt between his fingers, he raised his wrist, suddenly curious about what it would feel like to press the glowing red cigarette butt down.

“Both choices are dead ends.”

After a moment, Zhou Shiyu looked up at the hesitant Liang Xubai, his black eyes behind his glasses unfathomably deep:

“So I choose to trust her.”

On life’s long road where both advance and retreat were dead alleys, Sheng Sui was his third path descended from heaven.

Besides deception and burden, Zhou Shiyu still wanted to take one last gamble on an outcome.

Gambling that she was his salvation from desperate straits.

Seeing the man staring directly at the cigarette butt, Liang Xubai raised an eyebrow and decisively stepped forward to take the cigarette from Zhou Shiyu’s hand and throw it away.

He leaned against the wall boneless, his tone lazy: “Haven’t you thought about taking it step by step, letting her gradually accept it?”

“Accept what, living with a madman?”

Zhou Shiyu stared directly at his empty left palm, only the diamond ring at the base of his ring finger remaining: “What she wants is already very little.”

——”What would you hope your other half would be like?”

——”Gentle personality, emotionally stable, someone I can talk with would be fine.”

Zhou Shiyu clearly remembered every word she had said that night.

That was the first time Sheng Sui had sat in his passenger seat. The pure white silver moon fell like thin gauze on her beautiful face, a profile he had never seen even in dreams, making Zhou Shiyu reluctant to even blink.

What she had said was that she wanted to live with a normal person.

Just wanted a normal person.

The simplest request—even just anyone would do—yet it specifically excluded Zhou Shiyu.

Repeated episodes of his condition told him directly that he was destined never to become a normal person in this lifetime.

Zhou Shiyu straightened up, leaning his head against the wall, looking at the sliver of light surviving in the cracks of the dark sky above, suddenly smiling:

“There are so many normal people in this world, but there’s just one extra me.”

“……Depends on how you define ‘normal person,'” Liang Xubai crossed his arms and yawned long at the sky, “Everyone inevitably has some psychological problems. By your calculation, everyone is a potential ‘madman.'”

“Besides, what’s so hard about being normal—as long as you break free from others’ definitions, everyone is normal.”

Anyone can talk big, but most words are meaningless; Zhou Shiyu wasn’t the type to complain about fate. Having decided to give the choice to Sheng Sui, he wouldn’t waste more words.

The black phone in his pocket vibrated. Zhou Shiyu looked down and clicked on the message from Secretary Chen.

[Secretary Chen: Dr. Liu called to say the latest batch of continuous glucose monitors has been delivered. Teaching is required before use. Wanted to ask when Miss Sheng would be available.]

When would be convenient.

He didn’t know either.

Looking down at the small black text on the screen, Zhou Shiyu felt like they would jump out of the phone the next second. He locked the screen and suddenly felt some regret.

He should have waited a few more days to tell her.

At least he should have let her try the continuous glucose monitor first. Otherwise, if she had another sudden hypoglycemic episode with no one around, what would happen?

Knowing Sheng Sui could take care of herself, Zhou Shiyu finally realized that after just over a month of marriage, he had become accustomed to living with Sheng Sui, taking too many things for granted.

Like calling her anytime, going to her side anytime, being able to hug her, kiss her, even make love with her for long periods anytime.

Soaking in honey for too long had made Zhou Shiyu complacently forget that the real him without disguise didn’t even have the right to be good to her.

Sheng Sui walked alone along the coastline for a long time.

The light yellow sea sand particles were fine and soft. When stepped on, half a foot would sink in; when pulled out, one could see irregular shallow pits with surrounding sand flowing toward the low spots.

The coastline stretched thousands of kilometers. To the east was an endless commercial street with restaurants, bars, specialty clothing stores, and everything else, the view filled with joyful crowds.

The west side was an uninhabited area full of rocky reefs. Adults preferred sunbathing on the soft sandy beach, while children were forbidden from playing near sharp stones to avoid injury.

Squinting against the glaring light, Sheng Sui looked around at the fork in the path for a moment, finally choosing to walk toward the west, away from the crowds.

She was very clear that the old Sheng Sui would definitely have chosen the popular eastern route, even if the western scenery better suited her taste—

Because going with the flow might not be right, but it was definitely easier than going against the current.

But Sheng Sui ultimately chose the sparsely populated west side, the rocky reef area where every step might be stabbed by sharp stones.

The reason was simple: Zhou Shiyu had brought her here before.

Because of the hasty marriage, Sheng Sui had a quarrel with her mother. Afterward, the man brought her to the seaside to clear her mind. When her mother called again to blame her, he unconditionally stood on her side without asking why.

Sheng Sui still remembered that scene. Zhou Shiyu looked toward where sea met sky, and when moonlight spread across the earth, he gently told her: “Look.”

“Two people bearing it together is always easier than you carrying it alone.”

That night was the first time Sheng Sui had actively kissed Zhou Shiyu.

Looking back now, she had probably already fallen for him then without realizing it.

The sounds of crowds’ laughter and chatter gradually disappeared behind her. This time without Zhou Shiyu leading her ahead, Sheng Sui walked carefully with each step, afraid of scratching the disc in her hand.

The disc was something Liang Xubai had handed to her at the flower shop door as she was leaving: “Inside are some surveillance recordings from when Zhou Shiyu was hospitalized during episodes. It’s quite long and from many years ago. Only this disc exists as a record.”

Without needing to say more, this was also with Zhou Shiyu’s permission, even his instruction—during their last meeting, Liang Xubai had made it very clear that psychologists couldn’t casually reveal patient privacy.

Unable to find where they had rested last time, Sheng Sui finally grew tired.

Finding a random rock to lean against, she carefully examined the obviously aged disc in her hand.

Opening the transparent case, she could see the disc’s surface had a name and a string of numbers written on it, probably Zhou Shiyu’s hospitalization time.

If this had been before seeing that painting in the study, or even before seeing the diary, Sheng Sui would have chosen without hesitation to view the disc’s contents.

She would have searched the streets for the nearest audio-visual store, gone in to find a machine to insert the disc, then stared intently at the screen.

But now she felt afraid.

Before reading the diary, Sheng Sui’s understanding and real sense of “bipolar disorder” was pitifully little.

Humans are the most emotionally empathetic creatures in the world, yet they also cannot truly feel another’s experience. Even though she had repeatedly seen those terrifying numbers and descriptions in the taxi, her heart still harbored a trace of hope.

Even in the face of illness, Zhou Shiyu should be different.

But the reality was that the old diary stained with dark brown dried blood drops, merely through text alone, had nearly suffocated Sheng Sui.

Zhou Shiyu’s love was too heavy, too weighty. Sheng Sui could neither calmly accept his feelings nor turn a blind eye to the man’s suffering.

When someone stakes even their life on you, even if you just step back half a pace, it’s tantamount to stabbing them.

Sheng Sui was just an ordinary person.

She would be afraid, would be timid, sometimes hesitant and cowardly. Under an unhappy family background and disadvantageous physical conditions, she had more concerns than most people and needed stability and permanence even more.

So Zhou Shiyu had given her a choice early on.

The note the man left that morning mentioned no return date, his intention obvious—if Sheng Sui insisted on leaving, he wouldn’t force her to stay.

Somehow, Sheng Sui suddenly felt unprecedented dissatisfaction.

This included dissatisfaction with Zhou Shiyu’s arbitrary control over everything, with her own past cowardice and timidity, with helplessness against unfair reality, and with anger and grievance that had nowhere to go.

Various emotions mixed together, making Sheng Sui impulsively take out the disc and apply force with her fingertips.

Only hearing a crisp sound, the disc was forcibly broken in half by her, along with half a palmful of translucent white fragments.

The consequence of brute force was cut fingers.

Blood beads rushed out from the wound, hitting the surface of the disc broken in half, perfectly covering the half-faded three characters “Zhou Shiyu,” the blood blurring them.

Immediately after, Sheng Sui saw in her swaying vision large teardrops rolling down, falling even more fiercely than the blood drops, washing away the blood color and revealing the original appearance of the three characters “Zhou Shiyu.”

Belatedly realizing she was crouching on the ground crying, probably quite ugly.

Sheng Sui couldn’t tell clearly whether these torrential tears were for herself, for Zhou Shiyu’s past misfortunes, or both.

She just felt very sad.

While bandaging with a band-aid she carried, Sheng Sui received an inquiring message from Aunt Tian.

[Aunt Tian: Little Sui, are you coming home for dinner tonight? Before Mr. Zhou’s last business trip, he spent a whole day teaching me many dishes. What would you like to eat? Auntie will make it for you.]

Right, there was also Aunt Tian.

Not only Ping’An, but Aunt Tian was also someone Zhou Shiyu had found and brought back.

Through teary eyes, Sheng Sui dialed a phone number she could press without thinking, tears hitting the screen several times.

Her tear-stained, disheveled face reflected on the screen. She wiped away the water traces with her sleeve and finally succeeded in calling.

As always, the man on the other end answered the phone immediately, quietly waiting for Sheng Sui to speak.

The man’s suppressed, tense breathing was like a criminal waiting for final judgment before execution.

“……I didn’t wake up until nine-thirty this morning. I finished all the food you left on the stove, but didn’t wash the dishes;”

“This morning I went to the flower shop to find Liang Xubai. I wore the mint green long dress you bought me last time we went shopping, didn’t tie my hair;”

“Later I took the bus to the seaside you showed me. It was so hot outside. I didn’t bring my insulin pen so I didn’t dare eat, could only wander around alone, and broke something—”

Liang Xubai had said she didn’t need to do anything, just be herself as usual.

Sheng Sui desperately searched her memory, thinking about what she usually talked about when calling Zhou Shiyu—thinking it over, it seemed like meaningless chatter.

Too much chatter that in the end got choked up in her throat with crying, one sentence taking forever to stutter out.

Sheng Sui’s squatting legs were going numb and losing feeling. After foolishly sobbing and stuttering for a long time, she remembered that the person on the other end hadn’t said a word from beginning to end.

“……Zhou Shiyu,” she had two pools of tears in her eyes, sniffling and asking in a nasal voice,

“Are you still listening?”

“I’m here.”

“Sheng Sui,” since their marriage, Zhou Shiyu rarely called her full name. His tone was unguardedly gentle and indulgent,

“As long as you still need me, I will always be here.”

The hoarse male voice falling by her ear lingered for a long time. Without any reason, when Sheng Sui heard Zhou Shiyu’s voice again, her heart that had been floating uncertainly all day seemed to return to its place.

She vaguely realized that even after uncovering all old wounds and scars, even after seeing all his unsightliness, the fact that Zhou Shiyu was her source of security remained like pine and cypress standing straight in cold wind, immovable.

Unknowingly, the harshest sun of the day had quietly passed, and the setting sun with golden-red evening clouds climbed up the sky.

Sheng Sui stood up, put the broken disc back in its case, wiped away her tears with her sleeve, and said toward the receiver:

“……Zhou Shiyu.”

“Mm, I’m here.”

At this moment, she stopped thinking about anything else, only following her most genuine current thoughts, saying softly: “I want to go home.”

“……I miss you so much too.”