“Dependent personality disorder is constantly immersed in the fear of being abandoned. When the attachment object wants to terminate the relationship, a pathological sense of frustration follows, and the patient falls into a pain and despair that they themselves cannot bear.”

What happened that day has already become blurred in my memory.

I only remember we seemed to have a hysterical fight. By the end, I felt it was impossible to communicate with him, so I could only coax and deceive him: “Let’s go back. I won’t go, okay? You can’t really keep me locked up here for the rest of my life.”

He said, “The new project manager will be leaving in three days. We’ll just stay here until then.”

I practically jumped up and yelled, “You’re fucking sick!”

I rushed outside recklessly. He grabbed me with one pull, the force so great it nearly broke my arm.

We both fell onto the deck together. I kicked him hard, stomped on him, bit down fiercely on his shoulder. He cried out in pain but still didn’t let go of my hand.

A man’s strength is ultimately overwhelming. I was finally carried back into the room by him and fell onto that bed.

“Don’t you touch me! If you dare touch me again, I’ll kill you. I mean what I say!” I roared like a madwoman.

He restrained me and said, “It’s too late. Why must you leave?”

“I’ve told you many times! I have to clean up the mess I made, then I can get my bonus, then I can get promoted. Don’t you understand human language!”

“Even if you don’t go back, you’ll still have all of that. I promise.” He looked at me urgently, his eyes filled with deep sadness. “You’ll definitely get promoted. Even if you don’t get promoted, it doesn’t matter… Calculate your salary as a total, okay? I’ll give it to you.”

I was going crazy, so crazy I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

I believed him. Wasn’t there that saying? One generation’s years of hard study can’t match three generations’ efforts, and Cheng Xia’s family had more than three generations of effort. He could afford to pay for my entire lifetime of struggling against death.

But it wasn’t the same. How could I make him understand—it wasn’t the same.

Seeing that I was no longer struggling, Cheng Xia carefully pulled me into his embrace and said, “Seeing each other once a month is too difficult. There are so many men around you. Every day I think, what if you start to like someone who can ride horses and shoot arrows? Will you get tired of me? If not, then why don’t you reply to my messages?”

He kissed the top of my head, his breath warm. “Stay here, okay?”

I temporarily had no strength and lay there numbly, saying, “So you’ve been seducing me ever since I came back, right?”

Setting up a scheme to have my dad take over my house.

Using his resources to tempt me to stay.

Oh right, how could I forget the honey trap? He was even using love and passion to seduce me into staying here.

“Yesterday you clearly liked it too. Stay, okay…” He kissed behind my ear, revealing his delicate collarbone. I had to admit he really did have a body that could be called beautiful.

Taking advantage of his unpreparedness, I flipped over and pinned him beneath me, randomly grabbing a pen and pressing it against him. “I said, don’t fucking touch me again!”

He gazed at me, his expression sad and weak. “I don’t understand.”

Looking at him, I finally said those words: “You’ve never loved me at all, Cheng Xia. We were just playing house, pretending to be in love.”

If you truly loved me, you would think about what I like, what I want to do, how important this project is to me.

Instead of being like a child who, when unhappy, clutches his toy tightly in his arms.

I ultimately didn’t hurt him and got up to leave.

Before I could even touch the door, my arm was grabbed tightly by Cheng Xia.

He said coldly, “Think whatever you want. You can’t leave.”

All the softness and gentleness vanished from him completely. He coldly and forcefully dragged me back.

This triggered all the rage in my heart.

I frantically swung the ballpoint pen in my hand, attacking him. I didn’t know what I was doing. I only knew that no one should fucking try to control my life!

When I came to my senses, the floor and Cheng Xia’s body were covered in spots and streaks of blood. I had actually injured him with that extremely blunt pen tip.

The star lights, photos, and flowers that had been so beautiful yesterday were now all scattered on the floor from our struggle, like an apartment after an explosion.

How did we become like this? Had I gone crazy too? I sat trembling on the floor, the ballpoint pen sliding down from my fingertips.

Cheng Xia approached me, picked up my blood-covered hand, and placed it against his own face.

He was smiling, his gaze gentle. “It’s okay, Dongxue. It doesn’t hurt at all.”

He pulled me into his embrace, applying force bit by bit, as if he wanted to crush me. “We’ll never separate.”

——

He went to cook. We ate grilled meat and clam soup facing the sea at sunset, along with a case of cold beer. If this were some vacation day, I should be very happy at this moment.

But right now I had no appetite at all, yet I still ate big mouthfuls. To leave, I had to build up my strength.

If I returned to the company tomorrow, I should still make it in time.

I had once seen a movie.

The general idea was that the female protagonist wanted to do something, but everyone came to frantically obstruct her. In fact, the female protagonist was dreaming, and these people were all incarnations of the dream, coming to prevent her from waking from the dream.

If my world were a huge dream, and the world itself obstructed my upward climb, transforming into an irritable boss, greedy workers, a crazed competitor… it should never have transformed into Cheng Xia.

He should stand there clean and bright, his body coated with a layer of fuzzy golden light.

Any dream with him in it should be a beautiful dream.

Thinking of this, I couldn’t help but shed tears, which fell into the soup. He probably didn’t see it.

After the meal, we took a walk by the seaside until the orange sunset slowly sank below the horizon.

This should exhaust his energy, I thought.

After returning, we were both very tired. When he went to take a shower, I didn’t run either.

The door was locked from the inside, and the key was in his hand.

The cabin was very cold at night. He turned on the heater. I pretended to be drowsy and lay on the bed.

He turned around, got into bed, and held me tightly. The scent of citrus mixed with the coolness of mint.

“Actually, you don’t love me at all either,” he said softly. “You’ve never asked how I’ve been doing these six years. You never care about my life. You like my exterior but don’t care about my soul.”

I pretended to be asleep.

“But it doesn’t matter.” He held me tighter. “I love you. Whatever you want me to be like, that’s what I’ll be.”

After speaking, he raised his hand and slowly unbuttoned my clothes.

“I know you’re not asleep. I also know you like this.”

He gently yet cruelly opened my legs, exploring corners I myself didn’t even know.

I desperately tightened my lips, not wanting to reveal even a hint of pleasure, but still couldn’t resist my body’s instincts.

“Baby, I love you.”

“I’ll make you unable to leave me.”

“Just like I can’t leave you.”

“Now.” At the most lingering moment, he suddenly stopped and said softly, “It’s your turn to say ‘I love you.'”

My body was like a bow, even my toes were taut. Sweat soaked my temples. I didn’t even know what I was babbling. He sighed with satisfaction, then came up to kiss me intensely.

Those scholars who couldn’t resist the seductive beauty of demon spirits must have felt the same way.

Fear, guilt, struggle, and the pleasure of degradation.

I tossed and turned in this torment until midnight, finally unable to hold on and fell asleep.

I had many chaotic dreams. In the dreams was the vegetable market from many years ago. It was clearly time to close up, but Cheng Xia had turned into a monster with many tentacles, pulling me and not letting me leave.

When I woke up, it was exactly four in the morning.

The sea wind swayed the cabin. Occasionally there were seabird calls.

Cheng Xia was already sleeping deeply. Slowly, slowly, I moved his hand away from my waist.

Then I didn’t even dare put on shoes and opened the door silently.

Outside was pitch black, with only a solitary fishing lamp in the distance.

I stole Cheng Xia’s phone, planning to run along the beach to the highway, then use the phone to call a car.

As for him, let him walk back himself.

Going crazy means paying the price yourself. He would ultimately know he couldn’t keep me. I said to myself. Even my own toes were being hurt by the rough ground.

Finally far from that boat, I breathed a long sigh of relief, my mood improving.

At that moment, a light came on behind me. My heart suddenly tightened, and I turned my head with difficulty.

I saw Cheng Xia. He was standing on the deck looking at me. The boat’s floodlight was on, and that pale face of his was completely clear.

He moved his lips, seeming to say something, but the distance was too far. I couldn’t hear at all and just knew to run forward in a panic.

From behind, there came a very light sound, like… the sound of falling into water.

I finally realized what he had just said.

He said, “Dongxue, I’ve always wanted to die.”

——

When Cheng Xia was being resuscitated, his father rushed over.

The old man looked ten years older. This time, the look in his eyes as he looked at me held only coldness.

“I told you he’s a patient, and you shouldn’t be with him, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“After you two got together, do you know how happy he was? Because you like spicy hot pot, he practiced at home every day and burned through several pots. Because you said once that his muscles weren’t obvious, he ran five kilometers every day. You don’t use WeChat much. When his myocarditis flared up, he didn’t dare let you know… He was afraid you wouldn’t like him anymore.”

I lowered my head and said nothing more.

“Yes, he’s sick. So we tried our best to make it up to you. Did I ever criticize your family situation? Your dad comes to the door every day to borrow money and ask for favors, and I’ve never said anything about it.” He said tremblingly, “Money, resources, time—everything he had, he gave to you, afraid it wasn’t enough! And you? You take two or three days to reply to WeChat messages. Do you know that what people with his condition fear most is being alone?”

I let him rage on without making a sound.

He sighed deeply and said, “You can choose not to be with him. But if you choose to, you have to bear the responsibility of being a patient’s girlfriend. Otherwise, it’s… destroying him completely.”

Fortunately, there were fishing boats nearby.

Also fortunately, there were no waves at that time.

Cheng Xia was quickly rescued and sent to the hospital.

He finally escaped danger. His father went in to take care of him.

And I stayed in the corridor outside until nighttime before slowly walking in.

I said, “I’m sorry, Cheng Xia. I won’t go. I didn’t think… I’m sorry. Please don’t die…”

Halfway through speaking, I finally broke down in tears.

Cheng Xia’s lips were pale. He just stared at me numbly like that. After a long while, he finally spoke:

“Dongxue, let’s break up.”