Before Zhui Ye left the rooftop, he delivered one final blow to Tang Jiarong.

“If you think my words are exaggerated, then look at this.”

He took out his phone and displayed a photo from his album.

In the photo, an elderly woman with a vacant expression sat on the edge of a bed. At the headboard was the wild rose Wu Man had brought and freshly placed on her last visit. She looked at that bouquet of flowers without any expression.

She didn’t even know that the daughter who had just delivered flowers to her had been kidnapped the next second and had nearly never returned.

She was carefree and unburdened, but this carefreeness was heartbreaking.

Zhui Ye hadn’t had time to visit her yet; he had been constantly guarding Wu Man’s bedside. But Zhao Boyu knew the address of the nursing home and went in his place. This was what he had photographed.

Tang Jiarong’s tightly pressed lips collapsed the moment he saw this photo. The corners of his mouth twitched twice, violently crushed by something.

He shook his head in disbelief.

“This can’t be…”

Zhui Ye mercilessly shattered his self-deception.

“This is Wu Yulan.”

Tang Jiarong snatched Zhui Ye’s phone and used two fingers to enlarge the face in the photo.

He only glanced at it hastily before hurriedly scrolling past, stopping anxiously on that wild rose.

As if she were still the way she had been back then.

It must have been when they were in their twenties. She followed beside him. He went to visit her on set. They secretly kissed on set—in the nanny van, in the dressing room, behind the bustling curtains. Each time he kissed her, she was like a fully ripened wild rose, teetering and falling from the branch, falling into his arms without hesitation.

And now in this photo—the wrinkles everywhere, the clouded eyes, the somewhat grayed hair.

She was no longer that young girl with lively expressions in his arms.

Although she had been very frail even then, like a piece of wood that would snap with one fold. But in reality, no amount of force could break her. You could only approach gently, embrace her lightly, and yet she would break herself instead.

But this current frailty—you didn’t even need to touch it. She was already at the end of her strength, and the sharp thorns on the broken edge pierced straight through his heart.

He had thought this heart of his, fitted with a stent and weathered by storms, would never waver again.

Years had passed, and this was perhaps the only person in the world who had purely loved him—not because of his former status as the eldest son of the Tang family. Over these decades, she had silently given birth to a child belonging to him, yet had never thought to disturb him, even when reduced to such dire straits.

From past to present, he had never trusted the word “love.”

It was a fairy tale used to deceive fools.

But it turned out he really had encountered such a fool, during the most beautiful time of their lives.

Seeing him in a daze, Zhui Ye prepared to take back his phone with a cold expression, but Tang Jiarong kept gripping it tightly.

Gradually, his hands began to tremble. Without waiting for Zhui Ye to wrestle with him, he suddenly released his grip and instead clutched at his own chest.

His aged, fragile body swayed several times and collapsed to his knees before Zhui Ye.

This completely caught Zhui Ye off guard. He hadn’t expected that a simple photo would trigger Tang Jiarong’s chronic condition. After a moment’s pause, he still ran down the stairs quickly and called out to nurses in the corridor for help: “Someone on the rooftop is having a heart attack and needs emergency treatment! Quickly!”

*

Tang Jiarong was immediately rushed into the operating room for emergency treatment. Tang Yingxue panicked and lost interest in pursuing the so-called truth.

After all, all her willful confidence came from Tang Jiarong. With Tang Jiarong down, she was just an empty paper tiger.

Zhui Ye didn’t care at all whether his surgery succeeded. As far as he was concerned, finding someone to call for help immediately was already the utmost benevolence. That very day, he processed Wu Man’s hospital transfer paperwork—the farther away from that annoying father-daughter pair, the better.

As for that co-production film, he could only politely decline. Fortunately, he had only filmed for a few days, so the production could still cut their losses in time.

It was just a pity for him—that was a role he had worked very hard to secure. Now it had fallen through, and he still had to pay a large penalty for breach of contract.

But compared to Wu Man, those were all external possessions.

However, Wu Man didn’t think so. As soon as her spirits improved a bit, she glared at him and kept nagging: “Are you stupid? Having Zhao Boyu take care of me here is enough. You should go do what you need to do!”

Zhui Ye let her nag, knowing she meant well. Without getting angry, he scooped up the red date congee in his hand and said “Ah,” signaling Wu Man to open her mouth as if coaxing a baby to eat.

Wu Man’s incessantly chattering mouth instinctively opened mid-sentence, and was blocked by a spoonful of congee he fed her.

Only then did Zhui Ye say unhurriedly: “There can be many movies, but in life there will only be this one time when you really need me.”

In the future, I won’t give you another chance to get hurt—but he didn’t say this sentence out loud.

Any fragments related to those painful memories, he didn’t want to mention at all. They could become switches that opened the floodgates of her recollections at any moment.

Because he also suffered from PTSD, ever since the restaurant collapse on his eighth birthday.

He knew what that feeling was like. From then on, he couldn’t stand any carousel. As soon as he saw one, his brain would drag him back to that seat, to that moment of collapse.

That scene was no longer just a memory for him. His brain had lost the ability to process this segment of memory. Yet his eyes would remind his brain the moment he saw a carousel that there was a terrifying memory that hadn’t been filed away. Therefore, that experience would be dragged out again and experienced as a real sensation—smell, pain, hearing, vision—all his senses mobilized once more.

It was like living in a nightmare, yet not knowing you were still dreaming. For these decades, that moment had been like an endlessly looping autoplay, with the pause button long since broken. More devastating than rhinitis—it wouldn’t easily flare up, but once it did, it was like the moment a nose encounters dust and becomes blocked.

This was PTSD.

But fortunately, when it flared up, that girl who had descended during the twilight of the gods would always come bursting in on her electric scooter, carrying him away to escape time and time again. Relying on her, that massive collapse hadn’t been able to crush him a second time.

Now, the person who had led him to escape was herself trapped in a turbulent collapse.

He was very certain that someone like her who had been kidnapped, faced death threats, and witnessed life being killed before her eyes was very likely to also be left with PTSD. However, she would probably hide this kind of distress, not showing it for fear of worrying others. So he had to be even more careful not to easily touch her wounds.

Thinking of this, Zhui Ye had never hated someone so much before.

He hated that Yu Jiaze had not only made elder sister take a trip to the gates of hell but had also left indelible scars in her heart. From body to soul, she had been viciously ravaged.

Most hateful of all was that this person had died too.

His hatred was like a bundle of inflating balloons, and the person pumping air had clapped his hands and left, hiding in the torrents of time.

*

Wu Man had been transferred to a general ward for some time. After her body could get out of bed and move around, Zhui Ye planned to take her back to China.

He kept in mind what the psychologist had taught him: similar environments could easily trigger PTSD switches. LA was no longer a suitable place for recuperation.

After discussing with elder sister, he also processed Wu Yulan’s discharge papers and had Zhao Boyu find a suitable nursing home in Beijing, bringing her back to China as well.

The day they left LA was overcast.

All memories and old wounds, torment and gunpoint, were all folded into the cloud layers, falling heavily as a heavy rain.

Zhao Boyu drove over. When he got out, the car door closed lightly. Wu Man heard that sound and her chest uncontrollably jumped violently.

She helplessly gripped Zhui Ye’s sleeve tightly.

Zhui Ye immediately thought of something. He tossed the suitcase and his bag into the car, put his arm around Wu Man, and said: “I’ll accompany elder sister to take the subway to the airport. Zhao-ge, please trouble you to deliver these luggage.”

Zhao Boyu was completely confused and wanted to ask something, but Zhui Ye had already taken Wu Man’s hand and left.

Wu Man wanted to explain that she was fine, it was just that momentary palpitation and didn’t matter, but Zhui Ye shook her hand and said: “This feels like I’m on a date with you.”

He acted as if nothing had happened, as if he really just wanted to squeeze onto the subway with her.

Wu Man swallowed the words of explanation and gripped his hand more tightly. The trembling tension in her heart subsided.

He was very protective of her the whole way. From the moment they boarded the subway, he shielded her in a corner crowded with people. His height was very tall. Even among a bunch of tall and large foreigners, he still stood out noticeably.

Wu Man was enclosed in his arms. She raised her face and gestured: “Have you gotten even taller these past days?”

Zhui Ye bent down to look at their silhouettes in the train window: “Seems like a little bit.”

Wu Man tugged at his ear: “If you keep growing, it won’t be convenient for me to take the initiative to kiss you in the future.”

Zhui Ye took the opportunity to kiss her cheek and said with a smile: “It doesn’t matter. I’ll kiss you instead.”

The subway arrived at the station. As soon as the doors opened, the crowd surged out like a flood. A white woman took the opportunity to approach them and exclaimed softly: “Are you Mr. Zhui?”

Both were startled. Wu Man almost forgot that Zhui Ye still had some popularity in America.

He was a bit embarrassed about being recognized, but also a bit proudly smug. He nodded and said: “I am.”

The other party gave a thumbs up and said: “You acted so well in *The Loser is King*. My sister and I both really like you! She even said she wants to marry you in the future.” Her gaze swept over Zhui Ye’s hand around Wu Man’s waist and said disappointedly, “But it looks like her dream is shattered.”

Zhui Ye said with a smile: “Thank you for liking me.”

The fan asked shyly and hesitantly: “I wonder if I could take a photo with you? I want to send it to my sister.”

Zhui Ye nodded: “Of course.”

Wu Man proactively took out her phone and said: “I’ll help you take it.”

The fan asked Wu Man tentatively: “Can I hold his arm?”

Wu Man said with a smile: “You can even put your arm around his waist.”

The two posed. Wu Man prepared to open the camera, but a message from Zhao Boyu suddenly popped up on WeChat.

“[Image]”

“I don’t know if I should send this to you… Just now when I was getting the luggage from the car, this fell out of Zhui Ye’s bag.”

“I previously thought he was unreliable and that you two would definitely break up within three months. But now I just want to say, cherish each other well.”

Wu Man clicked to enlarge the image. Her entire person swayed twice, barely managing to stand steady. Coming back to her senses, she reopened the camera.

She didn’t know how she should behave to appear as if nothing had happened.

The photo Zhao Boyu had sent over was Zhui Ye’s vasectomy report.

The date was during the time she had been hospitalized, performed at the same hospital.

Wu Man tried to focus her vision on the lens. She looked at Zhui Ye in the frame—so young, with an upright posture, such incomparable genes.

Had he never thought that they might break up in the future?

He might encounter other girls. That girl wouldn’t necessarily be like her, with a defective body.

They could have a lovely baby, continuing his gentle and loving qualities.

Why be so foolish?

Cutting off his own retreat, trying to prove eternity silently?

Did eternity truly exist in this world?

“Click—”

With trembling fingertips, Wu Man pressed the shutter button.

Twenty-two-year-old Zhui Ye, spirited yet impulsive, was forever frozen in LA’s clamorous subway, frozen in Wu Man’s aching heart.

Oh divine beings, I still dare not believe in eternity.

But can you let me stay by his side for every day I live in this world?

Let the divine beings love all the people of the world.

And I only need to love this one person.