8
The pagoda trees had blossomed.
The cicadas had also begun to gnaw away at summer, little by little.
I looked up at the young man standing in front of me.
His name was Ngụy Dương, an actor whom Giang Tần Hoán’s mother had sought out to pretend to be my boyfriend.
I put the stuffed bear from the paper bag into his hands.
“Do we really have to do this?”
He listlessly squeezed the bear’s round little face.
I looked at the bear, its head bowed and its spirits sagging inside the paper bag.
Then I called Giang Tần Hoán.
He picked up almost immediately.
“Thu Thủy, I’m almost there. Send me your location.”
“Just stay there and wait for me, okay?”
“There must be some misunderstanding between us. Don’t be mad anymore.”
“I can explain everything… wait for me.”
For a long time, I couldn’t say a word.
The wind roared on the other end.
Only later, whenever I remembered that moment, did I understand. All I’d wanted then was to hear his voice a little longer.
“Giang Tần Hoán.”
I took a deep breath and said to him slowly:
“Right now, I’m with another man.”
Silence fell on the other end.
For some reason, the shrill sound of a passing car rang out again.
His ragged breathing then seemed to pound against my heart.
“I’ve been cheating on you for a long time.”
I said, “I was with you for… your money.”
It was an old, tired excuse, but a plausible one.
The world wouldn’t change either way; the guilt weighing on me would only pile higher.
“Being with you really was fun.”
“But I’ve had my fill, and you can’t marry me anyway.”
“So I found someone else. Let’s break up.”
“Lâm Thu Thủy.”
He practically ground my name between his teeth.
“You’re lying.”
“……”
“If it was about money, why did you pay me back a million?”
“If you didn’t love me, why spend a whole month making me such a beautiful journal?”
“Why did you cry so hard when I got in a car accident last year? Why did you bring me a different delicious meal every day for the month I was in the hospital?”
“Everything you’ve done tells me you love me.”
“Lâm Thu Thủy, can my heart lie to me too?”
“……”
The cicadas were unbearably loud.
The frustration in my heart grew more and more intense.
My pent-up anger turned into uncontrollable resentment:
“But that’s the outcome!”
I instinctively gripped my phone tighter and shouted at him:
“I’m talking about the outcome. Do you understand?”
“Why do you keep worrying about the reason? The outcome is that I want to break up.”
“Believe it or not, that’s up to you.”
“Giang Tần Hoán, it has nothing to do with secrets or private troubles. The truth is, we’re breaking up.”
“Remember this: when I say we’re breaking up, that’s that.”
It wasn’t something he could forgive.
“Lâm Thu Thủy.”
Someone called my name.
This time, it wasn’t through the phone. It was in person.
I turned around.
Giang Tần Hoán had arrived. He was still some distance away, but I could clearly see how disheveled he was.
His shirt was askew, his hair a mess. He stood there holding his phone and looking at me.
He looked utterly alone.
I knew the address I’d sent him was quite far from where he was.
I knew how desperately he’d hurried to see me, how exhausted he must have been by the time he got here. I knew it all.
So I grabbed Ngụy Dương by the collar.
Right in front of him, I kissed Ngụy Dương on the lips.
Actually, we were just using the camera angle. Ngụy Dương and I had rehearsed it beforehand; from that distance, Giang Tần Hoán would be sure to think we were kissing.
But in reality, I was only hugging Ngụy Dương.
He sighed beside my ear.
“I think my shoulder’s getting a little wet.”
“……Shut up,” I said.
It was a dirty, awful scene, exactly as scripted by Giang Tần Hoán’s mother.
If I couldn’t be the leading lady onstage, then I could only act here.
When I looked up, Giang Tần Hoán was still frozen in place.
How could that sheltered young master stand a sight like this?
“Lâm Thu Thủy.”
He called my name again.
His voice trembled terribly, each word weighing on me.
“Why do you have to do this… huh?”
he asked me.
A haze gathered in his eyes, and he looked lost.
He gritted his teeth, trying to get an answer out of me.
But I couldn’t give him an answer either. I could only tell him how I would bring this to an end.
I took the stuffed bear from Ngụy Dương and threw it toward him.
The bear’s trajectory was far from perfect.
It missed him and fell to the ground, picking up dirt—just like the filthy way our relationship was ending.
“I’m leaving, Giang Tần Hoán.”
In the sunset, I said the words I couldn’t bring myself to utter even in my dreams.
“I don’t want your bear, and I don’t want you either.”
9
Giang Tần Hoán never contacted me again.
So I didn’t have to turn off my phone anymore; his messages would never appear in that chat again.
Three months later, Ngụy Dương helped me move all my things out of that house.
“Honestly, I think it’s such a shame about you two.”
The sun sank slowly toward the horizon.
He helped me load the last cardboard box into the car, then suddenly brought it up.
“Tell me, if Giang Tần Hoán learns the truth someday, do you think he’ll regret it?”
I lowered my head and fiddled with the cat keychain in my hand.
To be honest, Giang Tần Hoán and I seemed to have a lot of matching things.
The dolls we’d won together at the arcade, the prizes from answering riddles, the limited editions we’d stayed up until midnight to buy.
Memory really is a sharp blade.
Just touching an object could easily stab through my heart, leaving deep wounds with no bottom.
I hung the cat keychain on my backpack.
Then I shook my head.
“It was my fault.”
“What did you do wrong?”
Last year, during the holiday, we went to Changbai Mountain.
There was a temple there that people said was very spiritually powerful, and Giang Tần Hoán and I went to pray, too.
Red ribbons bearing people’s wishes hung all over a tree, but he took his own wish ribbon home.
That night, wind and snow swirled outside the hotel. He held me close, wrapping his arms around both me and the blanket.
Quietly, he tied the red ribbon around my wrist.
“Lâm Thu Thủy, I don’t believe in gods.”
“I won’t pray to the gods. I think if there’s something you want to say, you only need to say it to the person you want to say it to.”
“To me, you are my god.”
His breath brushed against my ear.
Reverent and burning hot.
“So let me pray to you, okay?”
“I don’t know how to face life without you by my side. So could you… never leave me?”
“……”
I granted his wish.
But then I broke my promise.
I let him down.
I was too weak to think of a better solution.
I truly couldn’t think of one.
All I knew how to do was clutch the things that belonged to him and cry until I had no tears left.
So much had happened in the past three months.
After I broke up with him, my mother passed away, too. Her illness had never been something she could endure much longer.
I took care of my mother’s funeral arrangements, and afterward, my advisor came to see me.
She asked whether I wanted to go to Berlin with her.
“Thu Thủy, hello.”
“What happened last time may have affected you deeply. I’m truly sorry.”
“You’ve always been the student I treasure most.”
“You’re talented and hardworking. More importantly, I see something in you that others don’t have.”
“Trust me. If you keep going, you’ll accomplish great things.”
“There’s a scholarship to study in Germany. Would you like to come with me?”
I had no reason to refuse.
My father had been dead for a long time, and now my mother had gone to join him.
I sold the house and scraped together enough money to live in Berlin.
I boarded a plane with my advisor. It was my first time going abroad.
Strangely, during the years I was in love with Giang Tần Hoán, he had traveled abroad, too.
But even thousands of miles away, I had always felt he was right beside me.
But when I was actually on the flight to Berlin,
as the plane shot up to thirty thousand feet, I realized with absolute clarity that there was no turning back.
From then on, the road ahead was long and arduous, and thousands of miles would lie between us.
I told myself we would never have anything to do with each other again.
My heart was left empty.
A voice rang out in my mind.
Lâm Thu Thủy, if you could do it all over again, would you turn back?
I couldn’t find an answer.
Only much later did I learn that as I crossed those thirty thousand feet,
an unfamiliar email had been sitting quietly in my inbox.
The young master had never endured a grievance, nor had he ever begged anyone for anything.
I remember that when I told him I liked him, I said:
“Giang Tần Hoán, I like you for no particular reason. I just hope that years from now, when you think of me, you’ll know you’re someone worth loving. That’s all.”
The email was awkwardly worded and clumsy, but it filled the gap between us, like our final memory together.
【Can you stay by my side?】
【You can even be the other woman. U•ェ•*U】
10
Five years later.
Backstage was abuzz with voices, introductions, and the busy crew handling the props.
People hurried back and forth as I checked the tempo with the conductor one last time.
Just then, I saw another performer in the show peeking through the curtain.
“What’s going on?”
I went over and asked.
“Oh, Ms. Lâm, you just got back to the country, so you wouldn’t know.”
“A lot of important people have come to see today’s performance.”
“Look, there’s the chairman of the Performing Arts Association, the vice minister of culture, and—oh!—he’s here, too…”
Seeing the girl’s eyes sparkle like stars made me even more curious.
“Who?”
“The CEO of Giang Nhai Technology! You don’t know him, Ms. Lâm?”
At that name, I involuntarily paused for a beat.
How could I not know? In recent years, he’d become a rising star in tech, famous enough that even I, after five years abroad, had used his company’s products.
But that wasn’t why my heart stirred.
“Giang Tần Hoán! He’s so handsome… Ahhh…”
Though the CEO of Giang Nhai Technology rarely appeared in public, he still had plenty of fans.
I went over to look, too, but the curtain opened only a crack.
I could only see the packed audience below. The VIP section was shrouded in deep shadow, and a quick glance revealed only impeccably tailored suits.
“He’s seriously so handsome!”
“You know, he was born into a wealthy family, but he didn’t inherit his father’s company.”
“He built Giang Nhai from scratch, and last year its market value surpassed his father’s company.”
The girl excitedly told me stories about him.
I stood there dazed, unconsciously tightening my fingers around the tassel at the hem of my skirt, until a backstage worker came to remind me.
“You’re up soon.”
The stage lights came on, and the red curtain slowly opened.
Step by step, you walk onto the stage, and you can feel the audience’s eyes following you.
They applaud and cheer for your singing.
That was how I had gradually made my way forward during my five years in Berlin.
From an extra to a featured performer, from backstage to the stage, until I stood before the audience.
I had performed this show countless times. The lights shone on my face, and now, every performance could end with a perfect curtain call.
When the music stopped, I bowed deeply. The other performers came out from backstage, and applause filled the hall.
My gaze drifted, until, at one particular moment,
it came to rest on someone.
So many years later, he could still draw my gaze so effortlessly.
His gaze fell on the spot where I stood, too.
Perhaps our eyes met.
But I couldn’t make out his expression.
He had changed. The young master who used to like wearing windbreakers was now dressed in a crisp suit.
His hair was swept back, revealing a high forehead. He looked sharper, more imposing.
Even seated, he had the air of someone at the very top. His dark eyes were unfathomable, so cold they were hard to read.
The applause hadn’t stopped, and the curtain call wasn’t over yet.
He had already stood up and left his seat.
I was a little flustered and straightened up.
Was the performance too boring? Or was it because… I was playing the lead?
I couldn’t help remembering that summer, when cicadas droned all around us.
The vast auditorium held only the sound of me practicing the same monotonous melodies over and over.
And Giang Tần Hoán would always be there, waiting for Lâm Thu Thủy to take her final bow.