Shu Nian’s movements froze.
As those words fell, the music finished playing and automatically skipped to the next song. She held her breath, not knowing how to react, her mind blank, feeling as if she might have imagined what she heard.
Several minutes passed this way.
Shu Nian came back to her senses and reopened the song “A He,” dragging the playback to the last ten seconds to listen again. The man’s voice was soft and faint; perhaps it was just her imagination, but it sounded somewhat awkward.
Word by word, at a slow pace, with clear pronunciation.
Saying words that could make one’s heart explode in an instant.
—”This song is for you, including the title.”
The song was called “A He.”
Did he mean he was giving A He to her?
Giving himself to her.
If Shu Nian understood correctly at this moment.
The birthday gift Xie Ru He gave her wasn’t the MP3 player in her hand, nor was it the songs he had recorded again for her.
It was something she wanted.
It was what had been troubling her for days, a treasure that made her as cautious as if contemplating a major life decision; it was the person she was afraid to approach yet didn’t want to distance herself from after discovering her feelings.
It was Xie Ru He.
And his affection.
The feeling was like after many days of continuous rain that had made her mood terrible.
Then one day, she opened the curtains. She expected to see a sky full of dark clouds, but surprisingly, the sky was clear and clean. The night sky was ink-black like a piece of dark cloth, dotted with stars.
And then, she reached out and caught a star.
Shu Nian’s heart raced wildly. At this moment, all her memories surfaced. She recalled that day when Xie Ru He said he “had someone he liked,” and then asked if she remembered what she had said to him at that time.
Back then, her mood had been low, and she answered without a moment’s thought that she didn’t remember.
What “at that time” was he referring to?
Was it when she asked him what he wanted to do after he could stand up again?
Shu Nian struggled to remember but couldn’t recall. Yet it felt like she was trapped in a dead end, stubbornly trying to find her way out.
She kept thinking about what she had said at that time.
After who knows how long.
Shu Nian suddenly remembered.
At that time, she seemed to have said—”When the time comes, I can accompany you.”
And Xie Ru He had told her that what he wanted to do was…
Date the person he liked.
Shu Nian abruptly put down the MP3 player and picked up her phone.
At this moment, there was an intensely eager impulse in her heart. She wanted to call him, to run to see him, to throw everything aside and ask him, to get that affirmative answer.
She opened her contacts list, but before she could dial Xie Ru He’s number, she suddenly noticed the book on her bedside table titled “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
Like a bucket of cold water poured over her head, all her impulses were extinguished.
Shu Nian’s throat tightened, and her expression turned timid. She sniffled, slowly exhaled, and abandoned the idea, inexplicably feeling like crying.
The lit screen gradually darkened.
It was a call that was just one second away from being made.
Why did she have to be sick?
And why did she have to meet him again while she was sick?
And why did she have to like him at this time?
And why did she have to know at this moment…
That he might like her too?
Dating someone with a psychological illness.
Would turn one person’s unhappiness into two people’s.
She would have many negative emotions, such as inferiority, sadness, and sudden despair. Although she wanted to suppress such impulses, there was simply no way to do so.
Shu Nian didn’t know if these emotions would be amplified after she started dating.
Would she become insecure, and possessive; would she lose her rationality, show her ugly side in front of him, dragging him into the swamp?
She wasn’t sure.
But she also knew that all she could do at this point was to live a life that appeared normal. She could go out independently, and live, but would try to avoid conversations with others, not actively approaching others, always coming and going alone.
Just spending the rest of her life by herself.