The Decade of Deep Love

Translator: Claire.KK

Ziyu Ai stopped breathing for a moment, he couldn’t see Zhishu’s look clearly but only his emaciated figure. He stood straight and slightly aslant, hiding still behind the thick curtains.

Ziyu got upstairs, walked quietly to Zhishu. “Want more strawberries?” He said behind him.

Zhishu slowly turned around and looked at Ziyu with a pair of eyes overflowing uncontainable emotions that were so complicated that Ziyu Ai couldn’t even read. He shook his head, said nothing, and went straight back to his bedroom.

The moment he walked past him, Ziyu suddenly grabbed him by his wrist. “Don’t go... please?”

Zhishu He stopped and smiled, his eyes were gentle though. “You asked me to take a nap and now I can’t?”

Ziyu Ai eased his grip, he lowered his head, pressed his lips, like a kid being forced to do the things he hated. At last, he mumbled, “Would you like to meet him... I... I’m okay with it.”

Ziyu Ai knew that Zhishu He loved Wenxu Jiang; he also knew that Zhishu He had a soft heart, that he might not come back again once the two of them met again. But he still respected his choice. Because he loved him, he didn’t want him to live the last bit of his life regretfully and unhappily, and didn’t want him to compromise too much.

Zhishu, instead, asked him back with surprise, “Why would I want to meet him?”

Zhishu still remembered clearly the day that he decided to leave. He watched Wenxu walking away from upstairs; he just wanted to see his face but that man never looked back. Since Zhishu didn’t get what he wanted, now Wenxu Jiang wouldn’t either.

Indeed, he had a soft heart, but that was before. Something was late, then it was late, nothing could fix it. You couldn’t ask a cup of cold water to steam, could you? Zhishu He found out that Wenxu was as cheap as him because they both tended to fawn on others after being given cold shoulder.

The fawning was pointless.

Zhishu turned around. With a merciless yank, he sealed the thick window shades. “So tired, I’ll go get some sleep. Oh... Just ignore him and don’t hit him again. Wenxu Jiang is the cruelest when he means to harm you.”

Ziyu got tongue-tied. He watched Zhishu slowly walk away, decisively leaving the past behind. He couldn’t tell whether he was feeling lucky or disappointed. Ziyu was afraid to see Zhishu leave him but it was Zhishu’s detachment to the world that really dismayed him. Wenxu Jiang and Ziyu Ai finally had something in common; that was either of them was able to keep Zhishu around. At this point, Zhishu He couldn’t care less whether the love was true or fake, whether he was hurt or loved. He was just apathetic.

Wenxu was still kneeling outside the door; he just shoveled the medicine into his mouth with his trembling hand. He didn’t care if he took too much. Perhaps, more medicine could better relieve the heart pain.

His head was messed up. One second ago, he saw a boy handing him a bunch of jasmines, and the next second, he saw the pair of sad, heartbreaking eyes that haunted and tortured him for countless nights.

“Zhishu... Don’t leave me...” Wenxu’s eyes were slightly wet. “Don’t go too far, I... I can’t even keep up...” 𝗳𝗿𝐞ℯ𝙬𝗲𝗯n𝗼νel.𝒄𝑜𝘮

In 2003, the night Wenxu took Zhishu back from quarantine area, he held Zhishu tight in his arms, muttering similar words again and again, “Don’t go too far... What if something happens to you, how am I going to live my life...”

Wenxu now realized that without Zhishu, he couldn’t live his life anymore.

Zhishu He sat on the bed with a head full of the scene of Wenxu Jiang kneeling in front of the door back straight. That was pathetic and funny.

Wenxu Jiang had his chances. For three years, Zhishu had nearly knelt to beg Wenxu not to stay out all night for some meaningless stuff and not to turn him into another person for the sake of their past almost in tears.

But he disappointed himself.

Sometimes, disappointment is more despairing than the end of love.