Chapter 19

“I never pretended to love you. Later, I forced myself to pretend I still loved you as much as before. I thought getting married would take us back to the beginning. Today, I finally understand.”

I paused.

“We can’t go back.”

For a long, long time, Xue Shiye stood without a word.

—

### 16

The clock read 11:58.

He suddenly asked:

“If I hadn’t called it off today, would you still have married me?”

I hesitated.

I had asked myself that too. The answer was bitter.

“Yes.”

Hope flashed in his eyes.

Then I continued:

“And I’d have kept enduring it. Kept telling myself marriage would make it better. Kept waiting for the man you were four years ago.”

The beginning of his smile froze.

“Would that be so bad?” he asked quietly. “We could change, little by little.”

I shook my head.

“It would. You’d grow less patient, and I’d carry more hurt. In the end, we might not even have our good memories left.”

He bowed his head. I saw his fingers tremble.

After a while, he spoke thickly.

“Wangshu, I didn’t know you’d been hurting so much.”

I didn’t answer.

I had told him many times. He simply hadn’t listened.

He looked up, his eyes red.

“I admit I’ve been bad-tempered. I admit I threatened you with canceling the wedding. But I never meant to leave you.”

His voice caught.

“I thought you wanted to marry me so badly that however much we argued, you’d come back. Today, I only wanted you to give in a little. I never thought you’d actually agree.”

I looked at him.

He had understood what he was doing.

He relied on my inability to leave, using the very thing I feared most to threaten me, again and again.

“Shiye,” I asked softly, “did you ever think there might come a day when I wasn’t afraid anymore?”

He didn’t answer.

I opened my hand. The engagement ring lay quietly in my palm.

Once, I had feared it slipping off when I washed my hands. I couldn’t bear to remove it.

Now I could return it myself.

He stared at it, then held out his hand.

I placed it in his palm.

He didn’t close his fingers. The ring slipped through them and fell with a faint chink.

Neither of us moved.

Finally, he bent down.

I watched him pick it up. His face was lowered, his shoulders trembling.

“Shen Wangshu… what if I apologize now?”

My tears fell again.

“I’ll listen.”

He looked up.

“Will you forgive me?”

I was quiet for a moment.

“Perhaps one day these things won’t hurt anymore. But we can’t get married.”

At last, his tears spilled over.

In four years, it was only the second time I had seen him cry.