Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Before the age of twenty-eight, I had only ever loved one person.

That person was Zhou Jibai.

He was poor and stubborn. When we used to eat ten-yuan bowls of beef noodles at the back gate of our university, he would carefully pick the beef out of his bowl and put it into mine, promising that he would give me a good life one day.

Back then, I believed him.

I believed in our future together.

Then, my father died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage, leaving behind a mountain of debt. Soon after, my mother was diagnosed with heart disease and needed immediate surgery. The 360,000 yuan surgery fee weighed on me like a mountain. I went on my knees to everyone I could possibly borrow money from, but in the end, I was still 100,000 yuan short.

Zhou Jibai stayed by my side for three days and three nights as we scrambled for the money.

On the night of the fourth day, he vanished.

He sent me a single text message.

“Shen Zhiwei, I’ve had enough. Your family is a bottomless pit, and I don’t want to rot away with you. Don’t come looking for me again.”

I stared at that text all night long.

Early the next morning, the hospital notified me that 400,000 yuan had been deposited into the account via an anonymous transfer.

My mother’s surgery was a success.

But Zhou Jibai disappeared from my world entirely.

Three months later, I saw him on the news.

Hit and run, one fatality, sentenced to three years in prison.

I sat outside the hospital ward, staring at the man on the television-dressed in a prison uniform with his head bowed-and felt a chill run through my entire body.

In that moment, I finally understood how he had gotten the money.

I understood why he could be so heartless as to abandon both my mother and me.

I deleted everything related to him from my phone and swore that I would never forgive him as long as I lived.

Later, I met He Lin.

He Lin was gentle, dignified, and came from a wealthy background-he was the kind of man I never would have dared to dream of before.

He would personally wait in line with my mother during her follow-up appointments; he would bring me hot milk when I worked overtime until the early hours of the morning; and when I woke up crying from nightmares in the middle of the night, he would pull me into his arms and whisper, “Zhiwei, it’s all in the past.”

I thought I had finally made it through.

I thought I could finally forget Zhou Jibai.

But I couldn’t.

Whenever it rained, I would still subconsciously look toward the intersection, remembering how he loved to stand by the bus stop, shrugging his shoulders and smiling at me.

Every time I passed the university’s back gate, I still thought of that bowl of beef noodles.

It turns out you can’t just forget someone because you say you will.

Some people rot away in your memories, making it impossible to ever pull them out.