Love Me Before I Die - Chapter 12
Most of the inheritance I unexpectedly received has been donated.
I don’t want to spend the rest of my life beneath the cold machinery of a hospital.
Xu Qing didn’t try to persuade me otherwise.
He simply packed our bags in silence, booked the tickets, then held my hand and said, “Alright, let’s go out and see the world.”
We didn’t go to those bustling, glamorous cities, but chose quiet places instead.
We watched the snow-capped mountains turn golden at dawn, saw the wild starry sky hang so low it seemed within reach, listened to the prayer flags flapping in the wind at ancient temples, and heard the chanting echo long and far.
Life, in the face of vast nature and timeless faith, feels both insignificant and solemn.
On a cliff facing the sea, we sat side by side.
We watched the sun sink slowly into the horizon, setting the sky and waves ablaze in a magnificent orange-red.
The sea wind was strong, whipping our hair and clothes.
“Sometimes I think fate is truly strange.”
I suddenly spoke, my voice scattered by the wind.
Xu Qing turned to look at me, asking with his eyes.
“Look.”
I smiled, “If I hadn’t met you, if I hadn’t gotten sick, maybe we wouldn’t be together like this… with nothing held back…”
“Would none of this have happened?”
Xu Qing was silent for a moment, his gaze returning to the vast sea.
“I don’t know what would have happened without those ‘ifs’.”
His voice was calm and steady. “But I’d rather believe it’s destiny.”
“Destiny?”
I repeated softly.
“Mm.”
He nodded. “Like waves destined to crash against rocks, like stars destined to run their course. Some people, some things-maybe the script was written long ago.”
He held my hand, his fingertips cold but filled with undeniable strength.
“I never used to believe in fate. I thought everything had to be fought for, grabbed, even hated.”
He spoke quietly, as if dissecting his former self. “I thought only by being ruthless could I survive, could I protect those I wanted to protect.”
“But now I believe a little.”
He gently stroked my fingers. “Maybe all the twists and pain were just to push us in front of each other, to recognize one another in our truest, most unguarded forms.”
His words stirred something in me, a bittersweet warmth rippling through my heart.
“So, do you think our meeting was destined, and our parting… is also destined?”
I asked the cruelest question.
Xu Qing’s breath caught, his grip on my hand tightening.
The sea wind tousled his hair as he gazed at the line where sky met sea, and after a long time, he spoke slowly: “Maybe meeting was fate. But parting is not.”
I looked at him in confusion.
He turned back, his eyes unusually bright and resolute, with a near-obsessive seriousness. “The body’s demise may be inevitable. But I am here.”
He pointed to his chest. “You are here.”
He gently tapped my chest.
“The words we’ve spoken, the sights we’ve seen, the warmth of our embraces, everything we’ve felt… none of it will disappear.”
“They’ll become something else, remain in time, remain… I don’t know how to describe it, maybe in the soul? In the universe?”
His words faltered, his description a bit muddled, but his eyes shone with astonishing clarity.
“Our existence in this moment, everything we’ve experienced together, has already changed the course of something unseen.”
“That itself is a kind of eternity.”
I stared at him in a daze.
This man was afraid I’d be afraid.
With the clumsiest yet most sincere words, he tried to build me a philosophical framework that transcends life and death.
Suddenly I smiled, my eyes hot, but my heart strangely calm.
I leaned on his shoulder and whispered, “Mm, you’re right.”
“Xu Qing, you are also the fate I cannot resist.”
The sun finally sank completely, leaving only the glorious afterglow in the sky.
We nestled together, quietly listening to each other’s heartbeat and the eternal song of the waves as dusk descended.
Afterwards, we went to an ancient town in the south.
Perhaps it was the atmosphere, but I asked about his mother.
She was a gentle woman, yet melancholy all her life.
Xu Qing’s voice was calm. “It was all a lie. She might never have known, or maybe she didn’t want to know. She always looked out the window, as if waiting for something, or maybe for nothing at all.”
“So back then, I resisted any feelings that went beyond the norm. I thought they were dirty, disgusting, like a curse.”
He closed his eyes, his tone heavy with regret and guilt. “That’s why I said those things to you before… I’m really sorry.”
I hugged him tightly, gently patting his back.
He also spoke of what happened after his hand was injured.
“I thought my life was over. My faith collapsed, and what I relied on to survive was gone.”
He laughed at himself. “Like a useless person, I could only vent by fighting, watching my opponent fall, or falling myself-strangely, that made me feel alive.”
“Stupid, isn’t it?”
He looked at me, his gaze so fragile it seemed it would shatter at a touch.
I shook my head and kissed the old, fierce scars on his hand. “No.”
“Does it hurt?”
He smiled.
We talked about love.
I said, “Back then, I thought love was looking up, chasing, trying my best to become better so I’d be worthy of you.”
Xu Qing was silent for a long time before he said, “I used to think love was a burden, a hassle. Now I think…”
He paused, searching for the right words, but in the end just held me tighter and whispered, “…as long as it’s you.”
We also talked about death.
I said I wasn’t afraid of dying, I just couldn’t bear to leave.
Couldn’t bear to leave him, couldn’t bear to leave the warmth I’d just found.
He buried his face deep in the hollow of my neck.
Hot tears soaked my skin.
To have loved, to have been loved, to have understood deeply, and to have given without reservation-
Perhaps, that is the greatest mercy fate can grant us.
