We first met on campus in Paris. To everyone else, he was the “Cold Prince,” but he was gentle and attentive only to me. He taught me tennis and protected me, and the warmth hidden in his piano music was something only I could understand. I thought my feelings would spread with the music, but an unexpected turn of events made him disappear without warning: a car accident, a coma, rumors like ice picks piercing my life. I returned to China with a broken heart.
On the streets of Shanghai after the pandemic, he appeared out of nowhere. He had shed his cold demeanor and become a star in the spotlight, but now he had a wife and child by his side. The joy of our reunion was swallowed by disappointment, yet his gaze still held the same passion as before. “I'm going to marry you one day.”
The ties of family and the tangled past were finally unraveled. After his divorce, he came to me with his child. I became the child's “big sister,” and the person he had chosen as his lifelong home. From the piano music of Paris to the lively streets of Shanghai, from the pain of separation to the warmth of being together, we weathered the provocations of a “piano killer” and endured a separation when life and death hung in the balance. In the end, we grew old together.
