On the first day of Lunar New Year, an old man as withered as a dead tree stopped me on a mountain road. He said my heart was like a wild horse roaming a wasteland, yet I owed someone a debt from three lifetimes ago. If I didn't repay it in this life, neither of us would meet a good end. I dismissed it as the rambling of a madman and put it out of my mind.
My name is Yan Le. In the eyes of the world, I have everything, yet inside me lies a wasteland where not a blade of grass grows. Then I met Lin Jinbai, a lone boat stranded on the shores of despair.
The instant our eyes met, a rumble unlike anything I had ever heard came from the heart of my wasteland.
I could see every ounce of sensitivity and tenderness beneath his tough exterior. He could read with uncanny precision the innate desolation and loneliness behind my perfect facade. We were drawn to each other and understood one another, yet neither of us dared to admit it.
I thought this was nothing more than a bond that began with “repaying a debt.” He thought it was nothing more than an unexpected “flutter of the heart.” Then, on a moonless night, years of pain and self-loathing overwhelmed him, bringing him to the brink of collapse. I didn't leave. Instead, I held tight to his trembling body as he tried to push me away.
At that moment, the cold grip of “fate” shattered inside me. I realized I hadn't crossed mountains and rivers to repay a debt. My barren life was reaching out to his lonely boat, pleading for complete salvation.
We let go of each other for a while, believing that keeping our distance was the kinder thing to do. But after we parted, every moment was the same: the wasteland remained barren, and the lonely boat continued to drift.
Only then did we believe that all those lonely years and stumbling steps had been leading us to each other, so we could become one another's shore and make each other whole.
