Dream Jade

In the game, one warning from her saved my life.

Outside the game, I offered her a bowl of congee and warmed her heart.

I’m Lin Shen, 35, the youngest associate head of the laboratory department at a top-tier hospital, and an early-stage stomach cancer patient.

She’s Zhang Yunyao, 34, a divorced English teacher raising a child.

We fell in love for real on a fictional game map:

She could tell from my voice over the headset how often my stomach hurt,

while I remembered that she likes her potato slices cut paper-thin.

Though we’re a thousand miles apart, we understand the secrets in each other’s breathing better than any couple who spend every day together.

Then my test results began flashing warning signs, and her ex-husband suddenly came back.

Reality cut through every beautiful assumption like a scalpel.

“If I don’t have much time left, would you still want me?” I asked.

Holding her five-year-old son’s hand, she answered firmly, “We want you as you are now, not forever.”

This love began without promises,

yet became the strongest companionship in the countdown of a life.

From voice chat in a game to the steady beeping of a hospital monitor,

from “Protect our jungler” to “My husband needs his rest,”

we proved that some echoes pass through the virtual world and land in reality,

where they become an endless resonance.

|Doctor vs. Teacher|Divorced and raising a child, committed to being single|Sweet and bittersweet gaming romance|Mutual redemption|