The fiercest love was born from the most humiliating first meeting; the most beautiful future shattered against the cruelest reality.
Over the course of high school, he went from the school bully who was always picking on her to the knight who silently watched over her. When he lost the workbook she had saved up to buy, he stayed up all night copying the entire thing by hand. When her mother fell gravely ill, he gave everything he had to help pay the medical bills. At the college entrance exam pep rally, they sent paper planes flying toward the same city.
The warmth of their shared little home, the pages of their joint ledger filled with tiny entries: with his first earnings, he bought her an easel, and she designed a logo for his studio. “Grow toward the light” was their promise. But fate was ruthless. Faced with a diagnosis of congenital cerebral vascular malformation and the devastating news that his family had gone bankrupt, he chose to drive her away by pretending to fall in love with someone else.
“Let’s end this.” He feigned indifference, and she let go without hesitation, unaware of the love and despair he hid behind it. By the time the truth came out, he was already at death’s door. Beside his hospital bed, a diamond ring slid onto her finger. “In our next life, I’ll find you in good health.”
After he was gone, she carried out his final wishes. She founded Dongxia Design and established a fund for cerebrovascular disease, turning his unfinished dreams into reality. Years later, lying in a hospital bed with the ring in her hand, she smiled softly. “Li Dong, I’m coming. This time, wait for me a little while.”
[Inspired by parts of this story, in memory of the moments that have passed.]
