Shen Weizhi left on the day of the spring equinox.
From then on, Ji Chunming developed a habit: every spring equinox, he went to the flower market to buy a gardenia, the only plant Shen Weizhi had ever managed to keep alive. For seven years, Ji hadn't managed to keep a single one alive. An old flower seller asked, “Who's the flower for?” He smiled and replied, “Someone who isn't coming back.”
On the spring equinox of the seventh year, a young man named Shen Mo appeared at Ji Chunming's gardening shop. He was Shen Weizhi's half brother and had brought Shen Weizhi's belongings: eighteen letters written during the last six months of his life.
Every letter began with the same words: “Ji Chunming, live through this spring for me.”
As he read the letters, page by page, Ji Chunming finally learned that the man who had turned and walked away seven years earlier after saying, “We're not right for each other,” had never stopped loving him. He'd simply loved Ji too much. He would rather die alone somewhere far away than let Ji watch him slowly wither.
“I've seen the photos you took. Your lens is full of living things. I didn't want your last memory of me to be of a patient.”
But Shen Weizhi never knew that for the person left behind, a spring without him wasn't spring at all.
