A Contract to Cherish the Rose

The year she met Lu Yuchuan in the mountains, twilight in the village was like a faded ink painting. He was a bright, dazzling shard of glass accidentally caught in the picture, and for the first time, Rose felt her heart stir. After Lu Yuchuan was adopted by the Lu family, a piece of gossip was always making the rounds at the hospital where he worked. The golden-boy Doctor Lu had fallen for a silent rose. At first, Rose thought there was no way a golden boy could love a wild rose. Later, she decided that a golden boy shouldn't love a wild rose. So she kept setting the record straight: “I only think of him as a brother.” Rose had thought her secret love would be a silent pantomime, just like her, unable to speak. But in her clear-eyed restraint, she fell deeper and deeper. When love began, she thought it would have a happy ending, but then she suddenly walked away. Before she had even learned how to love properly, she learned how to let go. Lu Yuchuan had never had to work so hard to win someone over. When they met again five years later, he stopped pursuing her and simply used an IOU to keep her by his side. He tested her again and again, was disappointed again and again, and kept loving her through every disappointment. He told her she should be beautiful, but with thorns, so she wounded him more deeply than anyone. Only later did she learn the secret he had suffered so much over and refused to talk about.