Lin Nianchu and Shen Zhiwan grew up together in an orphanage, and each was the only light in the other’s life. They fell in love and stayed by each other’s side, only to face the cruelest twist of fate at twenty-six: Lin Nianchu was diagnosed with leukemia, while Shen Zhiwan was diagnosed with stomach cancer. To spare each other the pain of watching the other die, they both chose to break up. Lin Nianchu said, “I don’t love you anymore.” Shen Zhiwan replied, “Okay.” They thought this was the last kindness they could offer each other.
After their breakup, they ran into each other again in the hallway of an oncology hospital. The moment the truth came out, every pretense fell apart. With so little time left, they decided not to waste another moment. Shen Zhiwan chose to forgo treatment and spend her remaining days seeing mountains and seas. Lin Nianchu resolutely pulled out her IV, too, and went with her to the end.
They went to Erhai Lake in Yunnan and the snowy mountains of Tibet. They returned to the old orphanage and relived their memories in every place that had once mattered to them. But fate’s joke was more cruel than any tragedy: Shen Zhiwan had been misdiagnosed. She didn’t have cancer at all. She was perfectly healthy. Meanwhile, Lin Nianchu’s condition was rapidly worsening.
When the truth came out, Shen Zhiwan frantically tried to get Lin Nianchu back to the hospital, but Lin Nianchu smiled and said, “Thank goodness you’re all right. That’s all that matters.” At the very end, beneath the old locust tree where they had shared their first kiss, Lin Nianchu died quietly in Shen Zhiwan’s arms.
