Zhang Hengrui and I made a promise before the eternal lamp at the ancient temple in our hometown: every year, we'd come here together during the Lantern Festival to hang lanterns.
He said, “As long as the light remains, so will we.”
But he never came to the Lantern Festival when we were eighteen.
He had never broken a promise before.
I searched the whole town and found nothing but an empty room and an old bronze lamp I'd never seen before. It lit up by itself every night. In its flickering flame, I saw him in another world...
He had erased his name from the Book of Life and Death to take my destined death in my place, trapping himself forever in the lamplight.
Each night, when the lamp burned, he could look at me through its flames, but he could never say a word again.
Only later did I understand: he hadn't broken his promise.
He had traded every last light of his life for every peaceful night of mine.
Now I have to choose: snuff out the lamp with my own hands and make him disappear for good...
Or live on, day after day, through endless nights with him.
