[Youth | Bad Ending | Separation and Death | Regret | Heartbreaking | Healing]
One autumn, I attended my fiancée’s funeral. Her name was Lin Qianran. She had jumped into the sea to end her life. Even now, I still don’t know the real reason she died.
“Compared to the dead, I’d rather care about those left behind.” I wanted to keep living with that thought in mind. I went camping by the sea and made an effort to meet new people. But whenever I let my guard down, the pain of the past would follow me like a demon.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Huh? Nothing.”
“Hehe, you must be thinking about something!”
Caught between past and present, reality and memory, I was trapped in a maelstrom. Then, quite unexpectedly, the truth about Xiao Qian’s death suddenly came to light.
That day, Xiao Qian was sitting on the stone railing of the balcony. Her legs angled slightly inward, her body turned toward the outdoors, she stared motionlessly into the distance, as if admiring the twilight drifting across the far-off horizon. The railing was high, and her feet no longer touched the ground. Cold wind billowed into her white skirt. Its hem fluttered without pause, like white silk drifting down from the sky, shimmering in the clear night. Suddenly, everything happening before my eyes felt unreal, like a beautiful image in a hazy dream.
“Ah, you can hear the tide from here. Every time I hear it, I feel so at peace.”
