The day Lu Shiyuan enlisted, Shen Yutang deleted all their flirtatious chat history, leaving behind only an unfinished episode of Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf.
They had never once said the word “love” to each other. There was only him telling her to sit in the passenger seat, and her being too afraid to move; him offering to feed her a grilled sausage, and her fleeing in a panic; him telling her he had abs she could touch, and her touching him before saying she couldn’t feel them. He kept her company while she waited for a ride in the cold wind, then pretended not to care as he told her, “You can tell your boss you got home safely, too.” After enlisting, he sent her pictures of the first snow in Yanbian, asked her to help pick out outfits, and when she broke down, said, “Then wait for me to come back and eat at your funeral banquet. I’ll eat for seven days.”
She went to pray for a love match, and the fortune slip said her destined romance would come in the third month. March was when he would return from the army.
But before she could make it to March, moderate depression arrived first.
On mornings when even getting out of bed was difficult, Jiang Xinyue watched Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf with her. Doctor Lin told her, “You have to learn to be kind to yourself first.” She grew her hair long, kept her medical records hidden, and waited for him to come home. She thought he knew nothing. But in the dead of night at the barracks, he spent two years watching more than five thousand episodes of Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, and filled out every one of his service preferences with a request for early discharge.
March came, and he returned. This time, she took the passenger seat and never moved again.
This is a story about waiting, and about a girl who learns to love herself first while she waits.
