A Sea of Love and Hate: The Campus Beauty Leaves Me Hurting and Craving More

Xiao Luo Jue is a homebody who writes novels: clear-headed, rational, and never willing to stop for anyone. He knows perfectly well that love is just a dopamine trick and an evolutionary leftover.

And feelings are the highest kind of time cost, with a negative ROI.

Her name is Su Nian. She's Jiang University’s campus beauty, nineteen years old, and her own father stole the money she earned at work. After suffering from malnutrition for a long time, she collapsed in front of my car.

Su Nian: Nian means to remember, to obsess, and to yearn. From then on, that single word crushed all my clarity. I thought of her, resented her, hated her, and still thought of her.

She understands my coldness, and I pity her lowly position.

We test each other, pull at each other, see each other clearly, and stubbornly refuse to admit it.

The push and pull between wanting to run away rationally and being held back emotionally really hurts, but it's also genuinely addictive. It's terrifying and captivating at once. You want to escape but can't, and you want to stay but are afraid to.

I hate how well she understands me, yet I'm afraid she's the only one who does. I love how clearly she sees me, yet I'm afraid she'll stop looking once she sees too clearly.

They say that no matter how deep the sea of hatred, it all begins in the sky of love. Sea and sky become one; love and hate share the same source. Love is the foundation of hate, and hate is love's backlash. So I hate the moon hanging high above, shining on everyone but me, and I hate it when the moon hangs high above and shines on me alone. It's wrong if it shines on me, and wrong if it doesn't.

There are no such things as clear-headed, happily single people in this world. Before meeting that someone, they just assume none of life's trials have anything to do with them.

Only after you meet them do you understand: seeing through things is reason, falling in love is losing control. The word for love takes only a few strokes to write, but falling into it takes a lifetime.