The first snow of their twentieth year, A University in Lin City.
Su Qingxue stumbled into Shen Jinghan's lonely, wintry life. To everyone else, he was a cool, taciturn prodigy. But deep in his heart, he carried a countdown to death caused by a congenital illness. That unexpected flutter of the heart was the only warm ray of sunshine in his bleak fate, and a hope he could never reach out to grasp.
"Shen Jinghan, tell me, what did I do wrong?"
Beneath a streetlamp on a snowy night, Su Qingxue's eyes were red, her voice trembling almost imperceptibly.
Shen Jinghan lowered his eyes. His fingertips pressed hard against his chest, where a dull pain churned. He forced all the heat in his heart back down, his voice as cold as the falling snow.
"From beginning to end, you were just imagining things."
He had fallen for her, but he didn't dare promise her even a day together in the future.
He feared that after briefly having her, he would leave her behind, condemning her to a lifetime of torment in his memories. So he deliberately avoided her, retreating step by step and ruthlessly cutting off every hint of intimacy between them.
Everyone laughed at Shen Jinghan for being heartless, for wasting a young woman's sincere affection.
Only Fu Junci could see that behind every cold rejection lay an illness and agony no one else could see.
*
Later, wedding music filled the air. Su Qingxue wore a bridal gown, blessed with the perfect life everyone dreamed of.
Hidden in a distant foreign land amid snow and wind, Shen Jinghan anonymously sent her his entire fortune as her dowry.
As he lay dying, he gripped his closest friend's wrist. His breath was faint, and he had only one final request.
"Never... let her find out."
With his own passing, he bought her a lifetime of peace, never knowing the truth.
