On the day I ran away from my wedding, I slipped out through the hotel's back door wearing a 38,000-yuan wedding dress.
I didn't bring a suitcase.
I didn't bring a bank card.
I brought only a camera and a one-way ticket to the south.
The last thing my mother wanted to take care of in her life was getting me married off.
So I ran.
I ran to an old town where you couldn't even order takeout, and rented a rundown courtyard with one corner of the roof collapsed.
After paying six months' rent, I had only 2,300 yuan left.
A downpour came on my first night, and I put out seven basins to catch the leaks.
Sitting among them, I hugged my camera and counted my money. The more I counted, the more I laughed.
So this is what it sounds like to make my own decisions.
The next day, a carpenter showed up at the courtyard gate.
He was quiet and steady-handed, and fixed the drafty window in no time.
He was the first person who didn't ask me, “Where's your husband?”
He only said the house was old and needed fixing bit by bit.
I told him I was worn out too, and wanted to mend myself bit by bit.
But my mother had no intention of letting me go.
Shen Jiayan, my intended groom, had such a good reputation that the whole city praised him. Humiliated by my runaway, he was searching everywhere for me.
The day Ying Po, my neighbor across the hall, pressed a key into my hand, she said just one thing: This courtyard can hide a person, but it can't hide what happened.
Holding the old key, I suddenly felt that maybe I hadn't run away from a marriage.
I had run away from Qiao Ning, the girl who had never once lived for herself.
As for Zhou Yu, the carpenter who fixed the window, he repaired it, and he repaired my leaky courage too.
I'll tell you what happened next, one thing at a time.
