Photos Are for Remembering

The moment she pulled the trigger, her hand was shaking, and tears splashed onto the back of his hand.

He wanted to ask why, but the bullet had already pierced his chest. In the final instant, as he crashed through the guardrail and plunged toward the Cang River, the last thing he saw was the face he had loved and protected all his life.

Thirteen years ago, things had been different.

He was sixteen that year, a fat kid cornered against a wall, someone anyone could take a swipe at.

She had stood by his side and, in front of everyone, said, "I'm his girlfriend," shielding him from every humiliation.

They had agreed it was only pretend, and that she would take it back once the fuss died down. But he had taken her words to heart, treasuring them throughout his youth.

Later, when they reunited at the city bureau, he thought his hardships were finally over and that he could protect her for the rest of her life.

He had no idea that a trap had already been quietly laid, with her mother as the reins and his life as the bait.

She had pulled the trigger. What shattered was the wish he hadn't dared confess in either of his two lifetimes.

At the Cang River ferry crossing, an old man's prophecy. When he opened his eyes again, he was back in the year his dream began.

She was still smiling on the school field. His younger self hadn't yet been pushed into the river by fate. There was still time to prevent every tragedy.

In this life, he had returned with the memories of two lifetimes.

He would reclaim everything he was owed, with interest, and repay his own debts bit by bit.

He would cut down, one by one, the hands hidden behind masks that had driven people to desperation.

And the girl he loved with all his heart: this time, he would make sure she was untouched by the past and safe, year after year.

But he soon discovered that the body he had "borrowed" from the Cang River never appeared in any photograph.

Until one day, a woman holding a picture of them together looked at him across the crowd and said, "I love you."