Fang Zhi lost his girl twice.
The first time, at the age of seventeen, was because I was young and unable to do anything.
The second time, at the age of twenty-five, was because heaven and man were separated forever.
When we met again in the hospital many years later, she had changed her name to Yuan Jinhuan and looked distant: "Dr. Fang, you have the wrong person."
Later, she smiled and said that she wanted to see the world and "start all over again" with him when she came back.
But he could only hold a plain ring from the snow-capped mountains and whispered to the void:
"Whether it's Yuan Wei or Yuan Jinhuan, it doesn't matter as long as it's your name. This time, I'll be waiting for you."
*
The plain ring lay in the palm of my hand, cold and very light.
He recognized this style. When he was in high school, he could order one at the silver jewelry shop on the back street of his school for fifty yuan.
He could almost imagine her lowering her head as she carefully carved the word on the inner wall in the noisy store.
Free.
What she has been pursuing all her life is finally engraved on a ring that cannot be given away.
Then he opened the diary.
He saw that agreement, that phrase "start from the beginning."
I also saw the last page of the diary. Under those words, there was a line of smaller and deeper words, as if I had exhausted all my strength:
"Fang Zhi, if freedom is destined to pay a price, then my price will be you."
At that moment, the world was silent.
He finally understood that she was not looking for freedom.
She was going to a grand appointment with death in the name of freedom.
And he was the price she was willing to pay.
Concept: We cannot estimate the value of a moment until it becomes a memory