Short story/be
Shao Yiyang × Wen Shiyi
"Do you still love him?" The psychiatrist asked me during the fifth session.
I looked out the window. The raindrops were beating on the floor-to-ceiling windows of the consulting room, turning the sycamore trees outside the window into a blur of watercolor. The rainy season in Nancheng is always like this, heartbreakingly lingering.
"I hate him." I said slowly, making sure every word was soaked with enough intensity. "I hate him so much that I wish he had never appeared."
The doctor wrote in the medical record, the tip of his pen rustling: "That means returning love."
What an ironic diagnostic criterion - hate is a complication of love, forgetting is the sequelae of remembering.
The rain had not stopped when the consultation was over. As I drove through the wet streets and passed the Wen family's old residence, I saw a charity dinner being held in the brightly lit building.
The same location as seven years ago, the same season, even the sound of rain is similar.
I stepped on the accelerator, only to see in the rearview mirror my 23-year-old self, wearing an ill-fitting smoky gray dress, escaping from the revolving door with the hem of the skirt and escaping to the terrace, to the evening breeze, to the look that changed my life.
Intention: Destiny is like red wax, with flames rising and tears flowing down.