I almost died in Mali.
During those days when I was unconscious, there was only one name in my mind: Zhu Yuwei.
I gave him a call. I don't remember what he said, I just remember that he smiled—a gentle smile, and he seemed to find me on the other end of the phone very interesting. Then he asked, "Can you tell me who you are?"
Then I survived.
I've been thinking about the same question -
If I had to do it over again, could we fall in love?
I write another version of Mali.
There are the scorching sun, the river breeze, the birds frightened by the gunpowder smoke, the fingers tightly interlocked in the ruins, the body heat of running across the mountains and seas, and the determination that is willing to turn into white smoke for a promise. At the end of the story, some people survived, some were remembered forever, and the pain blossomed into flowers of kindness.
Her name is Chen Xi. Brave, loved, and ultimately redeemed.
People say this is a post-traumatic creation, a metaphor for psychological reconstruction. What they don't know is that I'm not "creating" stories.
I am using her eyes to gaze again at that afternoon that I can never go back to.
Through her lips, I spoke the cry that was stuck in my throat.
With her bones and blood, she carries the "survival" that I cannot bear alone.
Until one day, on a sunny afternoon, a figure with a similar outline to the one in the story walked out of the building and called me by my real name in a completely unfamiliar tone.
——Lin Shu.
At that moment, I realized that the world I had devoted all my efforts to build, those fiery characters, those ups and downs of joys and sorrows, those lights that illuminated the darkest moments...
I have always lived in one person's war.
When fiction becomes the only analgesic, when another name becomes the gap for breathing.
Are we writing stories or salvaging our sunk selves?
Concept: "In Your Name" is a long narrative that wanders between real scars and psychological illusions. It is not only a story about trauma, but also a silent confession about "how we use the fragments of memory to piece together the courage to continue living."