He lied to me for two years. I've been waiting for him for five years.
The first time I met him was in anatomy class. He was sitting in the last row, with his peaked cap pulled down so low that I thought he was just a cadet who was slacking off in class.
Later, he came to the library every day, brought me milk, helped me hold a seat, and put clothes on my shoulders when I had a fever. He said that his family runs a small business and the injury on his hand was caused by training. When he said these words, he smiled warmly, like all good students with good roots.
I believed it. I even believe he loves me.
On his eighteenth birthday, he sent a photo - the wound on his left shoulder, new, incised by himself. "Does it hurt?" He asked. I ran to find him. After the door closed, I realized that the tenderness I had been waiting for for two years was a carefully designed hunt.
One month later, there were two lines on the pregnancy test stick. I looked at him and said, "I will not keep this child."
He held my hand and his voice was trembling: "Shen Zhiyin, you are the only clean thing in my life."
I kept the child on condition that I go abroad. Five years. He can only come once a month.
Winter in London is very cold. I wore his T-shirt, went to the prenatal checkup alone, and entered the delivery room alone. On the day Shu Shu was born, he flew from Beijing and stood outside the delivery room waiting for more than ten hours. He held Shu Shu, his hands trembling.
"Shu Shu." He said softly, "I am daddy."
Five years later, I brought Shu Shu back to China. In the arrival hall of the airport, he stood at the pick-up gate, wearing a dark coat. Shu Shu tilted her head and looked at him: "Are you the father?"
His eyes were red. "I'm sorry, dad is late."
What he didn't know was that in the past five years, he had cleaned up the entire Gu family, cut off all drug lines, and almost died three times. He never told me.
Like he didn't know - I never hated him for lying to me. I just hate that he has to carry it alone.
Concept: A man who grew up in darkness weaves the gentlest lie in order to keep the light; a woman who has never been loved forgives the deepest deception in order to keep her love. This is not a story about forgiveness, but about how two incomplete people pieced together a complete life.