[World War II] Berlin, Never to Return

Cover design by @Ru Zhuo

A lazy, alcohol-dependent, gloomy male ghost, an SS officer x a Chinese girl stranded in Berlin

No transmigration. A melodramatic work, updated whenever the mood strikes.

The male lead is married and lives off his spouse (a marriage of convenience). He is unfaithful, a walking corpse with a love-addled brain.

The female lead is faithful, but an empty doll.

The leads are eight years apart in age.

November 7, 1939, the day after she turned seventeen,

Through a twist of fate, she was assigned to be his nurse.

They thought she was cheap, but in truth, he was the one who charged a high price.

On her first day on the job,

she ate all the biscuits he had hidden away,

and drew turtles and pig faces on his bandages.

He said expressionlessly, "Draw another one and I'll dig out your eyes and pickle them in alcohol."

She smiled radiantly. "Digging out my eyes would be boring. You should take out my heart.

If I die, maybe I can trick my brother into coming back to get me."

"Where's your brother?"

"Moscow."

She put away her pen and wrapped the bandage around his head.

"There, that expression suits a pig perfectly. Don't move. I'll tie you a bow."

"..."

Six years later, Berlin fell. Among the shattered walls,

she lay in his arms, gazing at the setting sun over Berlin.

"Dietrich, Yanyan will sing you a song. Will you listen?"

"Even if you won't, you have to."

The evening glow fades, the crabapple blossoms return. Beneath Berlin, a song from The Tale of Sinful Love.

"Dietrich Stahl, if you weren't in the SS...

If we'd met a hundred years earlier, or a hundred years later...

Then perhaps every time I treated you a little better, it wouldn't feel like a crime.

A hundred years ago, I would have married you, but you wouldn't have been allowed to take a concubine.

A hundred years from now... let's make a pinky promise. A hundred years, and no breaking it.

But why did it have to be now...?"

Theme: None