1943, Chongqing. The first time twenty-one-year-old Shen Biyun met Gu Huaijin, he was standing at the door of the operating room.
He is thirty years old, with a tall and straight figure and a handsome face, showing no signs of age. The white coat was stained with blood, the sleeves were rolled up to his forearm, and there was a cigarette between his fingers. His brows were frowned deeply, like the stones at the bottom of the Jialing River, hiding unspeakable weariness.
Biyun is the new caregiver. As she passed by holding the gauze roll, her heartbeat suddenly skipped a beat - not because of his appearance, but because when he lowered his head to smoke, there was something very old in his eyes, as if he had lived for a hundred years.
Later she found out that Gu Huaijin was a surgeon who graduated from Union Medical College, was unmarried and had no children. He came to Chongqing alone and stitched up his wounds day after day in this field hospital. He does not look older, and is even more energetic than many young people, but he rarely smiles or talks, and his only pastime is to stand at the end of the corridor and smoke.
Biyun handed him the surgical instruments, her hands shaking slightly. Once, he took the hemostatic forceps and suddenly said: "Your hands are very steady." Biyun's face turned red.
The days passed. Biyun found that she cared more and more about his every move. She would quietly place a blanket over his chair after long surgeries. He would put a piece of cake on the table while she was on night shift. There are ten years between them, but when they stand together, no one would feel that they are out of place - he looks so young, as if time has stopped on him.
But Biyun knew that his heart was already old.
One rainy night, the blue clouds were soaking wet. Gu Huaijin put his white coat on her body and pulled her into the duty room. She stood behind him and suddenly asked: "Doctor Gu, when the war is over, where do you want to go?"
There was silence for a long time. He said: "Hangzhou. Go and see the yellow jujube trees by the West Lake."
Biyun's tears fell.
In the autumn of 1944, Gu Huaijin was transferred to Kunming. Before leaving, Biyun gave him a gray scarf knitted by himself. He didn't refuse, just said: "Wait for me."
After that, he sent a letter every half month, with "Wait for me" written at the end of each letter. Biyun wrote back with a letter, "I'm waiting for you."
In the spring of 1945, the convoy was attacked in Guizhou. Gu Huaijin was already out of danger, but ran back to save a wounded soldier who couldn't move. The car exploded.
The day Biyun received the news, she didn't cry. She walked to the end of the corridor where he often smoked and stood there for a long time.
After the war, Biyun went to Hangzhou and lived by the West Lake all his life. Never married. There were letters under her pillow. The paper was yellow and brittle.
In 2006, Biyun passed away at the age of eighty-three. Among the relics were a worn-out gray scarf and a pile of neatly bundled letters. The same sentence is written at the end of each letter——
"Wait for me."
"I'll wait for you."
She had waited for him for sixty-two years. He looks forever thirty-one, never looks old, and always stays in that war-torn spring.
You were born before I was born, but I was born before you were old. It's not the age of appearance, but the age of fate - he came too early and experienced too many deaths; she came too late, and ultimately failed to catch up with his short life.
Concept: One sentence summarizes the concept: On the ruins of war and death, an ordinary woman spent her life proving that love is not about possession, but a presence that will never be forgotten.