The snow in S city did not fall on my shoulders after all.
When I woke up from an old dream in the middle of the night, I realized that the tenderness I had crushed with my own hands had already grown into thorns in the folds of time. I peeked into your life through the screen, from the snippets of words in the scarf to the daily fragments of the sweet potato, from the song list of the Internet to the visitor records of the seal. Like a despicable thief, I peeked at the daily love between you and your ex-wife and sister, and also at your loneliness alone.
I once thought that love meant wanting to touch and then withdrawing. But when I dug out the chat history from many years ago in the only 28 slots of my old phone, heard your voice, and saw you asking me "Will we really last forever?", I realized that love is a belated awakening, a guilt engraved in my bones, and the restraint of doing something knowing that it cannot be done.
Now, I choose to seal this love in Ji Xia in S city. I won't disturb you, I won't get close, I just want to see you in a distant place and see you safe every year.
But if there is an afterlife, I will definitely travel through the torrent of time and space, hold you tightly when you need me most, and tell you: This time, I will not lose you again.
(Later rebirth setting: The protagonist dies of cardiovascular disease many years later, and is reborn back to the year when they first met, with the memories and guilt of her previous life. This time, she must carefully guard her moon and not let her suffer any grievances.)
Intention: Love is the restraint of compassion and the courage to start over