In Russian, "long time no see" holds how many years, how many winters.
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Pei Minjin was once hit in the head by a stray bullet while on the front line of counterterrorism. The surgery left her with irreversible retrograde amnesia.
One part of her life was lost forever.
Years later, Pei Minjin became a freelance writer. For a commissioned feature, she returned to Russia to get close to Yin Yige.
He was an immensely powerful oligarch in the Moscow region who monopolized the arms trade. Rumor had it he was mercurial, ruthless, and extremely dangerous.
She knew Yin Yige had once been a professional soldier, serving in the unit she had followed to report on many years ago.
She did not know that she and Yin Yige had been married for years, and that he was still her lawful husband.
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Yin Yige believed Pei Minjin had died on the battlefield, and that her family had taken her body back to China. He never learned what became of her.
After enduring extraordinary pain, fate prepared an extraordinary happiness for him. But before he could hold on to it, God had already taken it away.
In Moscow's long winter nights, his eyes were lowered, his face weary.
He laid down the cross and pressed a fingertip to the trigger.
He murmured as if in a dream, "Father, why have you forsaken me?"
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When he saw Pei Minjin again five years later, everything about their identities had changed. Yin Yige watched her coolly as she introduced herself, saying she had once been an embedded reporter with his unit, then asked whether he remembered her.
Minjin chatted with him about everything from the weather to religion. Her tone was distant, and natural wariness hid in her eyes.
She thought she had concealed it well. That was only what she thought.
"I used to be a believer," Yin Yige said suddenly.
"And you're not anymore?"
"I'm not anymore."
"Why?"
"I once lost the love of my life. I was in so much pain that I wanted to follow her. It was probably a near-death hallucination. God came to wake me, wanting to hear my last words."
His face was clear and composed, without a trace of unnecessary emotion. "I asked the Father why he had forsaken me. The Father said he had never stood by my side."
He had once been a believer, and then a martyr.
But she neither confessed nor repented.
[The blurb has been screenshotted and archived]
Theme: One love for a lifetime, a lifetime devoted to one love.
