She Killed the Robin

[Click on my author page. My next book will be Winter Night Reply. Please add it to your reading list!] In this vast world, people swarm like ants around a sweet scent. Here, we meet again, and may our happiness never end. School bullying, domestic violence, people treated like livestock, generations of hatred. “I have returned from the depths of the mire, not to hate this world, but to keep tragedy from happening again.” A story about redemption. [Preview for Winter Night Reply] Every graduation season, classmate autograph books become bestsellers. So, in the year he graduated from high school, Xie Lin, egged on by his underlings, bought one and casually handed it out for people to fill in. By the time lunch break ended, he had received a stack of “replies,” every page filled to the brim. Among all the girls’ heartfelt confessions, though, one message stood out for its sheer lack of tact. In the well-wishes section, it read: “Xie Lin, I hope you excel in your studies and have a bright future.” The wording was so sincere it was laughable. He immediately pulled that autograph book aside, crumpled it up, and threw it in the trash. The student on cleanup duty was Chi Xue. That day, she cleaned the garbage up especially thoroughly. * Heaven had a sense of humor. He had lived up to everyone’s expectations, and, sure enough, he did not have a bright future. Instead, he stepped right into a quagmire. After twenty years lost in a dream, he resigned from the police force and moved into a rundown public-housing block. When an old injury flared in the middle of the night, he had no choice but to brave the snow and seek help at the shabby little clinic in the building across the street. The desk lamp inside flickered on and off. The doctor, bent over a medical record, looked up. Her features were plain and serene. He seemed to have seen her somewhere before. “Name?” she asked. “...Xie Lin.” The room soon fell silent, with only the scratch of her pen against the paper breaking the quiet. Suddenly, he said, “You actually knew which ‘Lin’ it was.” Her hand paused. She stared at him, suddenly dazed. But Xie Lin’s expression remained solemn, his brows slightly furrowed. Ten years later, she still felt ashamed of herself beneath his gaze. * “His eyes suddenly fell on the blue vase on the desk in front of him. The vase was empty. For the first time in all these years, it held no flowers on his birthday. He was startled: it was as if an invisible door had suddenly opened, and a cold draft from another world had blown into his silent room. He felt death. He felt immortal love.” --Stefan Zweig, Letter from an Unknown Woman Theme: