Zhu Xing met Zhou Xi'an on a snowy night when a blizzard had closed the mountain passes.
On a jammed highway, she'd argued with her boyfriend and been kicked out of his car. Helpless, she stood amid the bone-chilling wind.
Zhou Xi'an was leaning against a black SUV, smoking, his posture relaxed.
After his last drag, Zhou Xi'an ground the cigarette out in the snow. When he looked up at Zhu Xing, a snowflake landed by his brow. Its sharp black edge, touched with white, made his voice seem all the colder:
"Need a ride?"
-
One journey through mountains and rivers, one person along the way.
Zhou Xi'an gave Zhu Xing a ride, and became the start of her next journey.
While she was with Zhou Xi'an, Zhu Xing heard people dismissively say more than once, "What makes her think she can tie Zhou Xi'an down? Dream on!"
They had a point.
Zhou Xi'an was Jingfo's most notorious playboy, treating life as a game. The tears women had shed for him could have brought several long bouts of rain to Jingfo.
Zhou Xi'an casually remarked, "You'd look nice in pearl earrings."
Zhu Xing, who had been afraid of pain since childhood, got a piercing in her left ear for him the very next day. Tears sprang to her eyes as the needle went through.
Later, the piercing became repeatedly inflamed, the pain unbearable.
It was just like...
Her love affair with him.
-
They met again in the third year after Zhu Xing had left Zhou Xi'an.
She heard he was doing well.
She heard he was still playing the field, with women coming and going at his side.
She heard that he...
Had completely forgotten her.
Zhu Xing passed him without a glance, as if they were strangers, and got into the car of a man who was courting her.
Unexpectedly, the black SUV sped after them and cut off the car she was in. The man stood in front of it, solitary and still, his eyes and brows cold as frost. "Not just anyone is fit to take her home."
The first thing Zhu Xing said after getting out was, "You're even less qualified than he is."
She touched her left ear. The piercing had long since closed up. She lowered her eyes and smiled. "Zhou Xi'an, I stopped loving you a long time ago."
There were plenty of people watching that night.
They were all astonished that Zhou Xi'an, who had roamed from woman to woman, could ever lower himself for someone.
"Zhu Xing, I only want you to come back," Zhou Xi'an told her amid the hubbub.
Zhu Xing looked up.
She saw Zhou Xi'an beneath the beautiful night sky, his eyes reddened by the cold wind.
- I can live without you.
- But this world isn't a world without you., Zhou Xi'an
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