Ailments of Grass and Trees

He was the dog Gu Huaijin picked up when he was young. He kept him for twenty years, unwilling to throw him away, but never willing to treat him well, either.

Back at Ningcheng Prefecture Middle School, Gu Huaijin once came to Qin Yu's rescue. From then on, Qin Yu clung to him like a drowning man clutching a piece of driftwood, never letting go. He brought him meals, copied his books, ran errands for him, and gazed up at him with eyes bright as if they held a handful of silver shards.

But what kind of person was Gu Huaijin? The legitimate son of an official family, he could crush a man's future with the lift of a hand. He didn't want Qin Yu to enter the military academy, so he intercepted his acceptance letter. He didn't want Qin Yu to make friends, so he made Lu Wenqing “accidentally” fall into the water. He didn't want Qin Yu to leave, so he locked him in an asylum and watched through the iron bars as he slowly fell apart.

Qin Yu escaped twice. Once, he fled to a small town in western Hunan, only for Gu Huaijin to corner him in a teahouse. Another time, he made it to a village in southern Jiangxi, where he saw a black-lacquered carriage outside the school gate. The switch in his hand dropped to the ground with a slap. After that, he stopped running. It wasn't forgiveness. He was just too tired, too tired even to hold on to his hatred.

Then the plague came, and the two of them were locked in the same room, waiting to die. Gu Huaijin, burning with fever and half-conscious, clutched his hand and called him “Xiao Liu,” a childhood nickname even Qin Yu had nearly forgotten.

Gu Huaijin never said he loved him. But he staked his life on Qin Yu's.

Even so, it was a filthy kind of love, stained with blood, laced with poison, wrapped in twenty years of humiliation and absurdity. Qin Yu got Gu Huaijin, and he got Gu Huaijin's knife, too.

In the end, he followed half a step behind Gu Huaijin, just as he had all those years ago. Only now, he no longer looked up at him.

Their love was neither pure nor dignified, full of schemes and scars. But they were bound together at last, and could never be separated again.

Theme: Love means respect and helping the one you love achieve their wishes