In late autumn, the Special Diseases Laboratory at Linzhou University welcomed the youngest patient in its history: a young man who had just come of age, named Lu Shi, suffering from Hergengel disease.
He was also the first case of Hergengel disease in Linzhou City.
Before entering the SD Laboratory at Linzhou University, Lu Shi had never thought there was anything unusual about himself.
He was just an ordinary high school student. If he had to name anything special about himself, it was that his life had been rather unfortunate. Although he was the Lu family's second son, he had never received any love or resources. Just as he was working toward escaping the Lu family, the central goal of his life, he was suddenly told that he was a fake young master who had usurped the real heir's place. His adoptive parents treated him like discarded trash, and his adoptive brothers despised him.
But that didn't mean Lu Shi was sick. He explained this quite sincerely to the doctor, but when he looked at the photo of someone whose face was unmistakably clear, yet whose name he could never recall, he felt inexplicably nervous.
The doctor said the person in the photo was his younger brother.
Lu Shi found it absurdly funny. His younger brother had still been hurling insults at him just last night, so why couldn't he recognize him today?
The doctor explained that Hergengel disease was an illness that gradually robbed people of their memories. He would be consumed by the disease, forgotten, and ultimately rejected by the world.
To cure Hergengel disease, he needed to find a memory anchor.
Lu Shi felt helpless. Where could he find one? His father and mother said he was an ill-fated wretch who had caused the real young master to end up on the streets. His older brother and younger brother called him a greedy, despicable person. They wished he would disappear forever. How could they possibly be willing to become his anchor?
Later, he met Song Chunjian.
Lu Shi once naively believed that Song Chunjian would be the one to pull him back from the edge of his memories and save him from plunging into the abyss.
But when Lu Yuzhou spread Lu Shi's anchor diary about Song Chunjian throughout the school, Song Chunjian disappeared that very night.
Lu Shi's anchor disappeared, too.
Later, Lu Shi got into university and recovered from his illness. Then, at the university's welcome party, he saw Song Chunjian.
He held a bouquet of flowers as if he were holding a sincere heart.
But what greeted him was Lu Shi's question:
"Who are you?"
Extra Scene
It took Song Chunjian a long time to learn that Lu Shi's designated guardian back then had been his own grandfather.
More than the sudden realization after being kept in the dark for so long, Song Chunjian felt relief: relief that after making the wrong decision back then, Lu Shi hadn't truly been left with no one to rely on.
But rising alongside that relief was boundless dread.
If only back then...
If only back then.
Later, on graduation day, Song Chunjian secretly went to a tattoo parlor without telling Lu Shi and got an inconspicuous tattoo on the inside of his arm, one of the places where he was least able to tolerate pain. Curious, Lu Shi got him drunk during a trip to the hot springs together and took a secret look.
The tattoo was a line of poetry.
In the spring stream, time rings out.
Like a love poem kept silent for years, it was Song Chunjian's quiet way of reminding himself that, from then on, he would forever be an anchor Lu Shi could never erase.
Theme: No one should have to live on the edge of their memories.
