If Mr. Lu Could Fall in Love

When Yin Nian met Lu Zixu, she felt as if she’d been bewitched. He was like a figure in a mural, breathtakingly beautiful yet aloof and impossible to approach. She felt as though she had fallen in love with a masterpiece so extraordinary it could only have come from a painter’s hand. Every moment, she felt herself floating among the clouds, with an abyss yawning beneath her feet. His hot-and-cold moods, the burdens weighing on him, and his extreme need for control both frightened and enthralled Yin Nian. In 1817, while traveling in Florence, the writer Stendhal was overwhelmed by the abundance of artworks. The intense beauty made his heart race, left him dizzy and faint, and filled him with confusion. He even began to hallucinate. In 1979, psychiatrist Graziella Magherini named this psychological condition Stendhal syndrome. Yin Nian felt she was already beyond help.