Back Then, I Adored You

Gu Yusheng did not know how far he had walked. He recovered his composure and stood in front of the wishing fountain he had visited many times before.

He saw layers of shimmering coins of different values at the bottom of the fountain through the clear water.

A statue at the center of the fountain was holding a vase with a pleasant stream of water trickling down from the vase opening into the well.

Many people were mingling in the plaza, with music and louder voices coming from a nearby mall. But Gu Yusheng saw or heard none of it. He stared at the fountain smoking one cigarette after the other.

When he’d smoked all his cigarettes, he walked closer to the fountain and bent down to touch the water. It was cold, and a chill passed from his fingertips all the way to the bottom of his heart.

Qin Zhi’ai would not come back to him, no matter how many wishes he made and coins he tossed into the fountain.

He had never desired anything this much in his entire life.

Losing her, losing again, and losing repeatedly had become an infinite joke.

He thought he was tough, when he had given her up for his patriotic dreams, when he had lost his parents, when he had lost little troublemaker after falling in love with her…

He had been trying to be tough over these many years, and he’d thought he’d experienced the toughest times in his life. He believed he had proven he could take the darkness until the sun rose.

But now it was pitch dark, never to be lit up again.

“Yusheng, please get along with Xiaokou, okay?” Gu Yusheng’s grandfather had begged him.

“Please treat yourself and others well. Do not make a decision that you will regret for the rest of your life… Master Gu, please agree to Old Master Gu’s and Miss Liang’s wishes, and enjoy life…” Even Qin Zhi’ai had suggested to him to do so.

He had to choose to either fight or obey his fate. To do the latter for his grandfather was miserable to imagine. He had never been attracted to Liang Doukou, and even seeing her, much less spending time with her, was something he ultimately could not accept. He’d rather die than live like that.

Gu Yusheng looked up at the gray sky. It was almost two in the afternoon; her plane had probably already crossed China’s border.

He and she were in two different countries now.

Lost and not knowing where to go, Gu Yusheng slowly turned around to cross the road. As he waited for the cars passing by, he saw a boy, perhaps five years old, calling his mother just as he darted into the road. He was paying no attention to the cars or his mother’s yelling at him to stay where he was.

A black sedan accelerated quickly from the intersection toward the little boy. The driver was on the phone and didn’t see the child in front of him. As his mother yelled his name, she ran after him and stopped just steps from the moving car.