Heaven's Sea 天涯海国 (BxB)

Episode 45 (The end)

The sun's brightness caused ZiShu to wince his eyes and open them. The first face he saw was Lao Wen.

"Did you not sleep? You stayed up all night?" ZiShu asked as he moved his palm to feel Wen Kexing's temperature on the forehead. It was still warm. Actually it was warmer than the night before.

"I'm ok, don't you worry, Ah Xu." Lao Wen tried to comfort him but his eyes were red and bulging. ZiShu was not sure if the red eyes were due to Lao Wen not sleeping all night, or due to the fever, or due to other reasons unknown to him. He did notice though, that the way Lao Wen looked at him seemed different. In the past, his gaze always showed so much love and tenderness, anyone would melt just looking as those lovely eyes. But now his gaze appeared absent, blank.

"How are you feeling, Lao Wen?" ZiShu asked.

"I'm ok, don't you worry, Ah Xu." Lao Wen said again, not realizing he just said that a moment ago.

ZiShu went to check his fractured ankle.

"Why is my ankle broken?" Lao Wen asked ZiShu.

"The bone shattered last night when you tripped and fell. Remember?"

"... oh... ok..."

"Are you hungry? Tired? Sick? In pain? Can I do anything?" ZiShu asked. He would give the world to Lao Wen if he could.

"I'm ok, don't you worry, Ah Xu." Lao Wen repeated, not realizing he said it twice before.

"STOP saying that!!!" ZiShu snapped, now furious, knowing very well that Lao Wen was lying.

"I'm... I'm... I'm... sorry. I'm ok, don't you worry, Ah Xu."

ZiShu slapped Lao Wen on the face, hard - and screamed "TELL ME!!! What's going on!" He shook Lao Wen so violently the wine flask attached to his waist fell off.

Lao Wen saw the flask and went to reach for it, but ZiShu grabbed it first. So Lao Wen then asked if he could have some wine.

"I told you, this is not normal wine, you cannot drink it."

"Why not? Why is this not normal wine?"

That's when ZiShu suspected something was wrong, very wrong, and so he decided to test Lao Wen. "You can have some, but only if you guess correctly what type of wine it is."

Then ZiShu saw the mental struggle before him, Lao Wen moved his eyes left and right, tilted his head up and down, closed his eyes for a moment, reopened them, and frowned. He tried really hard to think but he couldn't remember. So he just gave it his best guess. "It's rice wine, Nu Er Hong".

ZiShu's heart broke into a million pieces.

So Lao Wen was not only weak and sick, and now his memory was fading. ZiShu read a lot of medicine books and he knew that every sickness and disease in the world could be cured, except when cells were degrading, be it brain cells or body cells. Death of body cells led to cancer. Decomposition of brain cells led to amnesia. Cancer and amnesia had no cure.

He lived 20 years in loneliness, trying to revive his soulmate. Now that he was revived, he had to watch him die all over again, only this time, it would be more cruel, more slow, more torturous.

He couldn't imagine going through that again, living another 20 years without Lao Wen.

So that's why Lao Wen's eyes were red and bulged up, because he cried all night. Because he knew what was happening to him.

ZiShu couldn't face the reality that his zezi was losing his memory and gradually forgetting him, as though they've never met. Never went through thin and thick together. Never fell in love.