The Road Home

Epilogue

It was eight or nine years later when I ran into my first love again; it was at the gas station, as I walked out of the convenience store after buying some water. She stared at me, her gaze quivering, glistening with tears. Tentatively, she asked, "Do you still remember who I am?"

Ah, forgetting would actually have been better.

The year we broke up, I was not even twenty years old. With a starving belly, I had swallowed a snake gallbladder raw and stripped the skin off of a frog. I had traversed deep into mountains and thick forests while bearing 40 kilograms of weight. None of those caused me to collapse. But when those military exercises were over, the moment I touched alcohol, I began to think of you. A grown man more than 1.8 metres tall had lain in a thicket of grass that was half the height of a person, and consumed alcohol until he was like an idiot—but who knew about this?

Holding my bottle of water on my upturned palm, I looked at her and rather placidly answered, "Yes, I remember you. Even if I were to turn to ashes, I would still remember you."

The blazing sun above my head and the earth beneath my feet shall bear witness for all this lifetime.

You are the only one I have loved in my days of youth. My girl, Gui Xiao.

✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻

Gui Xiao,

I'm currently still in the KTV, waiting to take those punks to the train station.

I found this paper behind the counter; same for the pen. Currently, it has been one hour and twenty-three minutes since you drove away from here. They're still singing that same song they were singing when you got here. The lighting in here is really dim. I've actually pulled open the curtains and propped the door open to write this. The wind and snow are blowing hard. My fingers can last about an hour in the cold wind.

One hour for one letter. That's sufficient.

Xiao-Xiao, I haven't written any letters to you in these last few years. Thinking back to before that, I did write a few to you then, but I didn't mail any of them out. One, I didn't know your home address, but two, I figured you were at the age that you should be married or getting married and I didn't want to disturb you. Of course, after this letter is done being written, it still won't be mailed. I just wanted to find a place where I could talk to you for a bit.

To be honest, our breakup back then nearly sapped me of half my life. But later, whenever I thought back on things, they were always the good things about you.

Back on that summer day of that year, beneath our school's old poplar tree, you had stared at me. You must not have known that afterwards, every time I chanced upon you on campus, I would take a couple of extra glances at you. You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. That's been true since we were just teenagers. Every time I bumped into you at the open-air sinks in front of your classroom, I would convince myself, "Lu Chen, just forget it. She is so pretty and from a military compound at that. She's totally a girl who's out of your league."

But I still ended up falling in love with you, the wonderful person that you are, and you fell in love with me, too.

The time that we were actually together was not long. After we broke up, I did resent Heaven, I did hate my parents, but I never did truly blame you. Other than a lousy old mobile phone, I've never given you anything worth mentioning. Whenever I took you out, if it wasn't to go play pool, then it was to go to the arcade. There was no good food to eat in the town, and during the best of times, just eating a bowl of beef noodles could make you ridiculously happy. I would always bring you to the auto shop because I wanted to cook for you. I can't comment on how good the cooking was, but the food was definitely clean.