"Luan Nian, I want to start from my first year in Beijing." Shang Zhitao took his hand. "Don't mind me talking so much, all right? I've just wanted so badly to talk to you tonight."
I came to Beijing when I was twenty-two. I still remember that day, my first day in the city. It was raining, and I dragged my suitcase out of the train station into a sea of people. Everyone walked fast, and no one so much as glanced at me. I had a map in my hand with a few lines written on it, directions I'd looked up ahead of time, from the station to my rented room. Standing alone in that unfamiliar station in an unfamiliar city, I suddenly felt afraid. I didn't know what was waiting for me. I was a little scared, but I was looking forward to it too.
The thing I'm most grateful for is that I got to live in that room, because that's where I met my friends: Sun Yu, Zhang Lei, and Sun Yuanzhu, whose name I still can't bring myself to say.
That summer, on my first day of work, I sat on the ground floor of Lingmei waiting to finish my onboarding paperwork. You pushed open the door of the coffee shop and walked out, like some ancient god. I remember thinking, how could there be a man like this in the world? But this man tried to talk me into quitting on the very first day we met, and worst of all, I actually thought he was right.
I've never had any great ambitions in life. But this bastard lit a fire in me. Hey, don't pinch my face, I mean it. I really did think you were a bastard back then.
My coworkers mixed Chinese and English when they talked, and there was so much I couldn't understand. I grew more and more anxious, thinking that if I couldn't handle the language, sooner or later I'd be finished. Thankfully I had Lumi and Tracy, who always encouraged me. A friend found me an English tutor from his alma mater. That tutor had an incredibly grand Chinese name: Long Zhentian.
Long Zhentian taught me a great deal, and we spent weekends walking through every street and alley in Beijing. Not every weekend, though, since sometimes I had to work overtime. My first business trip was with you and Lumi, and Grace too, to Guangzhou. For a few years afterward, coincidentally, I ended up going to Guangzhou around the same time every year, and it became a city I grew to love.
That year, work felt impossibly hard. I didn't know anything, couldn't do anything, and had to learn everything from scratch. And you, you always looked at me the same way, as if to say, "How can you be so stupid?"
Even so, I fell for you. A lot of the girls at Lingmei liked you, Kitty included. One day, Lumi and I were walking downstairs when I overheard Kitty on the phone with someone, saying, "I like my boss." I've never been ashamed of that kind of feeling, because liking someone is a wonderful thing in itself.
That first year was chaos, and I had so little experience of the world. So many things that felt like the sky was falling back then seem like nothing at all to me now.
That New Year, sitting in the old house in Ice City looking out at the lights of a thousand homes, I suddenly missed you terribly. You were the reason I felt lonely.
Then, before I knew it, the second year arrived.
The second year seemed a little easier, and I seemed a little stronger. A few things happened during that time that made me very happy. It was a year full of firsts.
My friends and I took our first trip together, to Mount Tai. We started climbing in the middle of the night and kept going until dawn. We were lucky that day and saw the sunrise. The sea of clouds was so beautiful, and my friends and I took so many photos, ones I still keep to this day. You know, sometimes when I look through them and then look at myself now, I can see the marks the years have left. We were all still young then. We didn't need fancy clothes or heavy makeup to look beautiful. I loved that trip so much.
That year I went abroad for the first time, with my coworkers, to Phuket. I watched the ocean there with you. The sunrise was so beautiful, and I hoped that for the rest of my life I could watch countless sunrises and sunsets with you. Back then, the way I felt about you was like someone who had never been in love before, offering up a whole, unbroken heart.
That same year, my first boss changed jobs and wanted to poach me to go with him. You said the only reason he wanted me was because I was cheap and easy to manage, and that hurt me for a long, long time. It was also around then that I suddenly understood I needed to see myself clearly, and to take responsibility for every decision I made.
That year, I ran into a shady rental agency. I was terrified, and I even started to doubt the world, wondering how there could be such awful people in it. My roommates and I went to confront them, having no idea how dangerous the world could be. In the end, we even had to ask you for help. Oh, and Lumi wanted to smash up the man's shop for me.
The happiest thing that happened that year was getting Luke. Yes, I know you've always known this: I named him Luke because I love Luke, and Luke has always been my favorite, no one could ever replace him. Luke was so cute as a puppy, do you remember what he looked like? He'd run up to you like a little snowball and rub against your pant leg. He even peed in your house once, and you couldn't stand him for a while after that. But I never once minded him. I loved him so much. He could understand what I said, and no matter what, he was always by my side. Sometimes I'd snap at him, and what would he do? Stick out his tongue and grin at me. Luke is the only thing in this life that has ever belonged entirely to me. I love him so much. Whenever you weren't with me, Luke was Luke. But it makes me sad too. What breaks my heart most is that Luke is getting old, day by day, and I know he doesn't have much time left. Just thinking about it, I can't stop the tears.
Shang Zhitao lowered her head and wiped away her tears. As people go through more and more in life, their hearts grow calloused with time. Yet there are always certain people, certain things, that can still bring you easily to tears. We call these the last soft places left in our hearts.
Luan Nian handed her a tissue. "I've taken Luke in for checkups, and Dr. Liang looked him over too. He said all his organs are in good shape, he's got another four or five years left, easy."
"Don't try to comfort me. I know the numbers. I look up the lifespan of large dogs every day."
Luan Nian said nothing more. Everyone knew he had a son who was a dog. It was hard for people to imagine a man like him loving a dog so much, but he did. He loved Luke.
A long, long time passed before Shang Zhitao stopped crying.
I never much liked the third year.
Because in the third year, a truly disgusting man showed up, and even now, thinking about him makes my skin crawl. I saw Kitty go into his office, and then he sent me a message. He went after other women colleagues too. He was disgusting. Our coworkers in Chengdu would shake just talking about him. I had nightmares that whole year, his ugly face in every one of them. My friends taught me how to gather evidence and encouraged me to report him. I did. I don't regret it.
You know, Luan Nian, I don't regret it at all. I'm so grateful that that year I discovered I might actually be able to be a brave person. Someone brave enough to stand up to authority.
That day you walked into his office and grabbed him by the throat, my heart nearly broke. It's strange, I felt sorry for myself, and I felt sorry for you too. I knew your anger was real. Luan Nian, from that moment on I was certain you had an especially soft heart, one wrapped in a shell so hard that other people couldn't see it, and you overlooked it yourself.
And there's one more thing. I loved the cocktail you made me, the "Braveheart." Really, it's the best cocktail I've ever had in my life.
In the fourth year, I finally transferred to the planning department, under Grace. She was a good person back then, though I underestimated how complicated people could be. That year, I found myself learning nonstop again, just like the first year. I don't remember much about it, except that I called you from Mount Wutai, and I asked you very seriously whether you'd be with me. We started an ordinary relationship.
And you turned me down.
I still remember the night view of Victoria Harbour. It really was beautiful.
By the fifth year, I'd gone to the Northwest. I thought that once I went there, I'd hardly ever see you again. But you came whenever you had time. It was a small county town, and we were both afraid of running into someone we knew, so we'd hole up in my rented room for a day or two at a time. The wind out there was really something, taxis were cheap, and the people were so kind. The project I worked on out there turned out exactly the way I wanted.
"Why did you come every week?" Shang Zhitao suddenly asked him.
"Because we said we'd go on adventures together. I keep my word."
They lay facing each other, having talked for a long time already. Shang Zhitao didn't feel tired at all. She still had so much left to say.
"In the fifth year, we went to Tibet together," Luan Nian said.
"Yes."
I loved Tibet.
The sunlight in Lhasa was wonderful, the people on the streets had warm smiles, the milk tea was rich, and the photo studio owner there really knew how to take pictures.
I really loved that trip. I even thought that after it, we'd finally have forever.
Shang Zhitao bit her lip.
The sixth year was the most painful for her. If there was one year in her life she couldn't get past, it was that one. Losing the promotion competition hadn't hurt so much, that was just her pride taking a hit. What hurt the most was that on a day when the clouds were so beautiful, she lost her best friend.
Luan Nian took her hand.
They fell into a long silence in the dark. The silence was itself a kind of medicine, healing the mottled wound in her heart. At first the wound had been deep. Later it scarred over, the scab fell away, and it grew shallower and shallower until it was almost invisible. But if you ran your hand over it, you could still feel that it was different from the skin around it. Something there had once caused terrible pain.
Shang Zhitao's tears fell into Luan Nian's palm. "That year, I left you."
I'm glad I truly left you, even though I never want to go through that kind of pain again. When I went back, it was winter, and Ice City was buried under heavy snow. My heart felt hollow, like nothing could ever fill it. Every night I'd go out and trudge through the snow for miles, headphones in, playing whatever songs came up. One day, in the lobby of a hotel near my home, I saw a man in a black cashmere coat, carrying himself with a cold, aloof bearing, his back turned to me. I thought it was you, and I nearly fell apart.
"It was me," Luan Nian said softly.
But I didn't dare find out for sure. I was afraid that everything I'd worked to overcome would be undone.
I started my own business in the seventh year.
Running a business was so much harder than I expected. Staying up late, endless obligations, crushing pressure, for a while my body started falling apart. My period would either not come at all or drag on for half a month. One day I walked into the office and Fu Dong took one look at me and jumped. He said, "Boss, you didn't look alive at all that day."
My temper got worse, and I'd cry when no one was looking.
Thankfully the business slowly got better, and I finally let go of you and started a whole new life.
At the restaurant I opened for my parents, every dish on the menu was something I'd loved eating since I was a child. I liked taking my friends to the old tavern to eat, and since I was afraid people wouldn't be able to find it, I hung lanterns outside the door. Against the snow of Ice City, those lanterns looked so festive. The first time Sun Yu and Lumi saw it, they said to me, "This really is a world wrapped in snow."
I loved that phrase, a world wrapped in snow. It made me feel like all the joy and pain were simply part of life itself, and that pain was like a lantern in the snow, lighting the road ahead in red.
In the tenth year, I met you again.
"I know the rest of the story," Luan Nian said, brushing the hair back from her cheek. "Every day since then, I've been part of your life."
"Thank you for being good to me."
"And thank you, for being willing to love someone like me."
Those were my ten-odd years. I've cried more tears than I can count, and every single one of them is a medal life gave me. I've never regretted any of it. When you cut the ribbon today, you said to me, "Shang Zhitao, welcome back to Beijing." All those years came rushing back to me at once. I came to Beijing chasing a dream, and I left it with a broken heart, thinking I'd never come back. Even if I did, I thought I'd only ever be a passerby in this city, never staying long. And yet, here I am, back again. I'll always remember what I looked like on my first day in Beijing. As disheveled as I was, it was still the best time of my life.
If I had to choose again, I'd walk this same road. It really was a beautiful one. I only feel a little regret sometimes, that time passes so quickly, that the travelers beside us come and go, and we always have to say goodbye.
"Luan Nian, are you sleepy? I'm sorry, I've talked so much tonight. If you're tired, let's get some sleep." Shang Zhitao said.
"I'm not tired. It's not even light out yet." Luan Nian said.
Shang Zhitao rested her head on his arm. Niantao slept soundly in the crib, Luke lay at the doorway, and a thread of moonlight slipped into the room. What a good time this was.
"Then let me tell you about me too," Luan Nian said.
"Tell me what?"
"About the self cultivation of a jerk."
"All right. We can talk until dawn, or even the dawn after that. I think this jerk isn't always such a jerk. He's an old-fashioned gentleman wearing a jerk's clothes, with an old-fashioned kind of tenderness. I really do love this jerk to death. I'm happy to stay tangled up with him for the rest of my life, until the day I die."
"Then let's keep talking a while longer."