Abstinence Pei, don't be too sweet when chasing your wife

The smell of hospital disinfectant became increasingly pungent in the ward. Ling Jiuer stared at the swaying water stains on the ceiling and listened to the footsteps coming from the corridor. Every sound made her heart skip a beat.

This was the second day since Du Fei disappeared. She counted the days circled in red on the bedside calendar. It was not until the nurse came to change the IV bottle that she realized that her fingertips had poked a tiny hole in the paper.

"You look much better today." The nurse smiled and adjusted the drip. "Do you want the nurse to push you out to get some sun?"

Ling Jiuer nodded mechanically, but her eyes remained on the door.

She remembered how Du Fei looked when he suddenly appeared the day before yesterday - his black jacket was stained with dew, and he was holding a still-warm chestnut in his hand, his nails dyed dark brown when he peeled it.

"Eat it while it's hot." As he said this, his eyelashes cast a gentle shadow under his eyes.

But yesterday, his WeChat message was as brief as ice: "I have to go on a business trip and can't come for the time being." The accompanying picture was a sign in the airport lobby, and the crowd in the background blurred into gray blocks.

Ling Jiuer stared at the photo for a full half hour, trying to find a flaw in the lie from some corner, but in the end she only saw her red eyes in the mirror.

Her thumb repeatedly rubbed the screen of her mobile phone. In the dialog box, there was still the message "Be safe" that she had not sent out, like a monologue with no response.

The sycamore trees outside the window rustled. As the nurse pushed her wheelchair past the nurses' station, she heard the nurses on duty chatting: "That boy who always came to accompany me left yesterday with his suitcase. He said he was going to Southeast Asia..."

The words were like dandelions blown by the wind, floating into the ears but exploding in the heart.

Ling Jiuer clutched the blanket tightly, her nails digging deep into her palms, and she almost cried in pain.

She suddenly remembered what Du Fei once said, "The sea breeze at the dock is the best way to blow away worries." At this moment, those gentle words became the sharpest blades, cutting her heart again and again.

The ward was exceptionally quiet late at night, and the moonlight filtered through the blinds, cutting silver stripes on the ground.

Ling Jiuer tossed and turned, unable to sleep, her mind full of Du Fei's shadow - his trembling fingertips when he wiped the sweat off her face, the funny tone he deliberately imitated when reading the newspaper, and the look in his eyes that seemed to want to say something but stopped before he left.

She suddenly sat up, pulled out her phone and opened the dialog box. The cursor in the input box kept flashing, but in the end she only deleted the typed text.

Reason told her that she shouldn't ask any further questions, but pride was clamoring in her heart. This torn feeling of contradiction made her curl up in the quilt and sob silently.

"Why bother?" She muttered to herself into the darkness, her voice echoing in the empty room.

On the bedside table, the brain-boosting supplement Du Fei sent was still unopened, and the golden pattern on the package shone coldly in the moonlight.

Ling Jiuer grabbed the box and wanted to throw it into the trash can, but her hand hung in the air and didn't fall.

Her throat felt like it was blocked by cotton, and a sour emotion surged up. She bit her lips hard and tasted rust.

It turns out that real sadness is not crying loudly, but not even having the strength to vent, and can only let the sadness ferment in the chest.

In the following days, Ling Jiuer forced herself to return to "normal".

She began to cooperate seriously with rehabilitation training, followed the nurse to learn how to listen to books on her mobile phone, and even took the initiative to chat with the aunt in the next bed.

Whenever her longing came like a tide, she would stare at the sycamore tree outside the window, counting the veins of the leaves, the birds passing by, and everything that could divert her attention.

But when night falls, all disguises collapse in the darkness, and those repressed emotions turn into hot tears, soaking the pillow.

"Feelings come and go quickly," she said to her pale self in the mirror. "It's just an illusion."

But late at night, those missed calls and unread but unreplied messages are like countless tiny needles, piercing my heart.

She began to revisit every detail of their time together, trying to find clues to Du Fei's alienation—was she too willful? Or was he simply not interested in her in that way? This torture of self-doubt was more suffocating than outright rejection.

One morning a week later, Ling Jiuer was browsing entertainment news on her phone when she suddenly caught sight of a photo - Du Fei, wearing a neat suit, was standing in a group photo at the company's celebration banquet, with a girl with a sweet smile standing next to him.

The world suddenly became eerily quiet.

Ling Jiuer felt the blood rushing to her head and her ears were buzzing.

She clutched the wheelchair armrests tightly, her nails scraping against the metal surface. The nurse's panicked voice rang out, "Miss Ling? Miss Ling!"

After that day, Ling Jiuer fell completely silent.

She stopped talking to people and locked herself in the ward with all the curtains drawn.

Whenever it was late at night and everyone was asleep, she would curl up in her quilt, letting her tears soak her pillow. The emotions she had once thought she could easily let go of now turned into a surging tide, completely drowning her.

"What is love in this world? It teaches us to be together through life and death..." She whispered this line into the darkness, finally understanding why the ancients lamented this. It turns out that feelings are never controlled by us. Those threads of love that we thought we could easily sever have already unknowingly entangled our hearts. The more we struggle, the more pain we feel.

When Gu Fanxing came to visit, he saw Ling Jiuer staring out the window in a daze.

The sunlight fell on the girl's thin shoulders, outlining her fragile outline.

"Are you still thinking about him?" Gu Fanxing asked softly, putting the cooked soup on the bedside.

Ling Jiuer hurriedly wiped her face and forced a smile that was uglier than crying: "No, I was just looking at the clouds."

Gu Fanxing sat down beside the bed, his eyes falling on the unopened nutritional supplements on the table.

She thought back to when she first met Du Fei, the decisive and professional manager, who has now become the mole in Ling Jiuer's heart.

"Do you know?" she suddenly said, "when Yuan Haowen wrote 'What is love in this world? It teaches us to be together through life and death,' it was because he saw wild geese committing suicide for love."

Ling Jiuer turned her head, with both confusion and expectation in her eyes.

Gu Fanxing continued, "People always think that emotions can be controlled like objects, but true love is an instinct that even you cannot control. Just like wild geese, knowing the danger, but willing to die for their mates; just like you know you shouldn't be obsessed, but still can't help but look forward to it."

Ling Jiuer's tears finally burst out: "Why does it hurt so much? Nothing has even started..." She choked like a lost child.

Gu Fanxing hugged her gently, feeling the trembling body in his arms: "Because love never distinguishes between early and late, some moments are enough to be unforgettable."

Half a month later, Ling Jiuer was discharged from the hospital.

When she was packing her luggage, she carefully stuffed the nutritional supplements Du Fei had given her into the deepest part of her backpack.

The moment she walked out of the hospital gate, the sunlight was so bright that she had to squint.

The leaves of the sycamore tree rustled, and the wind brought the coolness of early autumn.

She took a deep breath and told herself that it was all over.

However, when the bus passed by the dessert shop where Du Fei bought dessert for her, Ling Jiuer couldn't help looking out the window; when she saw his favorite instant noodles in the supermarket, her fingers would hang uncontrollably on the shelf; even when she heard similar footsteps, her heart would skip a beat.

She finally admitted that some feelings couldn't be let go just by saying so. Those hidden feelings had already taken root and sprouted quietly during their daily interactions.

Late at night, Ling Jiuer opened her diary and wrote a line: "It turns out that the most painful thing is not that it never started, but that it almost started." The moonlight outside the window was as gentle as water, illuminating the countless insomniacs in this city.

She knew that time might heal wounds, but those unspoken words, those abruptly ended expectations, would forever remain in the depths of her memory, becoming the most unforgettable regret of her youth. And the question, "What is love in this world?" finally found its most heartbreaking answer in this unrequited love.