After dinner, the professor asked her son to walk me back to campus.
I smiled at him and said, “Thank you.”
This “thank you” wasn’t just for walking me back tonight—it was for all the patience and care he’d shown Miaomiao in the hospital. Back then, Miaomiao saw Bai Zhou far more often than she ever saw Zhou Junhao. Sometimes, she couldn’t even remember what her father looked like; she would wait eagerly for Dr. Zhou, even declaring that she wanted to marry him when she grew up.
I was grateful not only for his medical expertise but for the extra effort he took to comfort and reassure her.
“It’s nothing,” he replied, his voice low and gentle, with a hint of exhaustion.
It was late, the streetlights casting a yellow glow. We walked slowly, in silence. At the campus gate, I saw a figure waiting outside. In that white, snowy world, he wore a black coat, snow piling on his shoulders. It was Rong Jiayan.
The snow fell in soft spirals, dusting Zhou Junhao’s shoulders like powdered sugar. He stood motionless under the amber glow of the streetlamp, his breath visible in the icy air. The contrast between his black wool coat and the pristine white world around him made him look like a shadow from my past—sharp, unyielding, out of place.
Bai Zhou followed my gaze, then looked at me with a puzzled expression.
Zhou Junhao saw us and froze. His gaze shifted from me to Bai Zhou, sizing him up with an intensity that was almost hostile.
Bai Zhou ignored him and turned to me. “Let’s go. It’s dark and the path is slippery. I’ll walk you to the building.”
I nodded.
“Qingyao.” Zhou Junhao called out, his voice pleading. “It’s New Year’s Eve. I came to be with you.”
The old Junhao—before he changed—would have worried about me being alone and would have moved mountains to be by my side.
But time is a powerful force.
Hearts change too quickly.
Dr. Bai Zhou paused beside me, his hands tucked into the pockets of his tailored overcoat. “Do you need help?” he asked quietly, his voice carrying the same calm professionalism I remembered from the hospital.
I shook my head, but my feet felt rooted to the ground. Zhou Junhao’s gaze locked onto mine, raw and pleading. Snowflakes clung to his eyelashes, melting into droplets that mirrored the tears he’d shed at the cemetery.
“Qingyao,” he called out, his voice cracking. “Please.”
Dr. Zhou glanced between us, his brow furrowing. “Would you like me to stay?”
“No,” I said, forcing a smile. “Thank you, but I can handle this.”
He hesitated, then nodded. “If you change your mind, my parents’ home is two blocks east.”“Call me if he bothers you again.” We exchanged contact information. With a final assessing look at Zhou Junhao, he turned and walked away, his footsteps silent in the snow.
Zhou Junhao closed the distance between us, his gloveless hands trembling. Up close, I could see the shadows under his eyes, the stubble along his jaw. The golden boy who once radiated confidence now looked fractured, like a mirror smashed and hastily glued back together.
“How did you find me?” I asked flatly.
“Your father,” he admitted. “He said you’d cut ties with everyone, but… I kept checking alumni records. When I saw your postgraduate enrollment here—”
“Stalking isn’t a good look on you.”
He flinched. “I just needed to see you. To explain.”
“Explain what?” My laugh sounded hollow. “That you’ve had another prophetic dream? That you’ll definitely change this time?”
“No.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a worn notebook—the same one he’d used during our university days to jot down business ideas. Pages fell open to a sketch of a little girl with round cheeks and a ribbon in her hair. Miaomiao, scrawled in his handwriting beneath it.
My breath hitched. “When did you draw this?”
“After the dream.” His thumb brushed the paper. “I see her face every night. The way she… she clutched your sleeve in the hospital. The way she said ‘Daddy’ when I walked in that one time.” His voice broke. “I don’t know why I didn’t stay. In the dream, it felt like someone else was controlling me, making choices I’d never make. But it was me. And I have to live with that.”
A group of students trudged past, their laughter fading into the night. The campus clocktower chimed eight times.
“You should go,” I said.
“Wait.” He fumbled with his scarf—deep cobalt, the one I’d knitted him during our first winter together. “I know you’ll never forgive me. But let me do one thing right.” He pressed the notebook into my hands. “Every page is for her. Stories I would’ve told her. Places I would’ve taken her. I’ll add to it every year. If you ever… if she ever wants to know…”
The pages rustled as I flipped through them: detailed plans for a treehouse, a list of children’s books with his annotations (Good for teaching kindness, circled in red), a ticket stub from the aquarium we’d visited the month before Miaomiao’s diagnosis.
For a heartbeat, the man before me overlapped with the boy who’d held my hand during thunderstorms. Then the memory shattered.
I shoved the notebook back at him. “You don’t get to rewrite history.”
I frowned, letting my distaste show. “Don’t come here. I don’t want you to be part of any memories in this place.”
B City, B University, my new life—everything was a fresh start. I refused to let the past, or anyone from it, taint this new chapter.
He stood rigid, stunned by my attitude.
Perhaps, in his privileged life, no one had ever rejected him so bluntly.
“And,” I added calmly, “that was my boyfriend. Don’t come looking for me again, or I’ll call the police.”
Zhou Junhao’s body swayed as if struck.
When I turned on the light in my room and looked down from the balcony, Zhou Junhao was still standing there, head bowed, lost in thought.
After a while, he looked up, then slowly walked away.
The next morning, I found the notebook outside my dormitory door, wrapped in a waterproof sleeve. A post-it note clung to the cover: For when you’re ready.
I buried it at the bottom of my suitcase.
Life settled into a new rhythm. Lectures on modernist poetry. Coffee with Dr. Bai Zhou after his medical seminars—strictly platonic, though his quiet steadiness reminded me unsettlingly of Junhao’s younger self. Late nights in the library, where the smell of old paper drowned out memories of hospital antiseptic.
Then, in March, the nightmares returned.
Xuanxuan’s feverish whimpers. The beep of life-support machines. The way Zhou Junhao’s back had looked as he walked out of her hospital room, Cheng Xiaoyu’s laughter echoing down the corridor.
I woke gasping, my pillow damp. On impulse, I dug out the notebook.
He’d added new entries:
April 7: Learned to make paper cranes. They say 1,000 grants a wish. I’ll fold until my fingers bleed if it helps.
June 12: Donated bone marrow today. Maybe somewhere, it’ll reach a child like her.
Taped to the last page was a photo of my grandparents’ old house, now meticulously restored. I kept it safe, he’d written. For when you want to come hom
For the next few days, I stayed in my room, buried under blankets, reading, eating instant noodles and bread when I was hungry.
Chapter 04
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