Eternal love story
He was 19 that year, and she was just 9. She was the girl next door. Her stepmother treated her poorly. The first time he saw her, she was wearing a dirty white cotton dress, her face marked with red, swollen fingerprints, tears streaming down her cheeks, yet her expression was indifferent. He crouched in front of her and asked, “Do you like puppies?” He showed her a white puppy he had found, placed in a bamboo basket. He said, “If you smile, I’ll give it to you.” He gave her a brief time of joy and warmth, taking her fishing, catching butterflies, and watching her innocent, radiant smile. On her birthday, he took her to a night market and gave her a red butterfly hair clip. He said, “You must believe in yourself. One day, you’ll be like a butterfly, flying wherever you want to go.”
A month later, he left for the north. At the train station, she clung to the puppy, unwilling to let go. Amid the hustle and bustle of the platform, he leaned out of the train window and waved to her. She stood on tiptoe and asked seriously, “When I grow up, can I marry you?” The train had already started moving. He smiled, coaxing her happily, “Yes.” Then the train left the small southern station, and she ran after it alone until she couldn’t keep up. That year, she was 10. He graduated from college and started working, but he never returned to the south. She kept writing letters to him, starting with the clumsy handwriting of a young girl, telling him in every stroke about her life with the puppy. He never replied, only sending her beautiful cards on her birthday and New Year’s, with the words “Wishing Xiaomei and Xiaobai health and happiness.” Xiaobai was the puppy’s name, and Mei was her name.
Three years later, Xiaobai fell ill and died. In her letter, she told him, “Xiaobai has left me, but the hope in my heart remains. Even though I know I’ll never have butterfly wings, I can still go wherever I want to go.” During the summer break after graduating from junior high, she told him she was going to Beijing to find him because they hadn’t seen each other in seven years. He waited for her at the train station. Amid the crowded throngs, a tall, slender girl in a white cotton dress, with big eyes and long hair, appeared. She was incredibly beautiful. He was stunned, not knowing what to say. He took her to dinner at a hotel, accompanied by Fei, his fiancée. He took her to the Forbidden City, and in a dim corner of the city wall, he asked her, “Do you like Fei?” She said, “Fei is very beautiful, very talented, a good girl.” Then, in the bright sunlight, she smiled at him.
She spent a calm week in Beijing, preparing to return to the south to continue her high school studies. The night before she left, she insisted on giving herself to him. She removed the butterfly hair clip from her head, and her thick, black hair cascaded down like water. He said, “In three months, I’ll be marrying Fei. I can’t do this.” She pleaded, “Please, please take me.” Her tears fell warmly onto his palm. In the darkness, he couldn’t see her expression clearly. He only heard her softly ask, “If you get divorced in the future, can I marry you?” He firmly answered, “Yes.” At dawn, she left without saying goodbye, heading south alone.
Married life was as plain as water. Two years later, Fei went to study in the United States, preparing to bring him over soon. He resigned from his public job, opened a small bar, and planned to spend his remaining time in the country. He named his bar “Si Mei.” He continued to receive her letters. She said she would soon graduate, and if she couldn’t get into a university in Beijing, she would give up her studies and come to Beijing to work. He said, “I’ll be leaving in a year or two.” She replied, “It doesn’t matter. As long as there’s still time left.” When they met again, she was 19, and he was nearly 30.
And so, another year passed until his visa was approved, and he was ready to leave the country to reunite with Fei. Before leaving, he gave the bar to her and told her, “Find someone here who can take care of you. Maybe… maybe I won’t be able to come back to see you. You should get married.” But she said, “I won’t get married. I’ll wait for you, wait for you to come back, wait here forever.” She continued writing letters to him, one after another. He still only sent her beautiful cards on her birthday and New Year’s. He left for five years, and during those five years, she refused countless suitors around her. Later, he and Fei divorced, and his career started to falter. He decided to return to China to start over.
At the bar’s entrance, he saw her again, still wearing that white cotton dress. But she looked so pale and thin. She smiled and said, “You’re back.” After speaking, she collapsed to the ground. In the hospital, the doctor told him she was very ill and didn’t have much time left. He stayed with her, reading the Bible to her day and night. When she slept, he let her gently hold his fingers. On sunny days, he would carry her to the balcony of the hospital room to bask in the sun. She asked, “If I get better, can I marry you?” She still had hope in her heart. He turned away, holding back tears, and answered, “Yes.”
About half a year later, her strength was nearly exhausted. One morning, she suddenly seemed to improve. She insisted that he buy her a wig because all her hair had fallen out due to chemotherapy. She braided the wig into pigtails, just like she did in her childhood. Then she asked him to bring a silk box from home to the hospital room. Inside were the cards he had sent her since she was nine years old—two each year, by 20xx. She touched each card, yellowed with age, with its blurry writing. These were all the wealth she had accumulated during the long days he had been away. Finally, she grew tired. As she lay down, she asked him to pin the red butterfly hair clip in her hair. She asked, “If there is a next life, can I marry you?” He gently kissed her and said, “Yes.” She smiled faintly and slowly said, “I can finally marry you…”
On the day she was to leave, she suddenly said to him, “I haven’t eaten an apple in a long time. I really want to smell the fragrance of an apple again. Can you get me an apple?” It was the season when apples had just come into the market. He found a stall outside the hospital, but the apples still looked green. He had the vendor weigh a large bag and picked one up, trying to smell the fragrance she wanted. Just then, the apple slipped from his hand and rolled across the street, getting farther and farther away from him. It felt like he had been struck by a heavy blow, suddenly waking up. He threw down the money, grabbed the bag of apples, and rushed back to her hospital room as fast as he could. When he finally made it through the stairs and corridors back to her bedside, she had already closed her eyes forever, eyes once filled with deep emotion and sorrow.
He knelt by her bed, crying bitterly, apples scattering all over the floor. He couldn’t recover from his grief for a long time. To every friend who came to console him, he kept saying, “If I hadn’t gone to buy the apple, I wouldn’t have left her alone to die. How could I not have been by her side? How could I?” On the day of the funeral, people were surprised to find that her coffin was surrounded by bright red roses, so many that it seemed as though all the roses in the city had gathered there. And he showed up at the funeral wearing a suit that was also bright red. Amidst the shocked gazes of the crowd, he walked slowly, looking serene. He turned the funeral into a wedding. She could finally marry him.
However, tragically, on the very next night, in a stormy and windy night, he severed the artery on his wrist, sacrificing his blood and life to mourn the love story between him and her. He had once exchanged a white puppy for her smile. Then she spent her entire life waiting in exchange for a promise he couldn’t fulfill.
Thank you for reading! ” Sitestorys “
