Classic Sad Love Stories: True Love is Like an Onion
After they got married, she always cooked onions for him: shredded pork with onions, braised fish with onions, mushroom and onion soup, onion omelet…
The first time she visited his home, his mother took her hand and kindly told her—though he was never picky about food, he had always loved onions since he was a child.
She was a librarian, with plenty of time to put thought into creating rich onion dishes, but he always seemed indifferent.
His mother had been widowed for nearly 20 years. The woman he had been madly in love with wasn’t liked by his mother. His choice of her as his wife was less about love and more about fulfilling his filial duty.
She didn’t seem to notice, quietly tending to their home like a lily, taking good care of his mother. In the fourth year of their marriage, they had a sweet, well-behaved daughter.
The smooth days passed by like a photocopier churning out identical copies. Even the most painful torture became dull with time. The heart that once bled and cried eventually scabbed over, though the scars remained, pulsing faintly, sometimes waking him in the middle of the night.
One day, he went to Beijing for an academic conference and ran into his first love, Xiao Yu. The long-dead feelings sparked back to life with the force of an explosion. They embraced on the Great Wall, held hands in the Forbidden City, and the passion of their youth reignited in these two not-so-young lovers.
Xiao Yu, now well-preserved and elegant, had grown more voluptuous with age, her fingers smooth and delicate like jade onions.
At the foot of Xiangshan, he bought her a roasted sweet potato, her favorite from their youth. She playfully asked him to peel it and feed it to her because her hands were too delicate for the heat.
The seven days passed quickly. When he returned home, he remembered her radiant smile, how she liked drinking coffee with a silver spoon, and how she enjoyed a dessert he’d never tasted before—Tiramisu.
With his mother gone, he didn’t want to be too hard on himself anymore. Every year, he would go to Beijing under the pretext of a conference or business trip. When his wife’s workplace organized a tour, he even invited Xiao Yu to their home.
His phone was once full of fiery, passionate messages, and at one point, he accidentally left a photo of the two of them in the pocket of his jacket for over a week… Yet, all this had miraculously gone unnoticed.
Then suddenly, his wife was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, already in the late stages. After she was hospitalized, their daughter needed meals and care for school, heaps of laundry piled up, and the house was in chaos.
One day, while searching for a recipe at home, he found a hard-covered notebook with a clasp in the drawer. When he opened it, he discovered several long strands of dark red hair. His wife had always worn her hair short since they got married.
Curious, he read on. It turned out that she had known about his affair with Xiao Yu all along, having found the evidence among his dirty clothes, which she never left unwashed overnight.
His wife had been fully aware of everything he did behind her back, yet she pretended not to see. Almost every page in the notebook had the same sentence written: “I believe he loves me.” Followed by several big exclamation marks.
His mind was blank as he went to the hospital, holding her roughened hand, asking what she wanted to eat.
Smiling, she said, “What can you cook? Go buy me some duck blood soup.” For over twenty years, she had prepared the onions he loved, ironed his shirts for the next day, and waited for him at home. Yet, he had never known that she, who grew up in the South, loved duck blood soup.
After she passed away, he stood in the kitchen, dazed, trying to make a dish of shredded pork with onions for himself. Following her instructions, he soaked the onions in water before peeling them, but his eyes still stung, and tears flowed.
By the time he was ready to slice the onions, his eyes were completely shut from the tears. He had never realized how difficult and painful it was to make such a fragrant onion dish. For over seven thousand days, she had endured the sting to make shredded onions for him, simply because he had loved them since childhood.
Meanwhile, Xiao Yu’s well-maintained, delicate hands would only pick up a spoon in a Western restaurant to eat Tiramisu.
His mother had seen clearly how his wife could bring him peace and happiness. In the evening, a man stood in his ninth-floor kitchen, holding a piece of onion, crying in a daze. He finally understood that true love is like an onion: as you peel it away layer by layer, eventually, you’ll find a layer that makes you weep…
Thank you for reading! ” Sitestorys “
