Chapter 253: News of the Dead (Grand Finale - Up)

Xie Qingcheng was not resuscitated.

He was hurt so badly that after more than ten days of repetitions, he stopped breathing on a drizzly night.

He Yu had been in the hospital for more than ten days, and he had a premonition in his heart.

But he's still out of control.

He was taken to another ward by the Dreambreaker's guardian, re-buckled in restraints in which he yelled and broke down and cried and tried to get out, but no one dared to let him go.

The nurses injected him with sedatives and anesthetics, and before he passed out, he saw in a trance Xie Qingcheng approaching him, as he had done when he was a child. He walked over to his bedside, looked at him quietly, reached out his hand, held it away from everyone, and then undid his restraints.

He wanted to call Xie Qingcheng's name, but heaven and earth went black for a moment.

The icy anesthesia came up, and he came out of one group of people who saw him as a machine, only to go into another group of people who saw him as a monster.

No one to embrace him, to unchain him.

The one person who would think of him as "human" is gone.

He could no longer see anything either.

He Yu's condition was too bad, too dangerous. Even after more than half a month, the officials did not release him from the restriction. On the day of Xie Qingcheng's funeral, he wanted to go, but there was no one who could release him from the restriction, as he could fall ill at any time.

Zheng Jingfeng went to his superiors and pleaded with them, even risking his professional honor, but still failed to convince some of the cadaverous minds. They said they understood He Yu's feelings, but the lives of the people were more important. They couldn't believe that he could really be restrained at a funeral, and He Yu was not Xie Qingcheng's relative, spouse, or lover.

Despite the fact that there were many dreambreakers who had experienced that great battle with them willing to attest to it, and even the Commander-in-Chief had signed a joint letter, the Great Leader in charge of the matter still chose to err on the side of caution in order to prevent any recourse from his superiors.

What humanity can there be in a monster? What love can there be between people of the same sex? It was too absurd, not to mention the fact that the two were so many years apart that deep down the leader didn't think it was real.

He returned the joint, it was the end of his shift and he had to go home.

It was his and his wife's wedding anniversary, he was married for the second time, she was almost forty years his junior and loved to pout, he loved her so much he was worried about upsetting her if he was late. He finished his work and called his driver to pick him up.

The weather was great.

The leader took an easy step and went back to his home.

.

"You let me out ...... lock me up or tie me up ...... let me out ...... I'm going to see him... ...I'm going to see him! You guys must be mistaken ...... he won't die ...... how could he not be saved ......"

Inside the intensive care unit, bars have been added to prevent patients from breaking out of control.

The ward was in the deepest part of the hospital, with police guarding the door.

A small window in Samsonite.

Anyone who wants to get close has to register by appointment.

That day, He Yu's wail rang out all night inside, creepy and heartbreaking.

The sentries standing outside couldn't help but face countenance.

From that day on, He Yu stopped talking.

He refused to eat food for the sick, he refused to drink water, and refused to see anyone again. He seemed to really understand on that day that when Qin Ciyan died, Xie Qingcheng couldn't go to the funeral what kind of feeling it was.

Because the world always needs a name.

It's like with this name, you're righteous.

Whether it is affection, whether it is love ...... whatever kind of affection, the world must materialize it into an identity that is logical and convenient for the unrelated people to recognize, and then so that this affection can be considered real and effective.

You are the one who is entitled to be in the front row to see your favorite person for the last time when they leave this earthly life.

Otherwise it is not even qualified to say goodbye.

People will think, "How strange, what kind of person are you to him?

He wailed all night in a new cage as he was laid to rest in his tomb-they were out there burying the roses of the evil dragon, burying his treasures, burying his bridges and his world, but he couldn't go.

He's not going anywhere.

He could only let his soul be cremated and buried along with Xie Qingcheng, and he completely gave up the will to live.

This may be exactly what some people expect -

Blood Compulsion.

First Emperor.

Spirit Ai Bola, all the monsters that RN-13 has created, had a more than reassuring ending.

That was the real demise of Mandela Island. From here on out--

The sky and the earth are so clean.

It's just a shame that people have feelings for each other, that reformed people aren't monsters, and that they have bonds left in this world.

On the sixth day of He Yu's hunger strike, when he was living on nutritional fluids, Zheng Jingfeng finally got approval for a visit to He Yu's hospital room through the help of Political Commissar Wang.

He didn't realize when He Yu came in that it would be harder for him to visit such a patient than a felon.

Zheng Jingfeng's eyes reddened as soon as he saw He Yu tied to the hospital bed. He Yu did not look at him; his eyes were empty, without light or focus.

Zheng Jingfeng tried to talk to him, but he did not respond.

As if Xie Qingcheng was not the only one buried in the night rain that day, he was also buried together.

He Yu didn't say a word, didn't move a muscle.

Everyone he can't see, everything he doesn't care about.

Until--

"I brought a letter. It's a timed registered letter." Zheng Jingfeng eventually realized that he shouldn't bother He Yu any more, and he stood up, leaving a somewhat tattered letter in front of the bed.

He Yu was tied up and could not move, so Zheng Jingfeng opened it in front of He Yu.

"It was written to you by your brother Shea before he left for Mandela Island."

Zheng Jingfeng saw in He Yu at this time how the transition from dead to alive could take place in an instant.

He saw a light come on in He Yu's eyes, a light that was sad, but so quivering with longing.

He Yu opened his mouth, but it had been too long since he'd spoken to make a sound.

But Zheng Jingfeng saw it coming.

He was asking him to hold the letter closer. He's going to read it.

He was desperate, desperate, sadly mad to see ......

He saw it.

It was a very long letter for Xie Qingcheng.

Xie Qingcheng wrote--

He Yu:

By the time you read this, the fiasco over Mandela Island will have died down.

I don't know if I'm alive.

But anyway, I think now is the time when I can tell you the whole truth.

I know you resent me for being too cold-blooded and heartless, and resent me for sending you a message that was period hidden from you back then, during the Hiroshima naval battle.

You told me that you had walked away from your obsession and could set out to find a new life, and I was happy for you, and shouldn't have disturbed the peace of your life any more than I already had. Because I know that I'm not something that is worth giving everything to. I was thirteen years old when my parents died and received rn-13 treatment, and although I overcame all the difficulties through the guidance of my teachers and survived like a normal person, became a doctor, and rejoined society, I realized later that the effects of the spirit of Ai Bola on me have remained in a non-disease way.

For twenty-three years, I have lived in an invisible constricting band, I am used to having no emotions, used to dealing with all problems calmly, used to treating everyone and everything rationally. I can't help it, my parents and relatives are withering away, if anything happens to me, Xie Xue will lose her last dependence, I can't let such a thing happen.

Many people around me say that I am not human, that I have no emotions, I can't argue with that, and I have no choice. Because the only way I can live in peace is to walk the walker.

And so, as the days went by, it was as if I could no longer remember what intense feelings looked like, and I was so used to not letting anything get out of hand in front of my eyes that I was always there to set up your lives, to go as far as I could to protect you, but refused to allow anyone to step into my own life and become an unpredictable variable.

I did survive.

But I've lived myself into a machine, a rock, a blade of grass.

Now that I think about it, I have failed in many things. I have broken many people's hearts like a blunt knife, Auntie Lai's, Xie Xue's, Li Ruoqiu's, Chen Yan's, yours.

I've been sick for twenty-three years now, and I no longer know how to behave like a normal person, to get along with people, to feel the simplest, most uninhibited feelings between people. I didn't even believe in the beginning that there could be any reckless love in this world, so I sarcastically pushed you back then, pushed you back, educated you. I said you didn't know anything.

I'm the one who doesn't know anything, He Yu.

It must have been hard for you to watch over me during those days when you wished I'd come to my senses.

No matter what you say to me or how you act, I don't believe that your feelings for me are real, I push you away over and over again, I get you in over your head, I wish you would just get as far away from me as possible, I don't see the light in your eyes, I don't believe there is a light in your eyes.

He Yu, I'm really sorry.

Then you came back, and a lot of things changed, and you didn't like me anymore. I know this is actually a kind of relief for you, you will never have to face an object that you can't even learn how to accept someone's true heart. You have the most passionate, brave and persistent heart in the world, and my heart has been too sick, so it's good that it finally won't drag you down anymore.

But that's not to say I don't like you, He Yu.

I never told you that I actually liked you already. This is a feeling that I have never had before, and will never have again to anyone in the future. I am willing to protect you, take care of you, accompany you, I am willing to let your capriciousness, indulge your temper, I am willing to give all my feelings for you, and even my life.

Yet it's all too late in the end, and all these things you once wished for so much are now worthless.

I don't have anything else to give you anymore.

I just want to be honest at the end and tell you that you deserve to be loved.

You are going to be loved.

You are already loved.

I know you resent me, and I have to say that bearing your hatred would make me feel miserable and numb, but I know that's what I owe you. So I can understand your capriciousness, crankiness, and indifference ...... since you came back. It's hard for me, but I have to live with it, I owe it to you. I owe you a whole heart.

I didn't run away, I was willing to stay with the angry you like this, just like you stayed with the heartless me once upon a time. I didn't hide when you stabbed the knife into my heart, I wanted to know how much you used to hurt.

I only do this in the hope that when I leave your side, you've vented enough that you'll forgive me, even a little.

Hate doesn't go with you, He Yu.

You are a kind child. Although (forgive me this time, I have to be honest, I hope you can change in the future), you have a lot of bad habits, you like to spend money, play a scoundrel, picky eaters, can't control your temper ...... The bottom line of being a human being is not really that high, but you have a reverence for truth and human life, and you can have a bright future. I have always thought so.

I took the initiative to cooperate with the police back then, not because I believed that you would go and collude with Mandela, I was hoping that you could give me your hand and not stubbornly carry everything alone. When I went to the police station, what was in my mind the most was actually ...... that you were only twenty years old, He Yu.

You were twenty years old that year.

I don't want and can't let anything happen to you, so I want you to trust me one more time as you did when you were a child holding my hand by the flowers.

But maybe it's because you've already lost faith in me because of my previous refusals and pushbacks one at a time, so I don't have a chance to regain your trust anymore. At the end of the day, it is still me who hurt too many of your feelings.

He Yu. There are a lot of things I didn't do well.

I don't know if you want to believe it, but I actually accepted your confession in my heart a long time ago, before I accompanied you to your twentieth birthday.

But at that time my body was already very bad, every organ is failing, that is the aftermath of overdose rn-13, I have been in the beauty of the treatment, with little success. I didn't know how to place my fondness for you, the doctor said at that time that I only had five or six years to live, so I thought that instead of making you sad and taking up the best youth of your life to accompany me to death, it would be better to let everything stay in a situation that could be cleaned up.

It was not until today, when I am writing this letter, that Mr. Lu told me that he was in the middle to late stages of lung cancer, and that he had told everyone before but not me. It was only then that I was able to realize that not knowing is actually more cruel than being there.

The pain of companionship can eventually be healed by time, but the regret of not knowing will always remain a scar on the heart.

Forgive me for telling you too late, but I wish you could hate me less, but if you still hate me, that's okay. I remember the way you used to be kind to me.

And I'll always remember how nice you were to me.

Kid, you're the strongest person I've ever met.

You're the most persistent person, I've ever met.

You're the only one I like.

After writing this letter, I am leaving for Mandela Island and I am not sure if I will have the chance to see you again. I am also not sure where my future lies.

But I will always love you in the future.

Wherever.

Alive or not.

He Yu, forgive you Xie for not being good at expressing emotions in this way, I haven't expressed my true heart in this way to anyone in twenty-three years, I don't quite know what to say or do for the best, even writing letters is very hard. If there is something that makes you feel uncomfortable, I apologize to you here first. You Xie is a man of science and technology, please don't be angry with me, I'm sorry.

Xie Qingcheng

March 7, 2025

at night fall

He Yu read the whole letter.

I don't know if I'm terminally ill, or if I'm going hopelessly crazy, but what He Yu felt in this moment was that he wanted to laugh.

His smile spread from the bottom of his heart all the way to his eyes, tide-like, and he wondered why he thought of Xie Qingcheng's stiff look as he spun his pencil, half unable to think of an appropriate word.

He laughed, and Zheng Jingfeng and the nurse next to him panicked and looked at him in horror.

But he didn't do anything, he just kept laughing, and that laughter got louder and louder and more and more uncontrollable, and he laughed so hard that tears came out of his eyes, and pitter-pattered on the letter paper, blotting the words on it.

The person who wrote this letter ...... the one who tolerated him infinitely and believed in love again because of him ...... the one who had loved only him all his life.

And ended up dying by the sword of the one he loved.

In the end, it was just assumed that he was a substitute.

With what feelings did he leave ......

He Yu tilted his head, he had thought about what he and Xie Qingcheng had said when they confessed countless times these days.

He hated himself so much for saying that Xie Qingcheng was the snow in the sky in the first place ......

Heavenly ......

Snow ......

Irony is in the bones and grief is lost.

How painful.

How much pain did Xie Qingcheng feel when he died?

And how sad is that? That's why he told He Yu to move on and find another life and love.

Xie Qingcheng believed in irreplaceable love because of He Yu.

But at the last moment, his faith shattered.

He was so high and mighty that he even shed tears of blood and choked on the fact that he wasn't the best ......

Given Xie Qingcheng's temperament, to what extent did he have to despair and break down at that moment to belittle himself like that?

He Yu would have preferred that Xie Qingcheng had never loved him, so he wouldn't have been hurt so badly, but Xie Qingcheng wrote on the letter paper, "I will always love you in the future, no matter where I am, no matter whether I am still alive or not.

He lost his voice and laughed, clutching the thin page and the infinite depth of love he wasn't holding.

As he laughed and laughed, he gasped for breath, and lifting his tear-stained eyes, he looked at Zheng Jingfeng, lost in thought for a long time.

Finally, in a hoarse voice, he murmured, "Uncle ...... please ...... do me one last favor, will you? "

Zheng Jingfeng said, "What?"

"......" He Yu's reddened eyes looked at him, numbly, "I don't want to die right ...... now... ...I want to be cured ............ I cooperate with the treatment ...... I do ...... cooperate with the treatment ...... I want to ...... I want to go out ...... I want to see him again ...... to see the place where he used to cure me and ask him about the things ...... he couldn't tell me in time."

"I'm asking you to help me to beg Political Commissar Wang and the Wei family ...... even to beg Chen Man ...... otherwise I know the others will not be let me out easily ......"

"Please ......"

"Let me go to his grave ...... Let me see him again ......"

"I beg you ......"

"Please ...... let me see the people I love one more time ......"

He was his lover, and it took the world's approval to see him.

After Zheng Jingfeng left, He Yu sat on the bed, the nurse wanted to put the letter away, but he refused.

He kept reading it, over and over again.

His cheeks were cold, crumpled coldly on his face after the tears had dried.

Suddenly, he was struck dumb.

He looked over his shoulder and realized that the last tenderness hidden in this letter--

Xie Qingcheng told him almost the whole truth in his letter, but there was only one thing he still hadn't told him--

The text message that tricked He Yu three years ago was not sent by Xie Qingcheng, it was sent by Director Hu.

Xie Qingcheng would rather carry this only misunderstanding on his own until he dies.

He didn't want He Yu to know about this and feel bitter and remorseful when he looked back on all the disagreements after their reunion.

Because Xie Qingcheng himself has experienced the pain of not being able to regret, he would rather beg He Yu for forgiveness than tell him that he was wrongly accused.

There was only this one thing that he was unwilling to tell the truth about until he died.

He was afraid that He Yu would be in pain.

His brat is still young and has suffered a lot.

He used his body to protect him for once. on Mandela Island so he wouldn't have to be a target.

And now, he protects him a second time with his true heart. In the future, so that he wouldn't have to be bothered by guilt.

Xie Qingcheng has been sick for twenty-three years and has lost the ability to express love normally.

But He Yu undoubtedly felt it in this moment - he felt a warm hand cover the top of his hair, and he looked up to see Xie Qingcheng standing in front of him, not very smiley, and anyone else would look like he didn't have much emotion. But He Yu knew that he did.

The tenderness and protection that struggled so hard to emerge from the cocoon of twenty-three years of illness.

Love and Indulgence.

Xie Qingcheng, all given to him without a word.

.

Three months later, at the time of the summer solstice, the skeletal He Yu was finally released from the hospital after completing various interrogations and evaluations, and signing a series of guarantee documents.

Though he could feel someone in the shadows keeping an eye on him in case he did something else that stormed out of control, he didn't mind anymore.

He went to the private hospital of Mayu, the old director was the last day to work, the old man's health condition is failing, he has kept the secret for his classmates, his comrades for nearly half a lifetime, and now finally the time has come for him to be relieved of his duties. He seems to have expected that on his last day out of office, he would meet such a handsome and peerless guest, but wooden as a walking corpse.

The old man smiled, invited He Yu to sit down, and, like an old friend, made him a cup of hot ginger tea, and began to talk to him about secrets that he no longer needed to keep closely guarded ......

"Right." Speaking to the end, the old dean seemed to have peeped through He Yu s dying heart, he suddenly turned back and tremblingly took out a notebook, "Didn t I just say to you that Professor Xie has been organizing and perfecting the notes that Old Qin left behind? Those notes ah ...... can touch the class, for those ...... coughing in the society now, drinking inferior drugs, got sub mental Ai Bola disease victims ...... cough, on their The study of the therapeutic medicine is very, very useful."

He slowed his breath and drank a few more mouthfuls of water, "Xiao He ah, these notes, as well as ...... the research of these drugs, can you please help me, help your brother Xie guard a guard? We all want to see these innocent victims, finally have an explanation ......"

He said, stuffing He Yu with a portion of Xie Qingcheng's notes that existed in his place.

He Yu's empty eyes reflected those worn-out notes.

He cringed and tried to hide, but couldn't.

The old dean wouldn't let him avoid it, and handed the notes firmly into He Yu's hands. He Yu's fingertips trembled violently as they touched the cover. Slowly, his eyes took on some color and emotion, albeit grief-stricken.

Even just now, when the dean took him to see the place where Xie Qingcheng had been treated, and told him a lot of reasons to persevere, he just stood stiffly and woodenly, as if he had already died and had only come to take a last look at the earth for Xie Qingcheng.

Until the unfinished business of Xie Qingcheng was discreetly handed over to the palm of He Yu.

He Yu's hand touched the notes that Xie Qingcheng had fondled a hundred times, and for the first time, the old dean saw in him a little faint and painful light.

There is a chance that people can live if they have thoughts.

The old dean had been a doctor for so long that he knew this in his heart.

"Open it up."

He Yu hesitated, slowly, and looked down as he flipped through his notes.

The workbook was originally Qin Ciyan's, and when I opened it, there was Qin's handwriting on the title page.

It should have been written by Qin Lao in his later years; the old man was old and had an old-fashioned style, and what he wrote was, "If there is a next life, I will still be willing to contribute my small part to saving lives that are suffering from illness. If there is another life, I will still make this choice without regret."

Beneath that line, He Yu's eyes were greeted by another familiar line of type, tilted slightly.

Xie Qingcheng wrote:

"Me too."

.

At dusk, He Yu finally arrived at the cemetery.

Xie Qingcheng's tomb was erected next to Qin Ciyan's sculpture. He was Qin Ciyan's favorite disciple, but he was not even qualified to pay respect to Qin Ciyan.

Now he was finally able to be on the right and left side of his teacher and look at him.

Except that his piece of headstone never had a name on it, and was inscribed, as he had wished during his lifetime, with no more than an epitaph for Keats' grave.

"Here lies one whose name was written in water"

The long sleepers of this place are known as the Book on Water.

Because there are too many confidential documents involved, not to mention the fact that there may be people who will maliciously use the matter of prohibited drugs to spread rumors and discredit Qin Ciyan, in the registered letter sent to Xie Xue, Xie Qingcheng has left an explanation of his afterlife, and he doesn't need anyone to do justice to his resignation from the hospital back in the day.

He did what his heart desired and protected all those he wanted to protect. He lived his life walking the talk and doing the right thing, and was rarely ashamed of anything.

As for what people would say about him, how they would judge him, those were all out-of-body names, and he didn't care anymore.

He Yu crossed the lawn of the cemetery, first laid down a bouquet of lilies in front of Qin Ciyan's tombstone, and then walked towards the Xie Qingcheng side, holding the endless summer in his arms.

The pale blue-purple hydrangea bouquet is wrapped in gauze paper of the same color, and on top of the bouquet, a light white veil covers it.

He walked over, stood still, and looked at the writing on the tombstone.

He called out softly, "Shea ......"

Suddenly, the wind picked up, as if the time was turned back to that early summer more than ten years ago, the light veil on the hydrangea was suddenly lifted by the wind, which flew very, very high, and then finally fluttered down again.

Unevenly, the white veil fell on Xie Qingcheng's tombstone.

He Yu opened his mouth, his heart felt as if something had gotten in the way, causing him so much pain, so much pain that he couldn't say anything at once. He bowed his body and lowered his head, kneeling in front of his monument.

"You dropped something ......"

Finally, he held the soft, light veil like the child he had been all those years ago, and choked on his sobs.

"Brother, you dropped your stuff."

What you left behind in this world is a heart that never changed to love you.

Did you know that ......

He knelt at his grave for a long, long time, but no one ever reached out to him with a warm hand, draped over his handsome, cold face, reminiscent of "the sound of snow on the side of a bamboo," took the veil he handed him, and said to him--

"Thank you."

As night falls, He Yu finally gets up, his legs numb, and he stumbles away.

The manager of the cemetery, who was new to the area, waited for the last worshipper leaving the garden to leave, and was about to lock and close the gates to the garden tomb.

He Yu reddened his eyes, lowered them, and apologized to him in a low voice, "I've delayed you."

"It is all right, and only a little late." The administrator was a compassionate old man, but somewhat curious, and after a moment s hesitation he asked, "That tombstone ...... without a name is very mysterious, and it authorizes the tomb to go into the Martyrs Mausoleum, but it never says who he is."

He tentatively asked He Yu, "Do you know who he is?"

He Yu did not answer, and if Xie Qingcheng did not want his name to be known, then he would not go against his wishes.

The old uncle saw that he did not say, and did not force him, only said, "...... young man, I am sorry, it is me who asked more. Such a nameless tomb, I've been doing this business for half a lifetime, and I've only seen two, so--"

He Yu was stunned for a moment, and a hidden string was touched in his heart.

"Two?"

"Yeah, and there's another one that was in that west side of town mausoleum that I did before, that was erected by a man three years ago ......"

He Yu's eardrums feel like they've been beaten by a heavy drum.

"Is it the Qingliang Mountain Mausoleum in the west of the city?" --Where Xie Qingcheng's parents were once buried.

The old man's eyes widened, "You know."

He Yu eyes suddenly dizzy, almost speechless.

Half an hour later, he drove to that mausoleum, whose doors were closed, but his extreme mourning and the offer of an accommodation fee finally got the caretaker to make an exception for him.

He Yu quickly found the nameless monument.

There was no need to ask who the man was who had bought this cemetery; he knew the only answer when he saw the clean but poised lines in English on the headstone.

That answer became a knife in his heart.

He stumbled over and flung himself down on his knees in front of the cold tombstone, his forehead against the stone surface, his figure as silent as the one who had loved him so dearly three years ago.

Nothing of him that doth fade.

But doth suffer a sea-change.

Into something rich and strange.

At this moment, He Yu suddenly understood why Xie Qingcheng wanted a nameless monument, with no name engraved on it, just a string of words.

Shelley's tomb, Keats' tomb.

Xie Qingcheng was not only indifferent to honor because of his reputation in the book. He also wanted to accompany He Yu silently in this way.

As deep as their love was, they had no name, were not tolerated by the world, and could not seek a joint burial.

But there are only two such nameless monuments in this city, inscribed with two lines of secrets known only to the two of them, inscribed with the years of their youth.

He Yu's tears fell like broken beads, and his hand stroked the familiar handwriting on the stele, as if it had been overlaid on Xie Qingcheng's bloodstained hand through time.

"Brother ......"

He was in front of this tomb and lost his voice. No one knew what he had lost, just as no one knew who was actually buried here.

In this life, only Xie Qingcheng would accompany him like this, knowing their secret.

Xie Qingcheng is the only one who wants to be by his side even if she has worn out her name and given up her reputation.

There will never be another Dr. Shea.

He has joined him, under the nameless monument and the green grass, in long companionship and long sleep.

.

The Mandela fiasco is finally over for good.

Because of Qin Ciyan's notes, the patients who were affected by the disease were able to wait for the cure and recovered from their illnesses without relapsing. On the other hand, the researchers on the island, as well as Anthony ......, were all sentenced to 20 years to death, and were sentenced to prison, and were executed by Skynet.

Xie Xue and Wei Dongheng's home has always displayed the only photo of the three of them and Xie Qingcheng, in which Xie Qingcheng remains forever at the age of thirty-six, not aging any further.

Xie Xue Every day before going to work, you have to look at that photo first, this glance, day by day, year by year ......

"Good morning brother, I'm out the door."

"Brother, I'm back."

Just as Xie Qingcheng did when she was a child, growing up alone, Xie Xue greets the people in the photographs day after day, a habit she's had since she was a child.

It's just that back then Xie Qingcheng would always say to her, "Take care on the road," or "How did you do in school today?" Or "How did you do in school today?"

None of it is there now.

But Xie Xue felt that she could still hear his voice.

Because he was in her heart.

In this way, the daily opening and closing of the door, looking at the photos ...... a few decades have passed.

Later, Xie Xue never had to work again.

She's eighty years old.

She hunched over to go shopping.

The stuff came back, some fresh eggs, green onions, ham and shrimp, and she never made Yangzhou fried rice without peas.

It's her go-to home-cooked meal.

Yaya went to the United States to study medicine and became a professor of medicine at the same school Qin Ciyan attended when he was young. Now Xie Xue lives with Wei Dongheng, an old couple who can't eat much. This fried rice is colorful, fragrant and nutritious, with less oil and a bowl of vegetable soup, it's better than anything else.

That's how her brother used to take care of her. Took care of her from a young age.

Whenever she made this bowl of fried rice, she felt that he was still taking care of them in the underworld.

She smiled as she ate, wrinkles at the ends of her eyes, she had been happy in her life, but she knew it was because of someone who had spent their lives protecting her and loving her after they lost their parents.

She bowed her head and ate her fried rice.

Hot and grainy, she'd done just as well as he had long ago.

After dinner, she and Wei Dongheng turned on the TV, which was showing a series that she and Wei Dongheng were also involved in producing.

This play was made by He Yu. He Yu has lived a lonely life since then, and he has not left the world, perhaps only because he still has some unfinished business, some past events that only he can be a complete narrator.

Finally, after so many years, all the files have been declassified, and He Yu, who finally became a director, chose to tell everyone what happened back then honestly and originally in this way.

Xie Xue felt that his casting was bad, and she was never satisfied with Xie Qingcheng's choice of actors. She always thinks that this one is not tall enough, that one is not manly enough, this one is too rough, and that one is not smart.

She said, "How come there is no one who can have even thirty percent like my brother? Now that technology is so advanced, and makeup and photography are ...... so good, how come there is no one who can give me a glimpse of him?"

He Yu said, "There is no substitute for him."

The movie was eventually made, the casting was poor, but at least the stories were true, and the people who had not passed away were very cooperative in the production. Even Chen Man, who almost never met He Yu again, flew back from Europe after receiving information about the project, and cooperated with him in restoring some of the events of that year.

Xie Xue still doesn't like the movie, she feels that Xie Qingcheng and Wei Dongheng's young actors are all wrong, it's hard for her to watch, and it doesn't have the same feeling as it did back then.

But she loved listening to the end credits of the show.

The ending song was written by He Yu himself.

The melody is lilting, with some vintage Hong Kong style Cantonese old movie flavor.

The song echoed through the window-screened parlor--the

The wind blows, the veil falls.

Picked up a dream speckled.

I've been dreaming for half my life, you know?

The doors are open. The book fair's up.

The words on the title page have faded, the

I've read it a thousand times, you know?

When you're lonely, you want to go far away.

Thinking you've held my hand.

I held out for a long time again, you know?

Embrace you like snow. Kiss you like frost.

Love is like drinking hemlock.

Seek not to be broken.

When will you give me another cup of wine to break my heart?

I haven't seen you for a long time.

Even the pain of the past seems tender.

Did you know?

Are you in my dreams tonight?

Will you hug me tonight?

Push open that door tonight, are you still at the window watching the flowers like snow?

It's bright, it's dark.

Thinking of you has endured long nights, too.

I held out for a long time again, you know?

A year passes, a year passes.

People's memories have faded.

I'm the only one who can't get over it, you know?

The wind stops, the yarn falls again.

No one ever picks up a dream mottled.

It's stopped in front of you, long sleeper, do you know?

I'm getting gray in the face, you know.

The credits are playing.

The screen fades to black.

Two lines tapped out softly on the projection screen:

To the man who redeemed my life.

To the one who has been redeemed all his life.

The words darkened and hid.

The last line lit up slowly, like the light of dawn-yes, after that man left, He Yu would get up early every day, waiting for the morning, for the moment when the morning light would finally come-

"The End of All Plays"