10. Arrogant and laughable love

Fang Kaixuan felt that he was undoubtedly the happiest person in the world.

This ridiculous arrogance not only appeared when Chen Zhilun confessed his love, but also continued into the early stages of their married life.

Before returning to China, Fang Kaixuan's former boss contacted her. At the time, her former boss was starting a successful online marketing company in Shanghai, which had just completed its Series B funding round and was eager to recruit. Upon learning that Fang Kaixuan was about to return to China, he warmly invited her to join the company.

Fang Kaixuan declined without hesitation. The reason was simple: she had already decided to go to Beijing.

"Kaixuan, you don't seem like the type to be so love-struck." The former boss was quite surprised. In his memory, this subordinate was someone who was extremely serious and focused on her work. Otherwise, he wouldn't have dared to invite her to the startup company so rashly.

Fang Kaixuan secretly thought that her former boss didn't understand her choice because he didn't know how to love. Years ago, against his family's wishes, he left his promising job and even mortgaged his house to start his own business. Initially, things didn't go smoothly; the company was on the verge of cash flow problems several times, and his wife, unable to bear the constant fear, filed for divorce.

Now that he's over the hill, his life is much better, but he hasn't even bought a house. He rents an apartment and often eats and sleeps at the company, practically online 24/7. Fang Kaixuan saw him full of ambition and excited, looking like a wild man.

He might find pleasure in sacrificing love for an empty career, but Fang Kaixuan would never. She understood the true meaning of life: to spend a peaceful and happy life with the one she loved.

...

Yes, she was that arrogant back then. People die, marriages break down, and love may fade away. But Chen Zhilun and her love will not.

She believed this more than she believed the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

Until that day.

Which day was it? Was it the day Fang Kaixuan was first horrified to discover that Chen Zhilun could be so cold and terrifying when he was unhappy? Or was it the day a classmate or old friend happened to see Chen Zhilun walking intimately with someone else at the Beijing People's Art Theatre?

Or perhaps, it was the day he forced her to take the cat away or he would throw it outside in the winter.

Fang Kaixuan's world had completely collapsed. He managed to piece it back together and tried to live a normal life.

Even Xiao Ju, a close friend, couldn't know what she had gone through. It wasn't just her lover's infidelity, nor was it the disillusionment of romantic love; it was the complete collapse of her entire world.

Then, like a survivor of nuclear war, she started from scratch, from the rubble, coexisting with snakes, rats, and cockroaches, to rebuild human civilization.

It is a blessing from heaven that Fang Kaixuan was able to be reborn.

Now her world is like a glass goblet, a soap bubble, which could be destroyed by the slightest breeze. She protects it with utmost care.

Unfortunately, she still had to see Chen Zhilun.

Chen Zhilun, who appears gentle and refined, yet can easily shatter a glass.

Downstairs at the apartment building where he had briefly lived for a year and a half, Fang Kaixuan pressed the intercom. Soon, he heard a commotion inside, followed by Chen Zhilun's voice: "Wait a minute. I'm coming down."

Nowadays, she no longer has the right to enter the house.

The early spring wind was still cold. She waited quietly in front of the building until Chen Zhilun's tall, slightly hunched figure appeared.

It's not that you have to belittle someone's appearance just because you're divorced. In Fang Kaixuan's eyes, even Chen Zhilun's slight hunchback was once part of his charm.

In her eyes, Chen Zhilun was perfect in every way. His pedantic air was good, his apparent lack of social skills was good, and his deliberate, thoughtful way of speaking was also good.

Even if he was slightly hunched over, it was because he was tall and had to accommodate Fang Kaixuan's height; it was a gentlemanly demeanor.

Psychologists say that many children who were abused in their childhood suffer from schizophrenia because they were unable to protect their vulnerable selves in childhood, thus splitting off a strong personality.

The entanglement between Fang Kaixuan and Chen Zhilun occurred long after they had grown up. But perhaps unknowingly, she split Chen Zhilun in her heart into two parts: one was the childhood lover she always cherished, and the other was a completely unfamiliar NPD personality.

The existence of the latter does not diminish the brilliance of the former.

That's the only way to think about it. Otherwise, how could Fang Kaixuan face herself, and how would she explain away the ten years of her youth?

This was Fang Kaixuan's entire feeling when he saw Chen Zhilun's all-too-familiar figure walk out of the elevator lobby.

Even if all that remains in the end is hatred, it cannot be denied that Fang Kaixuan and Chen Zhilun's lives once intersected deeply.

*

Like a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil, causing a tornado in Texas, many things begin in this way, from the smallest beginnings. Fang Kaixuan's decision to study in France was entirely due to Chen Zhilun's first overseas assignment being in a French-speaking country.

It's not France; newcomers aren't allowed to start their careers in developed countries. Chen Zhilun went to faraway Africa.

Except for that little secret in my heart.

Nowadays, probably no one uses email to express personal feelings anymore, Fang Kaixuan finds it a pity. Instant messaging tools respond immediately, but what people say is mostly nonsense, short sentences, "hahahahaha," or emojis.

Writing an email is somewhat like writing a paper love letter much earlier, putting a lot of thought into the wording and sentence structure, hiding countless thoughts behind the words.

Those emails still lie quietly in her inbox. Fang Kaixuan has read them countless times and still can't bear to delete them. Although her feelings are completely different now when she reads them, each and every one of them is a testament to her youth.

Thus, Fang Kaixuan's arduous studies abroad began simply because she wanted to learn even a little more about Chen Zhilun's world, even if it was just to learn a new, difficult, and obscure language.

As she studied, Fang Kaixuan, almost against her will, decided to apply for a master's degree in France, quitting her promising job for the purpose. Upon arriving in Paris, she realized that haphazardly studying in a language class in China for a few months and barely passing the exams was completely different from trying to understand incomprehensible language in a university classroom. The ordeal was even greater than before the college entrance exam.

Fang Kaixuan's major is political science. It's ridiculous! He can't even hold a proper conversation, yet he wants to use other people's languages ​​to study Hannah Arendt and Heidegger, to learn about the collapse of the Soviet Union, and to understand the banality of evil.

There were no textbooks, no syllabus, only the teacher's rapid-fire lectures during class and a long list of required readings after class.

She took notes while recording each lesson with a voice recorder, then transcribed them repeatedly in the evenings and on weekends. She brought home a stack of thick books from the library, her gaze vacant under the lamplight late at night.

The end-of-semester exams were very simple in format: only one essay question for each subject, with an unlimited supply of blank paper. Four hours were all you could write. The formatting requirements were extremely strict; Fang Kaixuan even bought a 300-page book during his first year specifically to learn how to write a perfectly formatted paper.

The ordeal was unbearable, but Fang Kaixuan eventually graduated. This battle exhausted all her energy, and from then on, she never wanted to study again.

The only good thing that happened during this long and lonely journey was that Chen Zhilun stopped here on his way back to China. His confession was like a long-lasting stimulant, enabling her to pass every exam with flying colors. Her grades weren't great, but getting 14 out of 20 points among a group of native speakers made Fang Kaixuan very satisfied.

This was certainly good luck brought to her by Chen Zhilun.

Fang Kaixuan never imagined that good fortune, like sand in one's hand, would slip away quickly no matter how tightly one grasps it. Opening one's palm, one would only find emptiness.

Just like today, there is now nothing between them. Except for some lingering hatred.

"What's wrong with your nose?" Chen Zhilun frowned when he saw Fang Kaixuan.

Fang Kaixuan unconsciously touched his nose: "Oh, I probably got frostbite a few days ago."

"How could you be so careless?"

If you heard these words ten years ago, five years ago, or even a year ago when you were triumphantly returning home, they would have sounded like boundless care and clumsy love.

Now I only see it as an attempt at control and control.

She smiled, a lifeless smile, and instead of answering him, asked, "Where are the things?"

Chen Zhilun held up a gray backpack, the same Jansport that Fang Kaixuan had used during his years of schooling. It was incredibly sturdy, big enough to hold a laptop and three thick books. Because it had been used so heavily back then, the corners were almost completely worn through.

The bag is now bulging.

"Here, these are from the cupboard," Chen Zhilun handed them to her.

Inside were all her unused cosmetics that she had previously kept.

“Actually, it’s okay if I lose the things. It’s just that I want to keep this bag,” Fang Kaixuan said.

"Throw it away? Jingya said that's not a good idea," Chen Zhilun said seriously.

Quiet and elegant.

She recognized the name. Su Jingya, Chen Zhilun's college classmate. Also Chen Zhilun's new lover, and his former mistress.

The same story is a Rashomon effect for different people. Everyone firmly believes that their own version is the truth.

Fang Kaixuan and Chen Zhilun's recollections of their love story were vastly different.

Before Fang Kaixuan's heart-fluttering confession came Chen Zhilun's darkest moment.

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