12. The Second Part of the Fairy Tale

A gust of wind brought Fang Kaixuan back to reality, her thoughts drifting from the early summer of that year in the 93rd arrondissement of Greater Paris to the late spring scenery of Beijing. She was standing downstairs at Chen Zhilun's house, retrieving some personal belongings.

This place was also her home for a short time.

"How have you been lately?" Although Fang Kaixuan could use the harshest words to scold Chen Zhilun when she was with her best friend, she was always weak and could never be fierce in front of him.

"It's alright." Chen Zhilun maintained his gentlemanly demeanor.

When he is in a stable mood, he is truly a gentleman. Fang Kaixuan has been fascinated by this calm and unhurried demeanor in the face of everything for the past ten years.

She gently shook her head in the cool air, banishing the lingering tenderness that should no longer exist in her heart.

“Jingya said that this house is not comfortable to live in, so we plan to renovate it as soon as possible and move out for a while. We’ve been packing things up recently,” Chen Zhilun explained, pointing to the bulging backpack.

The house was only renovated two years ago, and now they want to renovate it again, while she's pregnant and completely disregarding environmental protection and health. What else could it be for? Naturally, it's because the traces of his ex-wife's existence are too unsightly and need to be completely eradicated.

Fang Kaixuan couldn't help but laugh, a laugh laced with endless irony. For Chen Zhilun and Su Jingya, making someone completely disappear from their lives was probably as easy as renovating a house. The carefully chosen gray-pink wall paint in the bedroom, and the bathroom floor tiles with four-leaf clover patterns—as long as they were smashed and scraped clean, life could be completely renewed.

Just like the love story of Chen Zhilun and Su Jingya, it can still be written in a way that is incredibly moving and brings tears to people's eyes.

With that thought in mind, there was nothing left to linger over. Fang Kaixuan took the backpack that had been with her for years, thanked Chen Zhilun, and prepared to leave.

"Then... what if your family finds your things again?" Chen Zhilun called out to her.

Fang Kaixuan hesitated for a moment before replying, "Then just throw it away. Don't bother keeping it."

A thousand-mile farewell is inevitable. What's the point of keeping things when people are like this?

Chen Zhilun pressed further, "Are you going to throw everything away? Shouldn't I let you take a look first?"

It seemed unbelievable.

"Yes, no need to stay. Thank you for your hard work."

Thank you for your hard work. I wish you both a long and happy life together.

Fang Kai turned around with a flourish, but the moment she looked back, she felt an emptiness in her stomach, her heart pounding in the air, adrift and uncertain. She was very familiar with this feeling; it was the physical reaction of permanently losing something.

She was sweating a little on her forehead, worried it might be low blood sugar, so she quickly went into a coffee shop on the corner, sat down, ordered a chocolate muffin, and ate it slowly. Normally, she wouldn't dare to eat such a sugary and oily mixture, but at this moment she couldn't care less.

Once he recovered and his head was no longer dizzy, Fang Kaixuan, feeling utterly bored, moved the backpack to the table, opened it, and began to examine the items one by one.

As he watched, Fang Kaixuan even forgot his earlier displeasure, and a smile involuntarily appeared on his face.

Many of the items in this bag were bought during her studies abroad. French retailers typically have two major sales a year, during which cosmetics are incredibly cheap; if you're good at finding bargains, it's practically free. When she left Paris, she carefully selected and packed everything she couldn't bear to throw away into this backpack to take back home. Those were all her cherished treasures.

After bringing it back, it was hardly ever opened, even though it contained the limited-edition perfume that he had managed to snag with great difficulty. Fang Kaixuan immediately threw himself into his exciting new life, leaving all the fragments of the past behind.

Even today.

They reminded Fang Kaixuan of those unbearably difficult yet incredibly innocent days. Back then, she was single-minded, her only thought being to study hard, pass the exams, and graduate smoothly.

That's all I can think of.

Fang Kaixuan suddenly longed to return to his carefree and focused self. Even if it meant getting up before sunset in winter to catch the RER regional express train, and even if he always found himself completely lost listening to a professor with a heavy Eastern European accent.

How wonderful it would be if she woke up and found that it was all just a long and sad dream, and she was still that poor student eating croissants, drinking cheap coffee for one euro, and eating bland meals in the cafeteria.

At that time, none of the bad things had yet happened.

At that time, she still had a heart made of pure gold.

*

Fang Kaixuan returned home dejectedly, carrying a bag of expired cosmetics.

She couldn't bear to throw them away. Even though she had originally intended to declutter, this commotion made her reluctant. The things that Chen Zhilun and Su Jingya had kicked out suddenly stirred a feeling of pity in her, and she wanted to keep them forever.

Every time she faced Chen Zhilun, she seemed to lose miserably.

Just as I was feeling sad, Xiao Ju called at the right time: "What is that bastard Chen Zhilun up to now?"

Fang Kaixuan smiled genuinely for the first time that day and said softly, "It's okay, I didn't cause any trouble today."

“I happen to be near your house right now, and I remembered you said you were going to meet me today, so I was just asking.”

"Want to come over to my place and order some takeout to eat together?"

When Xiao Ju arrived, she was dressed in sportswear, her face flushed, and her hair was soaked with sweat and plastered to her forehead. She had just finished a boxing session at a nearby gym.

Upon seeing the backpack, Xiao Ju inquired about its origin and, of course, had nothing nice to say about Chen Zhilun.

Fang Kaixuan kept smiling.

That's Xiao Ju for you—always putting your friends' joys and sorrows first. When Fang Kaixuan is successful, she's not jealous; when he's down, she's his support. She's undoubtedly a true friend.

Fang Kaixuan felt somewhat ashamed, realizing how weak and confused she had been, always pouring out her troubles and venting her frustrations, while Xiaoju was always the one comforting and accommodating her. The only thing she seemed to have done that a good friend should do was to be completely honest with her.

For example, immediately tell others about the unexpected encounters during your journey.

The two of them got up and went downstairs to the small community bar downstairs from Fang Kaixuan's building. It was a tiny storefront, very simple and unpretentious, looking no different from the small Sichuan noodle shop next door.

Fang Kaixuan and Xiao Ju are frequent visitors, treating this place like their second living room, and they're quite familiar with the owner, Ah Xuan. Ah Xuan is a middle-aged man who worries about whether he can sell ten cups of coffee a day. He's busy every day, but he just can't make money, barely surviving by selling coffee during the day and drinking alcohol at night.

The shop was originally called "Ah Xuan's Little Tavern". After they got to know each other better, Ah Xuan asked the two of them to change the name of the shop to something nicer. Fang Kaixuan suggested Le Rendez-vous, which means "date" in French.

Ah Xuan exclaimed in admiration, "How stylish! Then I can't call you boss anymore, please call me manager."

A manager with no employees.

From then on, Fang Kaixuan and Xiao Ju gained the right to a permanent 40% discount here.

Xiao Ju doesn't drink, but as Fang Kaixuan recounted with starry eyes how he took a walk and watched the sunset with a stranger he met on his journey, her eyebrows furrowed more and more tightly: "Hey, don't be upset, I think this is a typical pig butchering scam."

"No way. He didn't ask anything of me, he didn't cheat me out of money, and he certainly didn't take advantage of me sexually," Fang Kaixuan weakly defended herself. Actually, she herself also thought this person was very strange.

"They play the long game to catch a big fish; that's how pig-butchering scams work. All the women who get scammed believe in love too. Love that's unique in the world." Xiao Ju pouted. "Anyway, deceiving someone's feelings is just a means to an end; the goal is to swindle money. It's all the same."

Fang Kaixuan pushed her away, saying, "I have no money."

"Silly girl. If you don't have money, you can borrow it, take out an online loan, sell your house, or use it as collateral... Once a woman believes she has fallen in love with someone, she will go through fire and water for him."

Xiao Ju has seen many similar cases throughout her career. Recently, she has been writing an in-depth report on victims of "pig butchering scams" and has interviewed many people involved in similar cases.

Something unusual must be going on. Xiao Ju firmly believes that selfless romance is a thing of the past these days. If you don't believe it, just look around and you'll see that men who are both outwardly perfect and deeply devoted only exist in fairy tales.

The last romantic memory in Fang Kaixuan's mind was still the ten years she spent with Chen Zhilun.

It's not that Chen Zhilun was determined to deceive her from the very first moment, but it's indeed difficult to trace exactly when a person's feelings begin to change.

Like a fairy tale that ends abruptly, it always begins sweetly, but an invisible hand presses the fast-forward button, hastily sliding all the way to a crude ending.

For Fang Kaixuan, the moment when "life is enough" was probably the moment Chen Zhilun confessed his feelings.

Xiao Ju once joked that if Chen Zhilun had died in a car accident after confessing his love that day, he would definitely have become Fang Kaixuan's irreplaceable true love. Because no one could surpass the drama of that moment, and no one could compare to the depth of love with the dead.

Unfortunately, no. Chen Zhilun is still alive and well, with a successful career and rising through the ranks. Fang Kaixuan once went to the French Cultural Center to watch a movie. When the movie was about to start, she casually flipped through a magazine and found an interview with Chen Zhilun in it. She threw the magazine aside as if she had been burned.

Even more fortunately, Chen Zhilun also found true love.

What a pity.

The second part of the fairy tale is filled with such a cruel curse.

///

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