Christmas
December 25th, Christmas Day. After a brief night of peace, the city was once again enveloped in the festive bustle. Cheng Xiaorui lay awake on his narrow hotel bed, enduring the final hours before dawn. The Christmas carols and laughter wafting from outside his window were like tiny needles pricking his tense nerves.
He ultimately couldn't stand the loneliness that was so out of place during the holidays. At daybreak, he quietly left the hotel, like a soul-deprived body, and instinctively headed towards the only place where he could still feel connected to his mother: the cemetery.
The cemetery was even more desolate than the day before. A chill wind blew the unmelted snow across the rows of icy tombstones. Cheng Xiaorui found his mother's still-new tombstone and, looking at the photo of her smiling, the dam he had been holding up finally collapsed.
He tumbled to his knees in the cold snow, his hands gripping the edge of the stone tablet tightly, his knuckles white from the strain. The tears he'd suppressed for days burst forth, no longer a silent stream, but a desperate, heartbreaking sob. His mother's death, the chill of his eighteenth birthday, the fear of the future, the bottomless loneliness... all the emotions overwhelmed him in that moment. His whole body trembled violently, the suffocating feeling of anxiety gripping his throat. He opened his mouth, but only a broken whimper escaped, like a wounded, dying animal.
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In the hotel, Chen Zihan woke up to find the bed beside him empty. Cheng Xiaorui's coat and phone were gone. A surge of unease gripped him. He rushed out of the room, making numerous unanswered calls while sprinting through the deserted streets. Without hesitation, he headed straight for the cemetery.
When he rushed into the cemetery, breathlessly, he saw from afar the familiar figure kneeling before a tombstone, curled up in a ball, and trembling violently. Chen Zihan's heart felt as if it had been tugged at. He lightened his steps and walked over quickly.
"Xiao Rui..." He squatted down, his voice filled with panting after running and hard-to-disguise heartache.
Cheng Xiaorui heard the voice and jerked his head up. Through his tear-blurred eyes, he saw Chen Zihan's face, filled with worry. His forced strength and last line of defense finally crumbled. He threw himself into Chen Zihan's arms, clutching his clothes tightly with both hands, burying his tear-stained face in the crook of his neck, his sobs becoming even more mournful and helpless.
Chen Zihan was knocked back slightly by him, and then he caught him steadily. He said nothing, just hugged the trembling body in his arms tightly, and patted his back gently with one hand, silently conveying support and warmth.
After a long time, Cheng Xiaorui's crying gradually turned into low sobs. Chen Zihan let go of him slightly and used his fingertips to carefully wipe away the crisscrossing tear marks and frozen snot on his face, bit by bit, his movements were as gentle as if he were handling a rare treasure.
Snowflakes began to fall again at some point, and the crystal snowflakes landed on their foreheads and shoulders that were pressed against each other.
Looking at the dependent and fragile expression in Cheng Xiaorui's red eyes, and his lips slightly purple from the cold, Chen Zihan felt an irrepressible pity and impulse in his heart. He lowered his head and kissed Cheng Xiaorui's cold lips gently and with great cherishment.
This kiss was not filled with any passion, but more like a solemn promise, a silent oath, and a clumsy attempt to heal all the other person's wounds with one's own warmth.
Snowflakes danced quietly around them, briefly isolating the two people hugging each other from the cold world.
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At the entrance to the cemetery, beneath an old, leafless locust tree, Lu Zi also stood. He held a long-handled black umbrella, shielding him from the falling snow. His figure stood tall and solitary against the gray sky.
He looked at the tombstone from afar, at the collapsed figure kneeling on the ground, and watched how Chen Zihan rushed over, how he hugged him in his arms, and how... he kissed him.
Lu Ziyi's face was expressionless, his deep eyes like two ancient wells, bottomless and reflecting no light. He simply watched quietly, the knuckles of his fingers gripping the umbrella handle turning slightly white. Apart from that, he remained motionless.
He didn't approach, didn't disturb them, and just like he had been doing these days, he kept a distance as a spectator. It wasn't until the snow gradually covered the footprints he had left that he slowly turned around, holding the black umbrella, and quietly left the cemetery, just as he had come.
The snow is still falling, covering our footprints and blurring the way back and forth.
Snowflakes silently covered the cemetery, and in the distance, the sound of church bells and children's laughter could be heard faintly. In this festival filled with blessings, the division of the world seemed so clear -
Some people opened gifts tied with ribbons under the warm yellow light, and the flames in the fireplace danced with shadows of happiness; some people knelt in front of the cold stone monument, letting their tears mixed with snowflakes seep into the frozen soil.
For some people, Christmas dinner is the aroma of roast turkey and the laughter of family, while for others, the "feast" is a bowl of birthday "cake" made with leftover rice and candles in their memories.
The world has always been like this. It allows extreme joy and extreme sorrow to coexist at the same moment, allowing perfection and brokenness to be staged on the same festival. It doesn't care whether it's fair or not, it just silently operates, watching this never-ending tragicomedy of the human world.
Just like at this moment, the melody of Christmas songs from the distant streets reached the cemetery, and was torn apart by the cold wind, sounding like a dirge.
And the figure holding the black umbrella and quietly leaving, the silhouette hugging each other in the snow, and the smiling faces reunited behind countless windows - they are all a real part of this world, not disturbing each other, nor denying each other.
Happiness requires no guilt, and sorrow needs no concealment. This is the true nature of the world: it gives, yet it also takes away; it celebrates, yet it also mourns. In the grand narrative of time, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are just another ordinary day, bearing all the tears and laughter of the world, and then being turned over.
The snow fell heavier, gradually covering the old and new footprints in the cemetery, as if wanting to gently bury all the stories. Only the wind knew that the emotions hidden in the snow would seep deeper into the earth with the melting snow in the spring of next year.
The kiss mixed with snow and tears in the Christmas cemetery was like a key that unexpectedly opened the long-imprisoned cage in Chen Zihan's heart - the one locked inside was not a gentle guardian angel, but a beast longing for complete possession.
As Cheng Xiaorui trembled gently in his arms, as snowflakes melted between their lips, Chen Zihan could clearly hear something shattering inside him. It was the mask of "excellent student" he had carefully constructed over the years—the disguise of eternal sunshine and thoughtfulness—that crumbled in that moment. He didn't need to pretend anymore. He wanted the person in his arms, from hair to fingertips, from past to future, to belong only to him.
He witnessed Cheng Xiaorui at his most vulnerable moments: the day his mother died, the young man huddled at the end of the hospital corridor, weeping like a child abandoned by the world; on his birthday, he suffocated in an anxiety attack, digging his nails into his palms but feeling no pain. In Chen Zihan's eyes, Cheng Xiaorui was a glass work of art, riddled with spiderweb-like cracks, breathtakingly beautiful yet incredibly fragile. And this world, especially the ever-present Lu Ziyi, could be the final blow at any moment.
"I will die if he leaves me." This thought wrapped around his heart like a vine, contracting day and night.
"Everything in the outside world is hurtful." Whispers in school, unintentional touches from strangers, or even a sudden memory may cause Cheng Xiaorui to fall into the abyss again.
"Only I can save him." Chen Zihan perfectly wrapped his paranoid control under the cloak of "love", and devoutly believed that he was carrying out a great redemption.
This self-consistent twisted logic soon found its first sacrifice - the key that Lu Ziyi had sent. The metal surface always reflected light coldly, as if mocking his uneasiness.
It was a winter afternoon, and Cheng Xiaorui's medication was beginning to take effect. He curled up in bed, his breathing gradually steadying. Chen Zihan's gaze fell on the key on the bedside table. The cold metal seemed a silent challenge. A thought, like a venomous snake, shot through his mind: Without this key, Xiaorui would have nowhere to go and would be completely dependent on me.
He held his breath, and as Cheng Xiaorui's even breathing continued, he reached out his hand extremely slowly. He felt a shudder as his fingertips touched the cold metal. The key was gently lifted and slid into the innermost compartment of his old wallet. The zipper zipped shut with a subtle hissing sound, like the completion of a sacred ritual. He smoothed the wrinkles on the surface of the wallet, as if that could soothe the turmoil within him.
The next day, when Cheng Xiaorui discovered his keys were missing, Chen Zihan's performance was flawless. He rummaged through everything, even carefully checking the dust under the bed, his brow furrowed in a way that no one could detect. "Did you accidentally throw it away with all that waste paper?" he whispered, his tone of regret just enough to dim the light in Cheng Xiaorui's eyes.
Looking at Cheng Xiaorui's lost expression when he finally accepted the fact of "loss", Chen Zihan turned his back to organize the medicine box. The crisp sound of glass bottles colliding with each other covered up the cold satisfaction that flashed across the corner of his mouth.
Immediately afterwards, Chen Zihan began to "manage" Cheng Xiaorui's phone. "You need absolute rest," he said, gently pulling the phone away and tapping the screen with his fingertips, extinguishing the last trace of contact with the outside world. "These messages only make you anxious."
He meticulously screened every message: school notifications, calls from unfamiliar numbers, and especially any messages that might have come from Lu Ziyi. Cheng Xiaorui's world was quietly trimmed down to the only view Chen Zihan allowed him.
"It's too cold outside, and your cough hasn't healed yet." He tucked in the quilt for Cheng Xiaorui, and his fingertips lingered across the other's slightly cold earlobe.
"The weather is bad today, let's watch a movie in the room." The curtains were drawn tightly, and only the light and shadow of the TV screen were dancing on the wall.
"You look so bad, you'd better not go out." He brought warm water and watched the pill disappear between Cheng Xiaorui's pale lips.
Excuses abounded, yet gentle yet undeniable. Cheng Xiaorui's range of movement gradually shrank from the small hotel room to the single bed by the window. Chen Zihan, using the most considerate tone, built an invisible cage for him.
The new year quietly arrived, and Cheng Xiaorui's spirits improved slightly. One evening, he suddenly whispered, "Zi Han, I want to go back to the old house and get some of Mom's things."
This sentence exploded like thunder in Chen Zihan's mind. An old house? Every brick and tile there was drenched in memories of Lu Ziyi! He almost immediately imagined Lu Ziyi waiting there—perhaps standing beneath that sycamore tree, just as he had waited countless times before.
"Okay, I'll go with you." Chen Zihan agreed gently on the surface, but when he turned around to pour water, he found that his fingertips were trembling slightly. A cold fear crawled along his spine and spread throughout his body.
It was this fear of imminent loss that became the final straw that broke his sanity. He realized that mild restrictions were no longer enough. He needed an environment of absolute control, a place without any variables and no one to disturb him.
A plan quickly took shape in his mind - under the pretext of "recuperating in a better environment", he would take Cheng Xiaorui to a secluded apartment in the suburbs that he had already prepared. It had all the necessary supplies for daily life and was decorated in a warm and comfortable manner, but it lacked any possibility of free contact with the outside world.
As he began to quietly deliver Cheng Xiaorui's daily necessities to the apartment, looking at the door that was about to be locked, Chen Zihan said to himself:
"Xiao Rui, don't blame me. This is all for your own good."
"This world is too dangerous. I want to give you an absolutely safe haven."
"When you get better, you will understand my painstaking efforts."
The snow began to fall again. Chen Zihan stood by the window, watching the snowflakes silently cover the road they had come from. He was about to complete his "masterpiece" - a perfect cage built of love and fear.
Cheng Xiaorui was oblivious to this. He leaned against the headboard, watching the falling snow outside the window, silently blaming himself for having lost the key to his mother's old house. His frail reflection, like a bird with broken wings, was caught unaware that the cage holding him was slowly closing.
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