misfortune
Spring in Beijing always arrives unexpectedly. Overnight, withered branches sprout, magnolias bloom, and the air is filled with a restless yet vibrant atmosphere.
However, Zhou Yu quickly withered away in this season of revival.
At first, it was just constant, unexplained fatigue. He blamed it on the overwork from several consecutive major projects, laughingly saying he was old and couldn't endure it any longer. I pushed him to go to the hospital for a full checkup, but he always said he was busy, waiting for this deal to close, or the next summit to be over.
Until one day at the company, he fainted without any warning.
I was urgently summoned to the hospital. The white corridors were filled with the pungent smell of disinfectant. The doctor, holding a thick medical report, solemnly spoke to me a word I had never imagined I would associate with him: terminal illness. Advanced stage. Metastatic. Life expectancy… predicted to be short.
Every word was like an icicle, piercing my heart and freezing my blood and breath. The sounds of the world vanished in an instant, leaving only the piercing, tinnitus-like roar. I clung to the cold wall, barely able to stand.
He is still so young, he has just reached the peak of his career, and his life clearly has infinite possibilities...
---
He was transferred to the intensive care unit. When I entered the room, he was already awake, his face pale, almost transparent, but his eyes were unusually clear, even with a hint of eerie calmness, as if he had already anticipated something.
"Chenzhi," he smiled at me, his voice very soft, but he tried to remain calm, "Did I scare you? It's okay, it's just a small problem."
I rushed over and clutched his cold hand tightly, tears finally pouring down my face and falling onto the back of his hand. "Zhou Yu... Doctor... The doctor said..." I was choking and unable to continue.
He took my hand in his own and squeezed it, his knuckles turning white from the pressure. "I know," he whispered. There was no fear in his tone, only a deep exhaustion and... resignation? "I just heard the doctor and the assistant talking."
He was silent for a moment, his eyes gazing at the tender green branches sprouting outside the window, and he murmured, "Well, finally... I can take a break."
These words pained me more than any cry or collapse. How much had he endured to see the approach of death as "rest"?
---
The days that followed were a complete change.
Chemotherapy, radiotherapy, various expensive targeted drugs and experimental treatments... the process was painful and torturous. He lost weight rapidly, his hair fell out in clumps, he lost his appetite, and he was often tortured by severe pain and nausea and curled up.
But what breaks my heart the most is not the damage the illness has done to his body, but his almost paranoid persistence.
His hospital room had become another office: a top-of-the-line laptop, a constantly ringing cell phone, subordinates bringing in documents for him to sign, and the sound of video conference calls often drowning out the ticking of medical equipment.
The doctors, nurses, and even me all urged him to rest, saying his health was the most important thing. He always shook his head, his tone weak but undeniable: "It's okay, I can hold on... This project is very important, I have to personally oversee it..."
Once, I couldn't help myself. After he finished a long overseas conference call, I cried and shouted at him, "Zhou Yu! Can you please stop caring about this! Are those money and projects that important? Are they more important than your life?!"
He coughed violently, gasping for breath, and looked at me with his eyes, which were sunken due to illness but still sharp.
"Chenzhi," his voice was hoarse, and every word seemed to be squeezed out with great force, "It is because... I don't have much time left... that I must... arrange all this as soon as possible..."
He stretched out his hand to me, and I held it while crying, and found that he was so thin that he was just a bag of bones.
"I have nothing... to leave you..." He looked at me, his eyes filled with deep sadness and reluctance, "Just these... cold numbers and assets..."
"After I'm gone... what will you do? With your personality... how can you... live an easy life in this world?" His fingers curled up weakly, trying to grasp my hand. "I have to leave you... a rich enough family... so that you can paint your paintings in peace... without having to worry about anyone's face... and without having to worry about life..."
At that moment, I felt like I was struck by lightning and my whole body froze.
It turned out that he used up his last bit of strength, endured inhuman pain, and clung to his work, not for his business empire, not for fame, and not even for self-realization.
Just for me.
In order to build a solid fortress of money for me after he left, so that I can continue to live in my "willful" artistic world in the years when he can no longer protect me, with no worries about food and clothing and a peaceful life.
I knelt before his bed, my face buried in the sheets that smelled of disinfectant and medicine, and cried uncontrollably. All the grievances, estrangements, and complaints were completely shattered in the face of such a heavy, suffocating love.
---
His condition deteriorated rapidly.
His lucid time was getting shorter and shorter, and the pain made him frown even when he was asleep. But whenever he was slightly awake, he would still use his eyes to signal his assistant to get some documents, or vaguely ask me how a certain trust fund was going, or if there were any problems with the transfer of a certain property.
He was using his final moments to plan the next few decades of my life, meticulously and without compromise.
By the end of spring, he was too weak to speak. The sunlight shone through the window of the ward, casting a faint halo on his pale face.
I held his hand and talked to him over and over again, telling him about our meeting at the beginning of high school, the afternoon in the library, the sunset and confession on the hill, the quarrels and reconciliations in college... I said so much, afraid that he would forget, and even more afraid that I would forget myself.
He listened quietly, his eyelashes trembling occasionally, and his fingers gently shaking mine.
At that last moment, he tried very hard and very slowly to turn his head and look at me. His eyes were a little blurry, but they still held the clear and gentle light that I had seen when I was sixteen.
His gaze fell very slowly on the ginkgo leaf necklace on my chest that I had never taken off.
Then, with the last bit of his strength, he gave me a very slight, almost imperceptible smile.
Like that September afternoon when he bumped into me, with an apologetic and somewhat flustered smile.
The shrill alarm on the monitor sounded.
Outside the window, spring is in full bloom, and the leaves on the trees are dazzlingly green.
What he left me was wealth that could not be spent in several lifetimes, and a huge and silent world without him.
I finally understood that he hadn't turned into a cold, upstart businessman. He had simply changed his way of loving me, clumsily, stubbornly, and with all his heart, until the very last second of his life.
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