Broken Dreams
Zheng Yiming was awakened by the cold.
The sky outside the window was just beginning to lighten. The dormitory air conditioner was broken, and a cold draft seeped in through the cracks in the window, sliding down his neck like a chilling snake. He suddenly opened his eyes. The digital clock on the bedside table showed 5:17. The blue light from the screen reflected on his face, highlighting the dark circles under his eyes.
Her fingertips instinctively reached out to the side, only to touch a cold sheet—it was empty, without a warm body, without loose hair, and without the soft breathing of Shen Zhixia as she slept.
His heart felt like it was being squeezed by an invisible hand, and the pain made it almost impossible for him to breathe.
He sat up, rubbing his stiff neck, and glanced around the dormitory. On the desk was a stack of physics competition problem sets half his height, the covers worn and curled up; on the chair was a faded school uniform jacket, with dried paint still on the cuffs—it was from last year in the art studio when Shen Zhixia accidentally smeared it on him, and he hadn't been able to bear washing it off.
Everything seemed the same as usual, yet something felt off.
He remembered that last night, he and Shen Zhixia were discussing their thesis in a café by Weiming Lake. She was wearing a beige sweater, and sunlight streamed through the glass window, casting a small shadow on her eyelashes. She pointed to the data analysis table and laughed at him, "This is wrong. Even physicists from Zhengzhou University can be careless." Her voice was as sweet as honey, making him feel cloyingly happy.
He even remembered that when she smiled, there was a small dimple on the left corner of her mouth; he remembered that she always liked to gently swing her legs when she spoke; and he remembered the scratching sound of her pen tip gliding across the paper when she was doing calculations.
But now, he's all alone in the dorm.
Zheng Yiming jumped off the bed barefoot. The cold floor made him shiver and cleared his muddled mind a bit. He walked to his desk and ran his fingers over the book "Introduction to Quantum Mechanics." Next to the three words "Shen Zhixia" on the title page, there should have been the words "Happy Cooperation" that he had added later, but now there was only a blank space, as if someone had forcefully erased it with an eraser, leaving a faint mark.
His breathing became labored, as if something was stuck in his throat, unable to go up or down.
"Zhi Xia?" he called out tentatively, his voice echoing in the empty dormitory, sounding particularly abrupt.
No one answered.
He stumbled to the dormitory door and flung it open. The corridor was deserted; the green light from the emergency lights cast dappled shadows on the floor, like an eerie painting. The door to the next dormitory was ajar; he rushed over and pushed it open. It was empty too; Zhou Ziang's bed was neatly made, but the basketball on the table was gone.
"Zhou Zi'ang! Jiang Yi!" he shouted, his voice hoarse like a broken gong, "Have you seen Zhi Xia?"
The windows at the end of the corridor rattled in the wind, as if mocking his futile efforts.
Zheng Yiming slid down to the floor, leaning against the cold wall, his fingertips digging into his hair, gripping it tightly. Vivid memories flooded back like a tide—the ginkgo leaves of Yan Garden, the shimmering waves of Weiming Lake, the hot cocoa in the café, the crystal lattice images in the laboratory, and the silver star pendant around Shen Zhixia's neck, shimmering gently in the sunlight…
Those scenes were so real, so real that he could smell the faint scent of shampoo in her hair, feel the warmth of her fingertips brushing against the back of his hand, and hear her laughing as she said, "Zheng Yiming, you seem to have really grown up."
But why... is there nothing left now?
He suddenly remembered something, scrambled back to his dorm, and rummaged through his drawers for his phone. It was under a pile of draft papers, the screen cracked as if it had been dropped. He pressed the power button with trembling hands, and the moment the screen lit up, the lock screen wallpaper stung his eyes—it wasn't a photo of him and Shen Zhixia at Peking University, but a faded picture of them in their high school uniforms. In the photo, he and Shen Zhixia stood in front of the teaching building, half a person's distance apart, their expressions as stiff as strangers.
The date shown is June 5th, three years ago.
Three days before the college entrance examination.
Zheng Yiming's pupils suddenly contracted, as if pierced by a bright light. He opened the photo album, but there were no snow scenes of Yan Garden, no spring scenery of Weiming Lake, only a few photos from high school. The last one was taken last March, showing Shen Zhixia standing at the entrance of the art studio, carrying an easel on her back, with a faint expression and a weariness in her eyes that he hadn't understood at the time.
His fingers trembled like a leaf as he opened his call log. The most recent call was to Zhou Zi'ang, which read, "Go check the exam venue tomorrow, don't forget your admission ticket." There were no calls with Shen Zhixia, no emails with Jiang Yi, and not even the admission notice from the Tsinghua or Peking University Physics Department.
Everything about Yenching University, about reunion, about reconciliation, has vanished.
Like a dream shattered from glass.
“No…it’s impossible…” Zheng Yiming muttered to himself, cold sweat streaming down his forehead and soaking his collar. “Zhi Xia is right here…we were together yesterday…”
Suddenly remembering something, he rushed out of the dormitory and ran downstairs like a madman. The dormitory building's main gate was not yet open, so he forcefully broke the lock, the ear-piercing sound of metal scraping echoing in the quiet morning.
A light drizzle was falling outside, just like that day three years ago. The rain soaked his hair and clothes, and the cold made his bones ache. He ran wildly along the street, past familiar alleyways, familiar sycamore trees, familiar art studio signs... everything was exactly the same as he remembered his senior year of high school.
He stopped downstairs at Shen Zhixia's apartment building. The old building looked particularly gloomy in the rain and mist. The windows on the third floor were tightly closed, and the curtains were drawn tightly, so there wasn't a ray of light.
"Zhi Xia! Shen Zhi Xia!" he shouted, his voice drowned out by the rain. "Come out! I know you're in there!"
No one responded.
The sound of a neighbor opening their door came from the hallway. An auntie in her pajamas poked her head out and looked at him impatiently: "What are you yelling for so early in the morning? Shen family girl... Sigh, it's been so long, why are you still causing trouble?"
"The past? What past?" Zheng Yiming grabbed his aunt's arm, his eyes red as if they were about to bleed. "What happened to her? Is she inside?"
The aunt was startled and pulled her hand away from his: "You child, are you out of your mind? Shen Zhixia died last June! A month before the college entrance exam, she jumped from the building... Many people saw it..."
"You're talking nonsense!" Zheng Yiming roared, like a wounded beast. "She was with me yesterday! We were at Yan Garden...we..."
His voice grew softer and softer, until it turned into a sob. Seeing his distraught state, the aunt sighed, her voice softening, "Child, I know you two were close, but the dead can't be brought back to life. Her mother moved away last year, and this house has been empty for a long time..."
Zheng Yiming staggered back a few steps, bumping into the wall, a dull pain shooting through the back of his head. Rainwater mixed with some warm liquid slid down his cheeks, flowing into his mouth, bitter and astringent.
He remembered.
It wasn't a reunion at Peking University, a discussion in a coffee shop, or sitting side by side in a laboratory.
It was that argument.
A month before the college entrance exam, on a rainy morning like this, he found Shen Zhixia in the art studio. She was tearing a painting to shreds; the sunflowers on the canvas were torn into pieces, like a withered flower.
"Why are you getting so close to Li Zichen again?" He was like a madman, grabbing her wrist with such force that he almost crushed her bones. "Have you forgotten how he used to bully you? Aren't you just a slut!"
Shen Zhixia forcefully shook off his hand, tears streaming down her face like a broken string of pearls: "Zheng Yiming! Can you please stop being so disgusting! I was just discussing a problem with him!"
"Discussing topics requires staying in the studio until midnight?" He pointed to the scars on her wrist, the varying shades of the marks piercing his eyes like needles. "You've hurt yourself again, haven't you? You just degrade yourself like this?!"
"I degraded myself?" She laughed, her tears flowing even more fiercely. "That was because you forced me to! Look at the injuries on my body!"
She abruptly ripped open her school uniform jacket, revealing bruises on her arms and back; the purplish-blue marks stood out starkly against her pale skin. "These are from when you pushed and bumped into me during our last argument! Zheng Yiming, besides using violence and the most hurtful words to hurt me, what else can you do?!"
"I was doing this for your own good!" he yelled, like a dog whose tail had been stepped on. "I was afraid you'd be scammed! I was afraid you..."
"What you're afraid of is me leaving you!" she interrupted him, her voice hoarse. "You don't love me at all, you just want to control me! Like controlling an object!"
He was stung by her words, and in a fit of rage, he swung his hand and knocked over her art supply box. Paint splattered everywhere—blue, red, black—mixed together like a pool of filthy blood. "Yes! I just don't want you to leave! You're mine in life and in death!"
Shen Zhixia looked at the mess on the floor and suddenly fell silent. Her eyes were ashen, calm in a way that was frightening. "Zheng Yiming," she said softly, "I'm tired."
He initially thought she was just being stubborn, so he snorted and turned to leave, leaving behind a harsh remark: "You'd better not regret this."
He thought she would be like before, waiting for him to calm down, and then come to apologize with tears in her eyes; he thought they had a lot of time, that everything would be alright after the college entrance exam, after they went to university; he thought the bruises would disappear, the scars would fade, and the arguments would be like fleeting clouds...
But what he received was a call from the police three days later.
It was Shen Zhixia's cold corpse.
It was the new, deeper scars on her wrists.
It was the crumpled note in her pocket that read: "Zheng Yiming, I wish we had never met."
Zheng Yiming slumped on the steps outside Shen Zhixia's building, soaked to the bone by the rain. Like a fool, he repeated over and over, "No...it's not like that..."
He recalled the Peking University campus in his dream, where Shen Zhixia, wearing a beige sweater, smiled and said, "Zheng Yiming, you seem to have really grown up"; he remembered the light in her eyes when she received the star pendant, brighter than moonlight; he remembered her focused profile in the laboratory, her fingertips dancing on the keyboard, like playing a gentle song...
It turns out that those gentle, warm, and hopeful scenes were just his dreams.
It was a self-deceiving illusion he wove over three years because he dared not face reality.
He even asked her to forgive him in his dreams.
How ridiculous.
"Shen Zhixia..." He hugged his knees, buried his face in his arms, his shoulders trembling violently like a lost child, "I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."
"If only I hadn't argued with you..."
"If only I had listened to you properly back then..."
"If only I had known how much pain you were in sooner..."
"If only... I could save you..."
The rain poured down harder and harder, washing over the streets and his tears, but it couldn't wash away the regret etched into his bones. He remembered the bruises on her body, the scars on her wrists, and her terrifyingly calm gaze at the end. Every time he thought of it, it felt like a piece of his heart was being ripped out, the pain almost suffocating him.
He finally understood that those warm details in his dreams—her dislike of cilantro, her sensitivity to data, her love of drawing stars, the scar on her collarbone—were actually his subconscious attempts at atonement. In his dreams, he transformed himself into a better person, someone who knew how to cherish, respect, and be gentle, as if this could compensate for the cruelty of reality.
But reality is reality.
Shen Zhixia is dead.
He died at the age when he was at his most bastardly, most irritable, and least understanding of love.
He died on that rainy morning, after he said, "You'd better not regret it."
Zheng Yiming looked up at the tightly closed windows of Shen Zhixia's house, the rain blurring his vision. He seemed to see again the girl carrying her easel, standing at the door of the studio, smiling faintly at him, but her eyes concealing an unyielding weariness.
"Zhi Xia..." he choked, his voice so soft it sounded like a sigh, "I regret it... I really regret it..."
But it was no use.
No one will ever smile and say to him again, "Zheng Yiming, you miscalculated." No one will ever secretly slip him a piece of candy when he stays up late. No one will ever forgive him with red eyes when he's in a bad mood.
That dream of reunion was ultimately shattered.
It shattered like glass shards scattered on the ground, each piece reflecting his狰狞 (zhengning - ferocious/hideous) face and his eternal regret.
The rain continued to fall, as if it would never end. Zheng Yiming sat on the cold steps, letting the rain wash over his body and soul, like a lifeless statue.
He knew that from this day forward, he would forever live in this nightmare from which he could never wake, reliving that argument over and over again, watching her disappear again and again, and uttering those words that were too late—
"sorry."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
