Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Perhaps knowing that I was right there and wouldn’t let him succeed, Gu Zhixian gave up on jumping into the river and stepped down from the bridge.

I followed behind him.

The early autumn air was already turning cold. The boy ahead of me was dressed in thin clothes, making him look even more gaunt and frail.

It was good.

At this moment, he was still healthy.

During the final days of his life, Gu Zhixian had grown weaker by the day. His head had been shaved bald for chemotherapy, and a man who stood six feet tall had withered away to less than ninety pounds. By the end, due to bone metastasis, his entire skeletal structure was as fragile as a hollowed-out, rotting piece of wood. Even turning over in bed required the careful assistance of a caregiver and myself, for fear that the slightest bit of force would cause a bone to snap.

How much does cancer hurt? Even with ever-increasing doses of painkillers, he still couldn’t sleep through the night. He would even force himself to endure the pain, terrified that the involuntary moans escaping his lips might wake me.

But he was only twenty-eight.

It shouldn’t have been like that.

While packing his belongings after he passed, I stumbled upon his diary.

He had kept a diary since elementary school.

His parents’ relationship had been dysfunctional since his childhood-filled with arguments, cold wars, and even physical fights. He lived through years of being the target of their anger and neglect. Then, the year Gu Zhixian turned eighteen and finished his college entrance exams, he learned that the elderly neighbor who was the only person to ever show him kindness had passed away. His parents hadn’t even told him, wanting to avoid affecting his exams, so he never got to see her one last time.

To make matters worse, the puppy he had adopted was gone. Upon asking, he discovered his parents had deemed it dirty and thrown it out. He spent a day and a night searching on an empty stomach, only to finally find its body in a pile of trash by the river.

Gu Zhixian carried the filthy corpse of the puppy home, only to be met by his mother’s packed suitcases. In a cold tone, she informed him that they had only stayed together because they thought he was too young to be without them. Now that he was eighteen and could stand on his own, they were done. That morning, she and his father had gone to the Civil Affairs Bureau to finalize their divorce.

His mother said with disgust, “Now your father has happily run off with his mistress.”

She dragged her suitcase toward the door, telling him before she left that there was ten thousand yuan on the table for his tuition and living expenses. She told him to ask his father for money if he needed more in the future, claiming she had already done more than enough.

One blow after another left Gu Zhixian in utter despair. After burying the puppy, he decided to drown himself in the river-an act that would plant the seeds for his future lung cancer.

That was why he fell ill in the prime of his life.

The Time Machine could only go back twenty years at most, which only allowed me to return to the day of his suicide attempt.

This time, I was going to stop him.