Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The year I graduated, I decided to start my own business.

My family’s financial situation was average. My father’s business had failed years earlier, leaving him with significant debt. I was driven by a desperate need to prove myself, feeling like I couldn’t afford to lose. Chen Xubai and I worked on the project together. Things went smoothly enough in the early stages, but when it came time to secure investment and build a team, money became a bottomless pit that could never be filled.

At my lowest point, the company account had just over three thousand yuan left. I couldn’t even afford the next month’s rent for the office.

I had a terrible temper back then, snapping at everyone I saw. Lin Wan was already interning at a publishing house. Her salary wasn’t high, and she was busy every day, yet she still made time to stop by my office every few days to bring me coffee and food.

Irritated, I said, “Stop coming here all the time. Don’t you have work to do?”

She set the lunchbox down and said softly, “Eat first.”

I didn’t eat.

At ten o’clock that night, she transferred eighty-two thousand yuan to me.

I was stunned when I saw the figure. I called her immediately, my tone sharp. “Are you crazy? Where did you get this much money?”

There was a brief silence on the other end of the line.

She said, “It’s what I’ve saved over the years, plus some money my mother left me. Use it for your cash flow for now. If it’s not enough, I’ll find another way.”

“Lin Wan, this is money, not paper.”

“I know.”

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll lose it all?”

She chuckled, her voice so light it seemed to scatter in the wind.

“We’ll worry about that if it happens.”

In the end, I took it.

Because at that time, I truly, desperately needed the money.

Later, once the company stabilized, I gave her a formal IOU. She took it without even looking at it, folded it up, and tucked it into her bag.

The diary entry for that day spanned two full pages.

“I transferred all the money I’ve saved over the last three years to him.

Tang Yutang scolded me for being a ‘love brain,’ saying I’ll definitely regret this in the future. Actually, I’m scared too-scared he won’t accept it, scared he’ll think I’m meddling, scared that remembering this will become a burden for him later.

But I’m more afraid that he won’t make it through this.

If he can truly stand on his own feet one day, that will be enough.”

I closed the diary, my Adam’s apple bobbing with difficulty.

That eighty-two thousand yuan-I had later dismissively categorized it as “help from a friend.”

But to her, it was everything.

The year my mother passed away was the darkest period of my life.

After she was diagnosed with uremia, her condition deteriorated rapidly. During those final two weeks, I spent my days at the hospital and my nights at the office. I was like a string pulled to its breaking point. Wen Muning often said later that I was too cold during those years, that I didn’t know how to be in a relationship. What she didn’t know was that if a person learns how to endure first, it becomes very difficult to learn how to soften.

In the early hours of the day my mother passed, I sat alone outside the hospital, smoking.

There were dozens of missed calls on my phone, but I didn’t want to answer anyone. As dawn approached, a pair of white sneakers stopped in front of me.

I looked up and saw Lin Wan.

Her hair was windblown, and she carried the chill of the train station on her clothes. She was clutching a black backpack, breathing hard, her forehead drenched in sweat. She only asked me one thing.

“Auntie… was it too late?”

I didn’t say a word.

She looked at me, and her eyes instantly turned red.

In the next second, as if I had finally found someone I could lean on, I completely collapsed.

I held her and sobbed like a wreck at the hospital entrance.

For those three days, Lin Wan practically held everything together for me.

She contacted the funeral home, stayed with me during the vigil, comforted my emotionally broken father, and even forced me to finish my meals when I was too numb to listen to anything.

One night, as I sat outside the funeral hall, she handed me a cup of hot soy milk.

My voice was hoarse as I said, “Lin Wan, thank you.”

She shook her head. “You don’t need to say that to me.”

I looked at her excessively pale face and asked, “Have you not rested at all?”

She smiled slightly. “I’ll make up for it later.”

But I never followed up.

I didn’t ask why her hands were always cold, why she felt like vomiting after just two sips of water, or why she would secretly disappear to the restroom for a long time in the middle of the night.

At the time, I was too consumed by my own grief. I even felt that her constant presence was a given.

The diary read:

“Auntie is gone. When he held me and cried, my heart felt like it was breaking for him.

I know I shouldn’t be happy at a time like this, but because he was finally willing to lean on me for once, I couldn’t bear to push him away.

If possible, I want to stay by his side forever.

But I coughed up blood again today.”

Those last five words felt like a knife.

I stared at them for a long time before realizing that when she had turned to go to the restroom outside the funeral hall back then, she wasn’t going there to cry.

She was going there to wipe away the blood.