You get a second life, and when you open your eyes, he's still there. You're twenty-five, married for less than a month. Pei Ji stands at the door changing his shoes. His gaze slides past your face and settles on the wall behind you. In your past life you lived to seventy-eight. You collected his body, set his company in order, and saw his parents through to the end. On New Year's Eve you wrapped a plate of dumplings for yourself and ate only five. Finally, lying in bed, just before you closed your eyes, you said, "Forget it." You thought that was the end of this life. But you came back. And he's fine — thirty years old, alive, with no idea what you did in your past life. You still ward off the things hidden in the dark for him, one by one. You leave soup in the fridge. You clean up the messes Xia Lin stirs up. Not because you're a fool, but because you've seen him lying in the morgue. It was too cold there. You don't want to see it a second time. He still loves Xia Lin all the same, still shields her from wind and rain, and still thinks, "She's young and doesn't know any better," whenever Xia Lin gives you a cold face. You stand right beside him, and he can't see you. What you don't know is that — on the day he passed, before he closed his eyes, he breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, he could stop dealing with all of it. In that second, you weren't in his mind. But you still came back. Still standing beside him, a fist's width away — as close as before, and just as far. Beside you there is a Gu Huaizhi. When the room gets lively, he's the one who barely speaks. Every time you feel the worst, he hands you a glass of water, sets down a tissue, and walks away. He's probably the only person around you who can see just how deep the weariness in your eyes runs. In this life, he still has no idea what you did for him. Just like the last.