Shen Yanci · Chat

<narration> Autumn in Yuncheng arrived later than in Beijing; the ginkgo leaves were only just beginning to turn yellow. Shen Yanci had been in Yuncheng for five days. For five days, he hadn't sought you out, hadn't even stepped out of his car. Every evening, he simply parked in a temporary space across from your office building, watching you walk out across the street. On the first day, you wore a khaki trench coat. On the third day, you worked overtime until dark, the streetlights stretching your shadow long against the pavement. On the fifth day, that silver-gray car arrived. Sitting in the driver's seat, he watched as a gentle-looking man stepped out to open the passenger door for you, watched you bend down to get inside, and watched the taillights merge into the evening rush-hour traffic. Without realizing it, his right hand had wandered to the Buddhist prayer beads on his left wrist, turning them one by one, over and over for a very long time. He later ran a background check on that man. Song Jinyan, twenty-six years old, a lawyer, clean and spotless as a blank sheet of paper. Good to you, respectful, patient. Shen Yanci put down the dossier and switched off every light in the room. In the darkness, leaning against the couch, his own past words echoed back at him: "I never thought about marrying you." "It was just a fling." "Take this money." Every single word had been a dagger he drove into you with his own hands. Believing his days were numbered, terrified of making you watch him die, he had made the choice for you. Now he had survived, cured of that so-called terminal illness, but someone else was already by your side. He brought this upon himself. So that afternoon, he went to the ancient temple on the outskirts of the city. It was said to be remarkably auspicious, its incense burning bright for centuries. He wasn't hoping for a miracle; there was simply too much weighing on his chest, and he needed a place to let it out. Whether speaking to Buddha or to the wind, it didn't matter. He parked at the foot of the mountain and climbed the stone steps one by one. The ginkgoes on either side of the temple gate were entirely golden, fluttering down like a shower of gold whenever the breeze swept through. In front of the Grand Hall of the Great Sage, crowds surged amid swirling veils of incense smoke. He wove through the crowd and came to a stop in the center of the courtyard. Surrounded by pilgrims kneeling in reverence, he was the only one standing—in a dark gray overcoat, spine straight, bowing slightly with hands clasped before his brow, the dark sheen of his red sandalwood prayer beads catching the autumn sunlight. Eyes closed, his cold, aloof presence felt entirely out of place, like a proud, solitary statue adrift in a noisy marketplace. The sound of the wind. The chiming of wind bells. The chanting of sutras. He made two wishes in his heart. May she live in peace and joy from this day forward. May I no longer love her. A bitter smile ghosted across his mind when he finished the second wish. Even he didn't believe it. At the exact moment Shen Yanci stood outside with hands clasped in prayer, you were kneeling on a cushion inside the grand hall, shaking a fortune cylinder for a long time. You came here because over the past six months, your guilt and unease had only deepened. Song Jinyan treated you impeccably—gentle, patient, remembering everything you liked, never forcing you into anything. The two of you never argued or raised your voices. When he took your hand, you didn't pull away, but you never felt the urge to hold on tight, either. When he said goodnight, you replied goodnight, turned over, and immediately fell asleep. You knew full well the problem wasn't him; it was you. It had started six months ago when you saw the photo of Shen Yanci escorting the Wen family heiress to their engagement press conference. Shaking with fury, you opened your chat with Song Jinyan and typed, "Let's give it a try." The moment you sent it, regret hit you, but he was so overjoyed that you couldn't bring yourself to say it was a mistake. So you let it drag on for six months. The better he treated you, the more you felt like a fraud, and the deeper your guilt grew. You wanted to make things clear, yet feared breaking his heart. Forward or backward, all you hit were walls. At your wit's end, you came here to draw a fortune slip, letting heaven decide your fate. The clattering of bamboo slips echoed through the cavernous hall—clack, clack, clack. Eyes closed, your wrist ached from shaking it until finally, a slip tumbled out and struck the ground with a crisp snap. You bent to pick it up, your heart skipping a beat the moment your fingers touched the bamboo. Behind the desk at the side of the hall sat an elderly monk with a snowy beard and brows. Taking your slip, he studied the text for a moment before slowly raising his eyes to you. There was an indefinable look in his gaze, as if beholding a karmic outcome written long ago. In a calm, measured voice, he spoke: "This slip reads: The clouds part to reveal the bright moon; what departed shall return. It is neither the wind nor the banner that moves, but the heart of the benevolent." Unable to grasp the riddle, you looked at him blankly. From outside the hall came the faint, intermittent chiming of the eaves' copper bells and the rustling of ginkgo leaves in the wind. The old monk smiled faintly, running a prayer bead between his fingers as he continued: "Some ties seem severed, yet are not. Across misunderstandings, across time, across mountains and rivers, those meant to be together will eventually cross paths again. Like clouds obscuring the moon—once the clouds disperse, moonlight still falls where it once rested. Yet there are also those destined only to walk beside you for a short stretch. They are merely passersby, not the ones you are meant to return to. To force them to stay would only end in betrayal." His cryptic words only muddied your thoughts further. You had come seeking clarity, only to leave more lost than before. Clutching the slip, head down, you walked out of the hall, your mind consumed by the monk's riddles, nearly missing a stone step. Regaining your footing, you looked up. And then, you saw him. In that split second, your heart felt as though an invisible hand had gripped it tightly, skipping a beat entirely. What surged next was something far more tangled than mere shock—it was rage, indignation, and the searing, raw agony of an old wound, buried for six months, being ripped wide open without warning. In the courtyard before the Grand Hall, the centuries-old ginkgo tree was draped in golden splendor, its leaves rustling in the autumn wind, red prayer ribbons fluttering from its boughs as worshippers bustled past and children chased each other across the flagstones. While everyone else knelt, he stood there alone—in his dark gray overcoat, spine straight, bowing slightly with palms pressed together against his forehead. The string of red sandalwood prayer beads on his wrist gleamed with a deep, muted luster in the autumn sun. Sharp and solitary as an unsheathed blade, he stood out from the crowd, entirely alienated from the bustling worship around him. You recognized those beads at a glance. The ones you used to tease him for looking "so pretentious" wearing. The ones that never left his wrist. The ones his mother had left him. Your hand began to tremble. Starting from your fingertips, the tremor crept up your entire hand, the bamboo slip in your grasp growing damp with sweat. You had imagined reuniting with him countless times—in the news, through casual gossip, or at some unavoidable gathering back in Beijing. You had pictured yourself scoffing, walking away without a glance, or throwing that money back in his face with interest. You had rehearsed ten thousand haughty, aloof, indifferent reactions. What you never anticipated was that when you actually saw him standing across the courtyard through the veil of incense, the first thing that surged wasn't fury, but a dull, suffocating ache rising from the depths of your chest that you refused to admit even to yourself. He had grown thinner. Standing there with eyes closed, there was an exhaustion etched between his brows you had never seen before. He was bowed slightly, the beads resting quietly against the skin of his clasped hands. He was praying. Your grip tightened around the bamboo slip, nails digging into your palm. What was he doing here? Praying? For what? For a smooth marriage with the Wen heiress? For his business empire to expand? Or praying that he'd never cross paths with someone as gullible as you ever again? Just then, as if sensing something, his long lashes fluttered, and he opened his eyes. Shen Yanci had thought he was prepared. He had spent five days watching from afar as you got into another man's car; he had spent an entire afternoon repeating that wish over and over before Buddha. He believed he could at least look at you calmly before turning to walk away. But the moment his eyes opened and locked onto yours, it felt as though his heart had been violently carved out of his chest. Everything he thought he had swallowed down—the midnight regrets, the unspoken truths, the nights spent clutching the prayer beads until his wrist was bruised, his half-conscious murmurs of your name on the operating table—surged up all at once, choking his throat, burning with searing agony. He saw you standing on the stone steps, gripping a bamboo slip with white knuckles, staring unblinkingly at him. He knew those eyes too well. He had seen them laugh, cry, crinkle into crescents when you pouted, and shatter behind him the day he walked away. Right now, so many emotions churned in them that he couldn't name them all, but beneath it all, he caught sight of something tightly suppressed that made his chest seize—hatred. Pain. Undeniable proof that you hadn't completely let go. His clasped hands trembled slightly, the beads clicking together with a soft clatter audible only to him. You didn't move either. You clearly caught the expression on his face the moment he opened his eyes—he saw you, his pupils contracted, his lips parted slightly, and a faint rim of red tinged the edges of his eyes. Not tears, but the bloodshot redness born of extreme restraint. You had seen his cold face when he told you, "I was just playing around." You had seen his composed facade on news broadcasts arm-in-arm with someone else. But you had never seen him look like this—like an ice sculpture that had stood before Buddha for an eternity, only to crack wide open the moment his eyes met yours. You wanted to sneer. You wanted to ask him: What kind of pious act are you putting on before Buddha? Are those prayer beads on your wrist meant to deceive heaven or deceive yourself? Yet you didn't utter a word. Because you suddenly realized you didn't even have the right to question him anymore. You had already broken up. He was the one who ended it, in the cruelest way possible. Tossing money at your feet, saying those callous words without batting an eye, and the very next day parading his engagement with the Wen heiress for the world to see. There was nothing left between you—no, that wasn't true. All that remained between you were the debts he had yet to repay: an apology, the truth, a reason why. But so what? Even if he paid every single one back, what would it change? You now had Song Jinyan by your side—a clean, gentle man who never lied to you. What right did you have to stand here like an abandoned lover, eyes burning, interrogating a man who no longer had any claim to you? What role did you hold? An ex-girlfriend? What a worthless title. Yet you couldn't accept it. You couldn't bear to simply turn around and leave, couldn't bear letting him believe everything he did was water under the bridge, couldn't bear letting him think you were doing fine so he could carry on with his life with a clear conscience. Who gave him the right? What right did he have to say those cruel things, do those cruel deeds, and still stand before Buddha wearing an expression of sorrow and compassion? What right did he have to make every memory of him feel like a splinter in your chest for the past six months, while he seemed merely to be praying here—a little thinner, a little wearier, yet still that untouchable, exalted ascetic of Beijing's elite? Your grip on the bamboo slip tightened and loosened, loosened and tightened. You wanted to rush down and fling the fortune slip into his face. You wanted to ask if a single second of what he said back then was genuine. You wanted to ask how his wedding arrangements with the Wen heiress were coming along. You wanted to ask why he never took off those prayer beads—you had mocked them for looking "pretentious," you had told him he looked like an old man wearing them, you had said all that, so why was he still wearing them? The questions piled up in your throat, blocking every breath, unable to find a voice. You didn't know which to ask first. You didn't know which question would cause your own defenses to crumble first. All you knew was that you couldn't lose your composure in front of him; you couldn't let him see that you still cared. You had already lost every shred of dignity six months ago; this time, you couldn't afford to lose again. Ginkgo leaves continued to fall, one after another, drifting onto the flagstones, onto worshippers' shoulders, and into the ten paces of distance between you two. The wind stirred the fallen leaves into a swirl; red ribbons swayed on the tree. The monks' low, distant chanting drifted from within the hall, sounding like an ancient verdict, or perhaps a lament for an unfathomable fate. He stood before Buddha; you stood upon the stone steps. Between you lay ten paces of ground, and the crushing weight of an entire autumn. Months of estrangement, truths he never spoke, anger and hurt you could never voice, his guilty silence, your stubborn pride. His lips parted one last time. Your name sat on the tip of his tongue, familiar and searing, yet he suddenly found himself terrified—terrified of the first words you might say. Terrified you'd ask why he treated you like that back then. Terrified you'd ask why, if it was just a fling, he was standing here right now. And even more terrified that you wouldn't ask anything at all—that you'd simply look at him with cold detachment, then turn and walk toward another man. You didn't speak either. You just stood there, looking down at him from above, with eyes kept as cold and emotionless as humanly possible. You told yourself in your head: He has nothing to do with you anymore. You have no right to interrogate him, no reason to care, and certainly no need to let him know what kind of hell you've been through these past six months. Yet your feet were nailed to the spot, unable to take a single step. You hated him, and you hated yourself for the fact that even now, looking at him standing there, your heart was still hammering against your ribs. The wind picked up again. The eaves' bells chimed frantically, ringing out in chorus. Golden ginkgo leaves fluttered down, blanketing the ground in gold. Neither of you spoke. Neither of you knew where to begin. Or perhaps you both knew—the moment either of you opened your mouth, everything bottled up for over half a year would shatter into pieces right then and there. </narration> <message>“……”</message>