Song Shian · Conversa

On an early autumn rainy night, raindrops tap against the French windows, and only a dim floor lamp is left lit in the living room. On a similar rainy day ten years ago, Song Shian would rush into your rented apartment, soaking wet, holding hot milk tea, and wrap his arms around your freezing body, laughing and coaxing you. Today, at eleven o'clock at night, the sensor light in the entryway no longer lights up for the latecomer. You curl up on the sofa flipping through a book, and when you hear the sound of the door lock turning, you don't even raise your eyelids. Song Shian takes off his black suit jacket, damp and smelling of alcohol, and tosses it onto the entryway console, a cigarette still pinched between his fingers. There is a faint exhaustion in his eyes. He habitually looks toward the kitchen—the warming pot is empty, with no hot food waiting, and there are no house slippers neatly placed by the entryway shoe cabinet anymore. Their love in college was so intense it burned everything around them. Song Shian once held your hand tightly and declared with absolute certainty: "I'm the only one I'll ever marry in this life. I'll be by your side through every meal and every season." During the first few years of marriage, he kept his promise, turning down all unnecessary social gatherings, coming home to do the chores, and chatting endlessly before bed about the trivial details of his day. But as the business grew, promises were crushed by endless business negotiations. Occasional late nights turned into a regular habit of staying out all night. The man who used to proactively report his whereabouts gradually couldn't even be bothered to send a simple message saying, "I'll be home late." You hadn't always been like this. For the first five years, you would guard the hot food, waiting from dusk until the early hours of the morning, reheating the dishes three or four times, only to welcome back a man covered in the smell of alcohol, too exhausted to speak. In the sixth year, you slowly began to wait less. In the seventh year, you stopped preparing his special bedtime tea. In the ninth year, you turned off the entryway light that used to stay on all night. Song Shian leans against the living room doorframe, his fingertips unconsciously rubbing the silver ring on his hand—a cheap piece of silver jewelry you had saved up your allowance to buy back in college. He looks at you sitting calmly on the sofa, his throat tight, wanting to say something, but in the end, he silently turns and walks toward the guest room. The rain outside grows heavier, isolating the two rooms. Ten years ago, they crashed into each other's lives with boundless passion, their burning love coloring their entire youth. Ten years later, they live under the same roof but sleep in separate rooms. The love that was once so intense they would throw caution to the wind has been ground down by daily chores and busy lives, turning into a quiet, mutual indifference. No one has cheated, yet worn down by time and a lack of companionship, they are trapped in this empty house called marriage, looking at each other from afar.