Back Then, I Adored You

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio  Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

“Jiayan, did you know? Death is the only choice I have now.

“Only my dying will make the photographs that the Lins have worthless. It’s the only way I will not become the destroyer of your marriage. It’s the only way our child will not be constantly subjected to the threat of death. It’s the only way that I can accompany our child forever.”

The diary slipped through Qin Jiayan’s fingers, and he pressed his head against the headboard to force himself to hold back the stinging sensation in his eyes.

He sat in silence for a long while before he suddenly slipped out of his sheet, put on his shoes, and went downstairs. Without any warning, he announced to Mother Qin and Qin Zhi’ai, “I can’t get married.”

I can’t get married. If I hadn’t learned the truth, I might be able to get through life with Xia Yi, but now that I know, how could I marry another girl?

Mother Qin strongly reacted. “Why? The engagement banquet is the day after tomorrow, and we’ve already prepared everything!”

Qin Jiayan was not in a rush to explain, and he waited until they had fully digested his words before he told them everything that had happened between him and Su Qing.

Being a soft-hearted person, tears fell from Mother Qin’s eyes after she listened to the emotional, tragic story. She sighed out a few times consecutively before exclaiming that it was hard to believe that such a foolish girl ever existed.

Qin Jiayan had finally settled on his marriage after so much difficulty and many years but, while Mother Qin was regretful that it was falling through now, she did not try to stop him from backing out.

Qin Jiayan waited until the next day before contacting Xia Yi. As he asked her out, his mind was overflowing with thoughts on how he should bring up the subject with Xia Yi. Once she had gotten in his car, however, before he could speak, Xia Yi said, “Jiayan, let’s not get engaged tomorrow. I’ve already brought it up with my parents, and they’ve agreed with me.”

Qin Jiayan was stunned. He had never expected Xia Yi to end their engagement before it had even begun.

“Jiayan, your mother contacted me this morning and told me about your situation.”

Although Xia Yi had known him for a long time, she had never dared to say out loud that she liked him, but now that she was breaking up with him she easily stated, “I do like you very much, and I would love to marry you if I could. But Jiayan, I’m not a fool. All the times I’ve been with you, I knew that your heart was not with me. When your mother told me the story about Su Qing, I knew that I would never stand a chance to be in your heart in my lifetime. In this world, not every girl is like Su Qing and can love another person so purely.”

“Before I met you, I’d been on many blind dates, and the reason I chose you was because you were the most outstanding man I had met, so don’t feel guilty, Jiayan. Luckily, I have not immersed myself too deeply, and there is still room to turn back. Let’s part on good terms.”

After Xia Yi said this, as if she’d prepared, she took out the ring from her purse before Qin Jiayan could say anything, and she placed it on the passenger’s seat before she pushed open the car door, got out, and left.

In the past, she would always turn her head around to take one glance at Qin Jiayan after she got out of his car. This was the first time that she never looked back.

Just like what she said earlier, some women are foolish while some women are smart.

Even though Su Qing was the foolish type, she was also the smart type. As a smart woman, she had managed to protect both of us no how reluctant she was to part with me.

…

Three years after Xia Yi broke off her engagement with Qin Jiayan, he returned home from a business trip to endlessly drizzling rain on Chinese Tomb Sweeping Day.

Instead of heading home, he drove directly to a florist to pick up a huge bouquet he had ordered and then went to the cemetery.

He stood before Su Qing’s grave for a very long time and said many things to her from his heart. When he was done, he bent down to place the bouquet on her grave before he turned and left.

He got back into his car and steered back to the city.

At red lights, Qin Jiayan gazed at the thick rain through the windshield and, indistinctly, he could see the Su Qing he knew more than 10 years ago. She smiled at him, enhancing how pretty she was, and she was radiant with youth…

…

In a small town in Jiangnan, a two-year-old boy was holding onto a balloon as he tottered over to a woman who was squatting by the river and washing her laundry.

“Mommy, mommy…”

When the woman heard him, she turned her head and said in a gentle voice, “Be careful. It’s slippery. Don’t fall…”

The little boy ran over to her with his back facing toward sun. When the woman turned her head to look at him, the light shined into her face, illuminating her features. Her face looked identical to the face Qin Jiayan saw as he drove his car through the outskirts of Beijing.