Chapter 12 The Graffiti Wall
After we got together, Gu Chaonan memorized all my preferences cold.
Food, clothes, housing, travel—he handled everything himself.
Even during short separations, he reported every detail to me.
Friends all said his care and consideration for me bordered on the inhuman.
They couldn't imagine how a man full of sharp wildness, who loved thrills and adventure, could become so clingy once in love.
Only I noticed the side of Gu Chaonan no one else knew.
His possessiveness toward me was extreme—to the point of obsession and madness.
He couldn't even stand me talking normally with other men.
What was frightening was how well Gu Chaonan disguised it.
All those surging undercurrents stayed hidden behind a calm mask.
Until I accidentally found the diary he kept in a hidden compartment.
It was filled with a liking for me so intense I could barely bear it.
From what he wrote, he was afraid he would hurt me.
So he chose to use pain to wake his own reason.
I had seen with my own eyes how, in the bathroom, he cut line after line of bloody wounds across his waist and abdomen.
I was used to returning the same measure of feeling.
But Gu Chaonan's love had already gone beyond what I could understand.
I couldn't repay it.
Continuing would only destroy both of us, so I left.
To my surprise, he didn't cling or try to find me.
A year passed in calm.
But in the middle of the night, I would always recall that bloody scene in the bathroom.
People are so complicated—unable to accept it calmly, yet unable to be thoroughly selfish either.
Until I received an email from a certain ski resort.
There was a graffiti wall there. Gu Chaonan and I had both joined a one-year pact activity.
The ski resort promised to send us the latest photos of the graffiti wall every year.
It was a marketing tactic.
But it also carried beautiful memories.
After I opened the email, I stared for a long time.
No traces of other tourists.
It had become Gu Chaonan's private diary.
Dense lines recorded his weekly updates.
He said he had listened to me and gone to see a therapist.
He said he had gotten a Samoyed and took it out to sunbathe in his free time.
He said he had collected many out-of-print horror movies I would probably like.
He said his cooking had improved a lot, and friends all praised it.
He said the wounds had scabbed over, and he no longer hurt himself.
...
A coolness touched my chin before I realized I was crying.
I hadn't cried when I Divorced Xie Yiheng.
I hadn't cried when I decided to break up with Gu Chaonan either.
Why was I crying now?
Grief, late and sudden, ran through my heart.
So it turned out I missed him too.