After speaking, she smiled and opened the door, heading towards the cinema. Even as she entered the theater, her smile lingered, tinged with a hint of bittersweet satisfaction after getting what she had long desired. The much-anticipated epic love story she was about to watch held little interest for her now; throughout the film, she cried more fiercely than the tragic heroine on screen. When the newlywed heroine in the movie said to the hero who was not her groom, “I will treat him as if he were you,” she walked out of the cinema. In the contest of love, women are always at a disadvantage. Women often foolishly give all their love to one man, while men have many excuses—career, future, fame, family, friendship, and so on. These excuses allow them to evade their responsibilities with apparent justification, providing reasons for not investing and reaping benefits effortlessly. Never believe a man when he says, “Darling, everything I do is for our better future!” He’s deceiving you; his efforts are for himself or for other women! If you doubt, look at history; how many successful men still cherish their humble wives?
Xie Jiayi had once told Lai Yun, “This is for our future!” From high school to university, they loved each other. Xie was very chauvinistic and possessive, while Lai, though stubborn, often gave in on small matters. In a romance novel, they would have loved each other until the end of time, never experiencing the frequent quarrels they had in their sophomore year. Why? In the dim stairwell, Xie Jiayi sat on the steps, hands in his hair, the pain in his abdomen somewhat alleviated by the sweat-soaked shirt sticking to his skin. Lai Yun drove around the brightly lit streets, where an advertisement for a private hospital stood atop a small building; she sped up, trying hard to forget the content of the ad. Both, far apart, thought of the same incident—that time! Yes, because of that time, a crack appeared in their relationship.
