"What misunderstanding could there be?" Ding Jinshi tossed the cigarette butt at his feet, lit another one, and took a puff. His voice tinged with mockery when he spoke again. "Gu En made him choose between her and me, and the result was, I, who had traveled thousands of miles to return, became the object of abandonment and ridicule. He Zhilan, can you understand how I felt then?"
Without waiting for He Zhilan’s response, Ding Jinshi started speaking again, "Ever since Lan Li joined the army, he’s been busy. But I never blamed him for not being able to be with me. When I decided to be with him, I told myself that I wanted to accept all of him, including his career. Then, I went abroad to study and we spent even less time together. But even then, I never blamed him for not being like other people’s partners who would visit their girlfriends overseas when they had free time. I, on the other hand, would come back whenever I had a break, whether it was a long holiday or a short leave. I did this just in case he might be on leave, so that we could have the chance to meet."
"And then what happened?" He Zhilan suddenly understood Ding Jinshi’s hatred. The depth of young love is often proportional to the depth of hatred they feel when it breaks.
"The day we broke up was my birthday. I didn’t expect him to miraculously appear in my dormitory overseas to wish me a happy birthday. Instead, I skipped class and returned to the country alone. In order to surprise him, I hid at home and made a cake, dressed up diligently for a long time, and drove to the troop station in the dark to find him by myself... "
Upon saying this, Ding Jinshi’s emotion started to crumble and a sob escaped his lips. The hand holding the cigarette covered his face, sobbing gradually turned into weeping, "The end result was, I held the cake and waited outside the station alone for the entire night. It was that night that I truly experienced utmost exhaustion. I had called him from home before I set off asking him to come to the station after midnight. He knows me so well, wouldn’t he know that I would go to find him? But, he didn’t say a word and left me there alone, choosing instead to spend the night and the whole of the next day with Gu En, never coming to find me. I spent my entire birthday at the station waiting for him. The next day, I returned home only to hear Gu En’s message. Her words resulted in me being the biggest joke in the world, making me feel like a fool. After that, I went back to school alone, never contacting Lan Li again. And he never came to find me. For many years afterward, I didn’t come back to my country."
He Zhilan didn’t understand what Gu En’s message was to Ding Jinshi, but evidently, it stung hard and made Ding Jinshi, disheartened and broken, return home alone.
It was clear, that for someone of Gu En’s character, her most potent weapon was her hurtful words.
"Do you know? During those years abroad, I was constantly hoping that if Lan Li were to suddenly appear in front of me and asked to reconcile, I would immediately agree. But such a thing, as I imagined for many years, never happened. You see, after so many years, when he saw me again, he could still stand there unflinchingly cold, not even bothering to apologize."
Only then did He Zhilan realize, it was the first time Ding Jinshi had seen Lan Li after returning to her home country. No wonder she was crying so much.