Spring Night of Misty Rain - Chapter 22

Shen Zeyu had tried to maintain a cold facade, but the moment she got into the car, it crumbled. She kicked off her shoes and curled into a ball on the back seat, burying her head in her knees. Her body shook with heavy, silent sobs as large tears soaked her clothes.

Hearing the weeping from the back, Xu Luosu sighed. After stowing the luggage in the trunk, she opened the rear door and sat down.

In the shadows of the car, Xu Luosu followed Shen Zeyu’s lead, taking off her shoes and squatting on the seat. She rested her chin on her knees, leaning against the window, and watched the other woman cry in silence.

Xu Luosu came from a harmonious home. Her parents were musicians with a beautiful, shared vision of love. Wealthy and protected by an elder sister, her life had been smooth sailing—she had essentially everything she ever wanted. Even when she stumbled, it was viewed merely as a learning experience.

She considered herself to have a very healthy, stable psyche.

But Shen Zeyu was different.

While she came from an intellectual family, a hereditary mental illness made her emotionally dependent on others. Her capacity to give love was built entirely on the foundation of being loved by someone else first—and preferably, being loved unconditionally.

Xu Luosu had researched her extensively, performing psychological analyses on Shen Zeyu through her written works. She had thought she understood her—every scar, every hatred, every pain. But now, she realized she knew too little. She hadn’t known about Lin Pei, nor did she know what exactly this breakdown was about.

Was it a clinical episode, or simply a human reaction to an old wound being reopened?

“Senior Sister…” Xu Luosu whispered.

Shen Zeyu was lost in her own world, unresponsive. Her cries were stifled and repressed. Xu Luosu sighed, knelt up, and moved closer, pulling Shen Zeyu into her space. “Just cry… I’m right here.”

Shen Zeyu’s body jolted, and then her composure broke completely. Like a wounded child with nowhere to hide, she wailed under Xu Luosu’s protection. “I thought…” she choked out, “I thought I could finally… finally face it.”

“But I’m terrified of her. I don’t think I’ll ever have the courage to see her again.”

“It was my own fault, so why… why do I hate her so much? Waaaaah…”

Her cries were full of accusation, but Xu Luosu didn’t know the full story and couldn’t process the context. She simply gathered Shen Zeyu into her arms, letting her lean comfortably against her.

Xu Luosu stroked her hair, soothing her like a child. “Who says you have to do anything? Who says you have to face it?”

“It’s okay if you can’t face it. It’s okay to hate her.”

Shen Zeyu cried even harder. “But I don’t want to hate her! I want to be an adult and let everything go… I don’t want to be a child anymore…”

In those fragmented sentences, Xu Luosu heard the desperate longing of a child disguised as an adult, begging for a way out of the pain. She felt a deep ache in her heart, but there was nothing she could do but let the rain of tears fall.

The Aftermath in the Dark

It took nearly half an hour for Shen Zeyu to stop, having cried herself into a state of exhaustion and oxygen deprivation.

The back seat was littered with tissues Xu Luosu had used to wipe her face. Shen Zeyu huddled in the corner, gasping for air, her head spinning with a dull ache. Xu Luosu leaned in, her eyes full of concern. “Do you feel any better, Senior Sister?”

Now that the emotional storm had passed, Shen Zeyu’s logic returned. Thinking about how she had just wailed like a baby in the other woman’s arms, she wanted the earth to swallow her whole.

Running from Lin Pei was embarrassing enough. Breaking down in front of Xu Luosu—who was so much younger—and babbling nonsense was a whole new level of humiliation.

I should just die, Shen Zeyu thought, clutching her head in frustration. “This is so humiliating…” she rasped, her voice still thick from crying.

Xu Luosu smiled faintly, gently stroking Shen Zeyu’s curls. “It’s fine. Everyone has moments like this. If you can laugh in front of people, why can’t you cry?”

Shen Zeyu looked up. In the dark, through the blur of her remaining tears, she saw a pair of bright, shimmering eyes.

“I won’t tell a soul about this,” the owner of the eyes promised, her tone steady and reassuring.

Shen Zeyu felt the prickly edges of her anxiety begin to smooth out. “Mm,” she whispered.

Xu Luosu hesitated for a moment before asking softly, “I know it might be intrusive, but… were you and Lin Pei together?”

Shen Zeyu’s heart skipped a beat. She stared into Xu Luosu’s eyes, seeing a quiet determination there. After a long silence, she finally deflated. “I don’t know if you could call it ‘being together’…”

“Oh? Why is that?”

Sometimes, secrets that can’t be told to those closest to you can be shared with someone who is a “near-stranger”—someone like a therapist.

“When I met her, I had just broken up with Shang Qiuchi,” Shen Zeyu explained, struggling to find the words. “I felt like such a failure. So, I did something stupid. I wanted to jump into a new relationship immediately just to survive the transition.”

“There were many people around me then, but I didn’t choose any of them until I met Lin Pei.”

She looked at Xu Luosu, seeking a reaction. Xu Luosu gave her an encouraging look. “Go on.”

“Lin Pei worked on the other side of our company’s business. She’s… she’s a very gentle person.”

Xu Luosu understood instantly. “But gentle people are often the ones who hurt others the most.”

Shen Zeyu tilted her head, considering this. “Yes.”

“Gentle people try not to hurt anyone. Because they don’t want to cause pain, they have no sense of boundaries. By blurring those lines, every word and action feels like they’re giving you a chance.”

Xu Luosu saw the whole picture now. Lin Pei was the type of person who gave everyone a chance, making everyone feel like a possibility. And at that time, Shen Zeyu had a gaping hole in her heart left by Shang Qiuchi. She needed love to fill it. To her, Lin Pei must have seemed like a savior.

But was someone like Lin Pei really a savior?

Xu Luosu frowned. “Senior Sister, only those who lack love are ‘passionate’ in that way. You must know that Lin Pei isn’t right for you. Even if she gave you a little love, I suspect she took much more from you.”

Every word Xu Luosu spoke was a conclusion Shen Zeyu had already reached herself through years of painful rumination. “Mm…” she mumbled unhappily.

She knew. She had known from the start that they were incompatible. Her relationship with Lin Pei was like drinking poison to quench a thirst. She knew it would eventually break. Yet, she had still hoped Lin Pei would take pity on her and pull her out of the abyss.

Instead, she had ended up attempting suicide. More than once.

Death had severed her ties to everyone, cutting through her love and hate, only to let her be reborn in the depths of that darkness.

A New Beginning

Shen Zeyu let out a long breath and rested her cheek in her hand. “Even so, I think it’s just because I’m not suited for intimacy. I mean, what even is love?”

Is it the betrayal of a childhood sweetheart? Or is it a mouth full of honeyed words from someone with hidden motives?

In the dark, Xu Luosu met Shen Zeyu’s amber eyes. “In Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving, he mentions four elements: care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. I think if one person can provide those for another, that should be love.”

Shen Zeyu laughed, a lonely sound. “That’s an ideal love. In reality, most love is a muddy mess. It’s a tangle of love and hate, ego, performance, dependency, avoidance, and anxiety. People call that ‘real love.'”

“I see how much you still care about Lin Pei,” Xu Luosu suggested after a moment of reflection. “Why not do this: take these emotions and weave them into a movie?”

Shen Zeyu stiffened, turning to look at her in disbelief.

“In this project,” Xu Luosu’s gaze was unwavering, “we can explore it together: What is true love?”

Xu Luosu’s eyes were like her heart—singular and steadfast. In the dark car, they felt like a sword piercing Shen Zeyu’s chest. Despite the cold air conditioning, Shen Zeyu felt a rush of warmth through her veins that made her fingertips tremble.

She let out a soft, amused laugh. “How coincidental. I was thinking the exact same thing. In fact… I’ve already written the script.”

During every night she couldn’t sleep, she had taken a notebook and recorded every fragment of memory. The sweet lies, the sharp pain—she recorded all of it. Not just her own, but the emotions of everyone she had ever encountered. To forget, and yet to ensure she never forgot. To love, even while hating.

Under Xu Luosu’s surprised gaze, Shen Zeyu pulled out her phone and opened a document. “Actually, from the first day I met you, I thought: if I ever film this, I have to find you.”

On that first day, she had seen Xu Luosu’s eyes. Dark eyes like those were impossible to forget.

In the dim car, the light from the phone screen illuminated both their faces. Xu Luosu reached out and took the phone. At the top of the document were four words:

Misty Rain on a Spring Night