This article is adapted from "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Between You and Me."
(Eight) Dear Mr. Whale, Are You Well?
I think maybe it was because I tried too hard to love and to hate in the past few years, which caused me to become somewhat indifferent in the following years. Xu Jinnian and I held hands, embraced, and kissed like all couples do, and like all couples, we met each other's parents in our sophomore year. His parents were fairly satisfied with me and even wanted us to get engaged first. I had no objection; I thought this kind of life, though ordinary, was reassuring. There would be no great disappointments or pain. And over these years together, Xu Jinnian, as he said, never hurt me. I feel that my feelings for Xu Jinnian came before love, but all of this felt perfect, didn't it?
If, if there had been no news of Su Nianle...
It was during the summer vacation of our junior year. I was returning home from Nanjing when I ran into Du Mingwei on the street. She was wearing a white dress, her complexion fair, frail and delicate. She was even more beautiful than a few years ago. She stared at me in a daze. I nodded to her lightly, intending to pass by casually, but she suddenly grabbed me and said, "Tianlan, Nianle has passed away."
At that moment, everything changed, the sky fell and the earth shattered. My lips bruised and pale, I said, "What nonsense are you saying?"
She quietly lowered her eyelids and said, "He went out to sea at the beginning of the year, encountered a tsunami, and passed away."
I stood there in a daze, and when I finally realized it, I suddenly collapsed to the ground and wept loudly.
Su Nianle, I never expected that you were so important to me. I thought that after these few years, your presence would have been erased from my mind. But when I heard the news that I would never see you again, I suddenly felt so much hatred—hatred for how those years of playful time with you had passed, why in our youthful recklessness I didn't know how to cherish it, and instead chose to willfully miss and hurt.
Du Mingwei gently helped me up and said, "Nianle knows you are very happy now. He is very satisfied. Ruan Tianlan, you have always been this happy."
After saying this, she turned and walked away. After a few steps, she looked back, hesitant to speak, and said, "Ruan Tianlan, you know, I've always been jealous of you. Later, I read Su Nianle's old diary; he only told you he liked me out of spite when he saw you were in an online relationship. Although I never felt Nianle's heart before, I always took joy in your stubbornness because it was the only proof capable of spoiling your bond."That year, I deliberately acted weak at the school gate and let you push me aside, also as a performance for Nian Le. I admit, I liked him, so I used all means. But why is it that you didn't have to do anything, yet he gave everything for you?
During the summer of sophomore year, you went to Qingdao. Nian Le knew it was Xu Jinnian who helped you arrange it, so he had a fight with him, then rushed overnight to Dalian to find you, searching through the night without sleep. But later Song Lanhai told him that you had returned. He didn't immediately rush back, but when you saw him, you launched into a flood of ridicule.
In the third year, during the college entrance exam, Nian Le was resentful but still applied to the Maritime University. Because he said you once told him a very beautiful sentence: 'The sea is a sky turned upside down.' He gave up years of dreams for just this one sentence from you, and without hesitation went to Maritime University.
Ruan Tianlan, I thought that by ruining your relationship, as long as I was by his side, he would always notice me. Yet, my beauty, my intelligence, in his eyes, could not compare to your playful laughter and anger. In the diary he wrote before leaving, it still said 'as long as you're happy.'
……
I could no longer hear a single word Du Mingwei said. I just felt a huge wave cover me, drowning my mouth and nose, drowning my breath, until I was tightly, tightly unable to breathe.
I miss my dear Su Nianle, I miss my dear Su Nianle so much.
Su Nianle, I always thought I was that firefly that burned itself, but unexpectedly, you were the same. I remember at that time, when you saw my username, you still smiled and said you were Mr. Whale. But why, in my reckless youth, did I ignore such an important sentence? 'The sea is a sky turned upside down.'
My dear Su Nianle, my dear Mr. Whale, are you alright? That empty big belly of yours, why is it filled with loneliness?
Do you know? I miss you very much.
