অধ্যায় ৪১

এ year-end spring festival had arrived late, and the bitterest cold of deep winter had already passed. When they went out, Lu Jinran merely threw on a windbreaker, while Sheng Tan, who also wanted to travel light, had been forcibly bundled up in a fluffy cotton jacket and a thick scarf by him.

Sheng Tan let him have his way. Dressed warmly, she stepped out into the corridor and was suddenly struck by an otherworldly feeling of detachment. Her waist and legs were still aching fiercely. She bit her lip, pulling the scarf up to shield her burning hot ears, while her mind was entirely flooded with the dizzying, breathless intimacy of the past few days.

Lu Jinran hoisted her onto his back without a word of protest. At first, Sheng Tan stiffened; inside the room, she could act as she pleased, but the moment she crossed that threshold, it was as if all the boundaries had rushed back. She clung to his shoulders, wrestling with her inner turmoil, until he stopped in front of the elevator. Catching sight of their entwined reflections in the polished metal doors, she suddenly let go of her inhibitions and wrapped her arms tightly around him.

It was the New Year, and there was scarcely a soul on the island; she had no one to fear seeing them. At least for today, she could indulge herself to her heart's content.

The island weather was magnificent. Just a short walk from the hotel brought them to the seaside, where an artificial wooden boardwalk stretched along the coast. As far as the eye could see ahead and behind, there was only the two of them.

The wooden planks creaked beneath their feet, and a gentle breeze carrying the damp, cool scent of the ocean fluttered Sheng Tan's hair. She slipped down from Lu Jinran's back, switched on the handheld camcorder she had brought along, and aimed it at the churning, wave-tossed surface of the sea.

Her desire to go out for a stroll before leaving was also driven by a reluctance to waste the island's scenery; she needed to shoot a few empty frames for the film.

Sheng Tan's viewfinder was filled with the seascape, its cool tones radiating a sense of lonely desolation. This ocean had swallowed Su Bai, and it had also witnessed a love and desire as fleeting as that fireworks display.

Her camera followed her intuition. After panning across the rolling waves, the frame naturally drifted to capture a black windbreaker.

Then came the arm resting lazily on the railing, the beautifully slender knuckles, marked with the overlapping scars of a car accident and digging out ashes with bare hands.

Sheng Tan's heart skipped a beat, fluttering erratically.

*Stop it, move away.*

*I need empty frames, stop always filming him.*

Yet the camera slipped beyond her control, focusing stubbornly on Lu Jinran's striking, piercing face.

It seemed that whenever he appeared, he naturally became the absolute center of her frame.

Sheng Tan could no longer distinguish whether she was currently the director of "Monologue" filming her leading man, or simply herself, recording the dying breath of this passionate romance.

The time code in the upper right corner of the viewfinder ticked upward second by second, and the person in the center of the frame turned his head to look back at her.

Sheng Tan gave a start. Actors were strictly forbidden from looking directly into the lens during formal takes, so this was also the first time Lu Jinran didn't have to worry about professional boundaries—he was staring straight into her eyes through the camera.

The sound of the waves rose and fell, crashing relentlessly against the reefs.

Lu Jinran's bangs were disheveled by the wind, partially veering across his dark brows and eyes. His nasal bridge was high and straight, his jawline taut, and his lips pressed into a thin line. The wind caught his windbreaker, outlining his tall, slender frame, pushing his sharp, pristine youthful aura to its absolute peak.

He gazed steadily into her camera and spoke in a low voice, "Teacher, if I had confessed to you back in high school, would you have considered me?"

Caught entirely off guard, Sheng Tan's wrist trembled violently.

"You wouldn't have," the corners of his lips curved into a lonely, desolate smile. "You only ever saw me as an ordinary student of yours. There were so many men pursuing you, while I was nothing at all. I could only hide in your storage room and indulge in foolish, impossible fantasies."

Just as Sheng Tan's suffocating chest was teetering on the brink of oxygen deprivation, the mention of the "storage room" acted like a lifeline, allowing her to gasp in a ragged breath. A wave of exhaustion-like sweat broke out across her skin.

He was speaking in the persona of Su Bai.

A monologue meant for Shen Qiu.

It wasn't Lu Jinran! He wasn't talking to her!

Ah Ran from the past had only ever held a dependent, sibling-like affection for her; it was only after their reunion, seduced by her, that he had strayed from the path. If Ah Ran had harbored feelings for her all along, her sins would be far too heavy, a burden she could never bear.

Recalling how difficult he had been to tame at first, how uncomprehending he had seemed, Sheng Tan felt a slight sense of relief wash over her.

Of course not...

It simply couldn't be.

Lu Jinran's thick, long eyelashes were dampened by the sea breeze, his expression largely neutral, yet the lens ruthlessly dug deeper into him, unearthing the heavy, silt-laden bitterness of bygone years: "On the first day of school, the moment I first saw you amidst the crowd on the athletic field—you had your hair tied in a ponytail, wearing a white shirt, laughing with someone beside you—I kept wondering, did someone like me deserve to receive a smile like that in this lifetime?"

He could never forget that early autumn morning. The playground was packed to capacity as all the junior and senior high school classes assembled. He stood isolated in the shadows when the sunlight suddenly turned blinding, illuminating the gloom beneath his feet. She walked past him from the front, and a classmate nudged her, pointing him out for her to look at.

She turned around, casting a casual, fleeting glance at him across the crowd. The bright, pretty curves of her brows softened into a gentle arc, and together with the light of that moment, she carved herself into the depths of his eyes.

Sheng Tan thought to herself: *That's right, Su Bai's first sight of Shen Qiu was indeed on the playground; they just hadn't filmed that scene yet.*

Lu Jinran's voice drifted and scattered in the wind: "Shortly after, during a heavy downpour, the first time you took the initiative to reach out and touch me, I was already preparing to end my life. I had watched so many cars drive by; flattening a teenager shouldn't have been a problem at all. I had written words on the palm of my hand and left money for the driver. My family despised me, wishing I didn't exist, praying for my swift demise—they could just take whatever casual compensation was paid out, no one cared anyway. But you came. You walked straight through that rain and took my hand."

At that time, running a high fever, he had sat on the bus stop bench opposite the tutoring center, gazing hazily at her through the glass window, watching her shower affection on so many other children. He had imagined the warmth inside, waiting for her to move away from the window—the moment she walked away, he would step out onto the street, praying his gruesome death wouldn't frighten her.

Indeed, she had walked away. But the direction she chose was straight toward him.

The faint, delicate arc at the corner of Lu Jinran's lips remained lifted, though his dark, glass-like eyes were thick with heavy mist: "Why did you bother with someone like me? For a person like me, dying would have ended it all once and for all—once you got entangled, how could you ever shake me off? You have no idea the pathological depths of my craving for you. Every single day and night, I wanted you to touch me, stroke me, hold me, wanted you to treat only me well, wanted everyone else who hovered around you to vanish from my sight."

"To capture your attention, I was capable of anything," he smiled with a pristine, tender innocence, as if he were merely portraying the deepest, rawest confession of a youthful Su Bai to Shen Qiu. "I finally learned what it felt like to be caressed and gazed upon by the person you loved. But it wasn't enough. A stray dog as insatiably greedy as I was, knowing full well I had no right, still foolishly yearned to be loved."

Lu Jinran walked forward, stepping directly toward the camera, while Sheng Tan instinctively retreated.

His gaze was drowning, like a turbulent sea: "Yet you left so soon. I followed you to your new school, but you were so popular you wouldn't have cared the least bit about how much I missed you. I had to pretend my grades were slipping so you would return to my side, living under the same roof, teaching me hand in hand. But I was beyond saving; while you explained problems to me, I was imagining how to kiss the lips that spoke to me. When you drew close to me, in the dead of night I would presumptuously dream of how to make you moan, shiver, and crest for me."

"You claim this romance never truly began, but it was my entire universe, the sole reason I could breathe, keep my heart beating, and struggle to survive until today," his entire being radiated a piercing, bone-deep sorrow, his gaze burning directly into the hollow eye of the lens. "I coveted my own teacher and sister while still underage; I committed sacrilege and defied every moral code, and I would gladly trade everything I am..."

Lu Jinran parted his lips slightly toward her: "...in exchange for letting me know what it feels like to be loved."

"Teacher," he asked, "will you let me taste it? That feeling?"

This was the confession he owed her from the moments when their bodies had melted together.

Sheng Tan could barely keep a steady grip on the camera.

She heard the sound of roaring waves.

Those from the ocean, and those within her heart, beating in perfect synchronization.

Every single word Lu Jinran uttered could be seamlessly transposed onto Su Bai, perfectly reflecting the script's narrative, while simultaneously mirroring the past between herself and him.

Only now did she realize that while "Monologue" and reality seemed superficially unrelated, they shared an astonishing number of overlapping details.

Sheng Tan suppressed her emotional response, though her heart was being ruthlessly squeezed by an invisible hand.

She forcibly discarded the impossible thoughts, treating him solely as the living, breathing Su Bai. This wasn't Lu Jinran's monologue—it belonged to Su Bai!

Fixating on that bewitching face in the viewfinder, Sheng Tan switched off the camera, turned her gaze toward the open sea, and fought to calm her swirling, abnormal panic. The haunting image of Lu Jinran clutching the ashes and plunging into the sea to his death flashed through her mind once more. Overwhelmed with anguish, she gripped the railing so tightly her knuckles turned bone-white, until he peeled her fingers apart one by one and folded them into his palm.

Lu Jinran pulled her tightly into his embrace: "Director, how was my performance?"

Sheng Tan clung to him as if he were a piece of driftwood floating in a storm.

*It really was just acting, right?!*

*She knew it!*

Lu Jinran gazed deeply into her eyes: "I'm much luckier than Su Bai, aren't I? My sister loves me, doesn't she?"

Sheng Tan could not find her voice to reply. An indescribable surge of turbulent panic battered her chest. Tipping her chin upward, she captured his lips, cutting off whatever else he was about to say.

The damp, tangled heat of their lips and tongues mixed with the salty tang of the sea breeze. Deprived of oxygen, Sheng Tan tilted her head away, the suffocating ache in her chest growing unbearable, urging her to scream, to vent, to shatter the silence.

She interrogated herself, demanding to know what on earth she was playing at.

What were those endless, roaring waves inside her?

Was she actually falling for this man?!

What a joke.

She was merely utilizing him, seeking compensation and self-indulgence, driven by pure physical desire.

There couldn't be anything more.

She would never do something so foolish as to invest genuine, raw emotions into this; she swore she would never hand over the knife capable of butchering her to anyone else.

In the distance, a scheduled tourist bus rumbled past. Sheng Tan gave Lu Jinran a gentle shove: "I checked the map of the area earlier; there's a cafe just past the next two stops. I'm thirsty—go buy me a cup of coffee and bring it back. I'll wait for you right here."

She insisted on seeing Lu Jinran onto the bus. Only after watching it pull away could she finally let her defenses crumble. Her voice remained trapped, heavy in her throat, but before she could release it, her phone buzzed jarringly with a rapid succession of notifications.

Pulling it out, Sheng Tan saw a string of photos sent by Sheng Junhe.

Sweet, romantic wedding photos of him and Jiang Man.

Accompanied by a text message:

*"Tantan, your Aunt Jiang and I are registering our marriage next Thursday, on her birthday. On Wednesday, we're hosting a dinner at our home in Nanhuwan; all our family and friends are coming to celebrate. You and your brother should come back a day early to stay over. You must attend so everyone can meet you properly—our family of four cannot be missing anyone."*

Sheng Tan's finger ground down against the screen until her skin burned with a sharp, stinging pain. Her chest swelled to an agonizing, unbearable limit. Snapping the screen dark, she pressed her body hard against the railing and screamed at the top of her lungs toward the churning, rolling sea.

"Lu Jinran—!"

"Su Bai—!"

*Let it end.*

*Before she merely began to waver, before she actually fell in love with him.*

After today, whenever she called out those two names, there would no longer be anyone to answer.

Sheng Tan's face was splattered with the damp spray of the waves. Her voice quickly grew hoarse as she screamed out into the empty, desolate ocean.

It was precisely then that urgent, heavy footsteps thundered up from behind her.

The instant Sheng Tan cried out "Lu Jinran" one last time, her body tightened as she was yanked back and pulled into a crushing embrace, her spine sinking flush against a violently pounding chest.

Lu Jinran pressed her against him as if trying to grind her into his very bones: "Sheng Tan, tell me—weren't you going to get coffee? Weren't you actually trying to chase me away?"

He raised a hand, covering Sheng Tan's eyes. The gaps between his fingers were wet and cold, soaked through with sea spray.

"Were you shouting? You were clearly asking a question. Now, let me answer you on behalf of this ocean."

Lu Jinran cupped her cheeks, turning her face toward his, and kissed the corners of her eyes with a fierce, fanatical devotion.

"Lu Jinran and Su Bai are never going away. In this lifetime, no matter life or death, I am entirely yours."