What Relationship

Cheng Shuo didn't reply for a long time. The rain hadn't stopped, as if it would fall all night, overflowing with the dampness of a lifetime.

"What strange words. No matter how I look at it, you're the unluckier one." He finally spoke, "Can we... talk about something else?"

In his tone, for a rare moment, there was actually a choke.

"What is there to say?" Cen Zeng blinked. "I like you too."

He said it calmly, only then realizing what a thing that was to say.

Cheng Shuo looked at his expression and smiled, "Tell me something I don't know."

Cen Zeng felt like his brain wasn't working. In that moment, he abruptly remembered the long, lingering summer rain from the year he was sixteen.

That city became as scorching as molten gold every summer. Even a downpour couldn't wash away a single bit of the heat; it was like boiling water pouring from the sky. When he found it truly unbearable, he would wear a thin, hooded jacket and run until he was soaked to the bone.

Then he would feel stupid and hope he wouldn't get a fever. Growing pains already woke him up in the middle of the night, and doing homework with a fever made him want to pass out.

Love was an already cliché noun. Literary works had written about it thousands of times, and the required classics also praised it unreasonably.

He couldn't comprehend it, didn't understand it, and could only memorize it.

The sixteen-year-old Cen Zeng, however, just kept thinking, why can't cicadas live past summer?

In "Enjoyment in Untroubled Ease," which he had to memorize, Zhuangzi wrote that the morning mushroom knows not the waxing and waning of the moon, and the summer cicada knows not spring and autumn.

The girl at his desk was holding Márquez's "Love in the Time of Cholera," and when she got to the ending, she cried so much that he had to hand her tissues.

She thanked him silently, then abruptly asked him, "Cen Zeng, is there someone you like?"

He shook his head.

She said, "Then you're so lucky."

He didn't understand why he was lucky and didn't know how to react. He just calmly reminded her that there was still a chemistry test that day.

Until this very moment, reading a sincere and heartfelt letter, what had blurted out was actually, "You're so unlucky."

After so many years, he actually seemed to understand that "lucky."

So unlucky, why would you like someone like me?

Or rather, why fall in love with anyone at all?

Back then, the girl had just giggled and said, "Oh my god."

"Like" is a strange word, just like "love." It sounds very beautiful, but Zhang Ruoxue never discussed it with him. When he asked about his biological father in elementary school, she said, "I went through a lot of trouble to divorce him."

"Was he a good person?"

"He was a bastard."

"Then why did Mom marry him?"

"Because I foolishly loved him."

The conversation ended there. She sighed deeply and said, "It's all in the past. Go do your homework, okay?"

Talking about "like" right now, if we were to continue, I actually don't know what would come next.

"Then..." he thought for a moment, "dying at your place was probably because I really didn't have the strength to die outside. I don't know where I stole the Potassium Chloride from, that was pretty bold."

"Oh?" Cheng Shuo looked at him. "What else? Any other comments on the things you did?"

He critiqued them one by one.

"Dying in the dorm was probably because I felt I had a bit of strength and shouldn't scare you. You cared about me, asked me out for night runs; you were probably quite good to me, so there was no need to disgust you."

"So you went to disgust Wu Yin instead?" Cheng Shuo smiled. "Although I don't think he's any good, you scared him too."

"I probably felt I had to die at school, and that it needed to be discovered and stir things up. Opportunities weren't easy to find, and I really wanted to die, so there was no time to consider it."

"As for him, he puked so badly during his first anatomy class, he had to get desensitized sooner or later." Cen Zeng smiled faintly. "After all, I helped him review so many times. Collecting my body doesn't count as me owing him."

"Then what did you mean by 'quite unnecessary'?"

"It means, quite unnecessary?" Cen Zeng answered, "There was no need to be good to me, no need to force yourself to endure, no need to live either, it was all about the same. Maybe I was rather desperate, or maybe I was just tired of it, too lazy to give the world a pleasant look."

"Then why write 'thank you'?"

"Some people are willing to look at those tragic things that can easily give people PTSD, so I always have to say thank you. If someone is willing to do something for a dead person, you always have to say thank you."

"Very polite," Cheng Shuo said. "It almost made me cry when I read it."

"I probably didn't think that much," Cen Zeng said. "The last video, I must have put a lot of effort into it. I actually went out of my way to recite the Hippocratic Oath again, I must have practiced for a long time."

"The effect was perfect. It was trending on Weibo for three days."

"Thank you."

"Can you not say thank you for this kind of thing? Was it something you did that you're saying thank you for?" Cheng Shuo was exasperated.

"It's something I'm capable of doing," he answered. "Since I was going to die anyway, my death had to be useful for something."

"Stop. The matter of you leaving me a suicide note, I haven't even settled the score with you for that yet."

Cen Zeng smiled, and before Cheng Shuo could get truly angry, he sighed and said, "When I wrote it to you, I was definitely hoping that you wouldn't get entangled with me in any way. You had given too much, my mind was made up to leave, and I was afraid you'd be sad."

"Afraid I'd be sad, so you didn't even say sorry?"

"I don't know..." Cen Zeng said. "I've never written a suicide note before, but it seems I couldn't let go of you, yet I had to pretend to have let go to deceive you. I probably thought it would make you feel better. After all, only when the dead let go can the living move on."

"But did you ever think about what I would feel when I saw that letter?"

"If you're asking me to guess, the me back then probably didn't dare to even think about it. If I thought too deeply, I would be tied down, and I was afraid you'd be tied down too."

"So you just left me to be tied down by that suicide note alone?"

Cen Zeng clearly wanted to say sorry, but he looked at Cheng Shuo's face and sighed softly.

"Hug." He opened his arms.

Cheng Shuo was about to laugh out of exasperation.

"You're so perfunctory, Cen Zeng."

"I don't seem to have any defense," Cen Zeng answered. "Knowing me is rather unlucky. A fuck buddy died at your place, you also have to face my cold mother—very unlucky. To have to travel back again and again is the unluckiest of the unlucky."

"Then do you have any sincere advice? Advice on how to deal with someone like you?"

Cen Zeng considered for a moment and said, "There is one thing, but I guess you won't listen at all."

"Say it."

"Don't fall in love with a mentally ill person..." Cen Zeng said, "and especially don't fall in love with a mentally ill person like me."

"If you can..." Cen Zeng's expression was calm, "I would advise you to stay far away from me."

He spoke calmly and composedly, "Mentally ill people are hard to save, but it's very easy for them to pull you into the abyss with them. It's not worth it for someone who has given up on saving themselves."

"And I am an expert at this. Once I decide to commit suicide, I will do everything in my power to ensure I go cleanly and swiftly. After my mom's failed suicide attempt, I always found it laughable—how could she be so lacking in common sense? If it were me, I definitely wouldn't give myself the chance to apologize to the living."

"You'd better just shut up."

Cen Zeng showed an 'I knew it' expression.

"I can't persuade you, so you think you can persuade me?" Cheng Shuo found it amusing. "I won't. I'm going to fall in love with a mentally ill person. What are you going to do about it?"

As the words left his mouth, the person opposite him was left speechless.

Feeling a great sense of accomplishment, he simply took a step forward, "How about you kiss me?"

Cen Zeng actually did step forward and gave him a kiss.

It was long, their lips and teeth lingering together.

"Actually, I was considering..." Cen Zeng said, "If I can't let go, we can be fuck buddies."

"I want to be your lover," Cheng Shuo replied. "Sorry, I'm not accepting fuck buddies anymore. You're too late."

"I can't promise anything," Cen Zeng said. "That's why I didn't respond before, left no promises, and didn't dare to look at you too closely."

"Even now, I don't know when I might decide to kill myself."

He took a deep breath.

"I'm dangerous," he concluded. "You're already unlucky enough, don't do something that will so easily bring you pain."

"I don't care, it doesn't matter, I have to tie you down somehow," Cheng Shuo answered. "Since you don't know, it means you haven't decided yet. That's how I see it, anyway. I'm not even scared, so can you try not to be scared for now, too?"

Brave and fearless, his eyes were shining.

【Author's Note】

Someone just nonchalantly starts posturing: I'm an expert at suicide, my track record is verifiable.

It is verifiable, so what?

You don't really think you can scare the person you care about, do you?