The Stolen Lover

Untitled Episode 11

Xiao Yan lowered her gaze, her eyes flickering. "It was like that, but not entirely. Does he know the scholar well?"

"I didn't ask for details. I first met him when my friend, who was his girlfriend at the time, took me to his bar. It was only a few days ago. Most of what I know about him comes from my friend's casual chats. Anyway, he's siding with the scholar. I told him to stay out of it. If I knew, I wouldn't need him to meddle."

"So you just met him today? Then he knows more than Scholar does."

"He'll definitely tell Scholar when he gets back. That's what I think anyway. You and that Scholar aren't cut from the same cloth. Just have him pass the message to Scholar. This whole thing started because you were momentarily confused. Now that you've come to your senses, he should give up. It's not that I think he's poor. If you're going to find someone, find a couple you can actually talk to. All these years, you haven't even been willing to tell him about your past. What's the point of staying with him then? Break up with him quickly and find someone else. If you can't find anyone like me, there's nothing wrong with being alone. A woman shouldn't put up with such misery."

"Truthfully, I haven't made up my mind yet. We'll see how things unfold. Give me that person's contact info. Let Scholar reach out to him, and I'll speak with him myself."

Xiao Qiao flipped through her phone as she continued, "Don't put it off—that won't solve anything. You need to talk it out face-to-face. If you can't, I'll talk to Xiucai for you. This isn't like before. Besides, you two don't have kids. Divorce is just a piece of paper. If you don't plan to divorce, then don't keep dragging it out. Take a break for a while, then go back and live however you need to. Honestly, marrying anyone is marrying someone. Aren't all men the same in the end?"

Xiao Qiao kept chattering away. Xiao Yan leaned her head against Xiao Qiao. "I'm tired. I'll rest for a bit," she said, closing her eyes and falling silent.

Xiao Qiao gently cradled Xiaoyan's head on her lap, running her fingers through her hair like a mother comforting her daughter.

When Nan Ge finally came to his senses, he felt as though he'd relived everything through Xiao Yan's eyes and ears. In truth, he'd been sitting motionless by the riverbank all along, not even a cigarette butt beneath his feet, just sitting like that for hours. By now, the crescent moon hung high in the sky, peeking in and out from behind thin clouds.

He glanced at his phone, noting Xiu Cai hadn't replied. Nan knew the scholar must be utterly heartbroken now—having served as a substitute for a dead person all these years, the resentment must be unbearable. He sent a message: "Brother, come over. Let's talk."

After Nan Ge got in the car, Xiucai replied with a simple "Okay." Nan Ge thought to himself that he didn't know what words of comfort to offer when they met. Better to get drunk, he decided. Drunkenness would offer release; he could figure things out another day.

Truthfully, the puzzle in Brother Nan's mind remained unsolved. If Xiao Yan was merely seeking solace, that person could have been anyone. The plot in Scholar's book bore similarities to Xiao Yan's experiences, but that alone wasn't enough to make her resolve firm. Among Xiao Yan's replies, some resonated with her own history, while others touched on feelings she could sense but couldn't articulate.

Brother Nan thought: even if they couldn't be together in the end, he had to understand what Xiu Cai truly felt for him. If he was going to die, he wanted to die with clarity.

With that thought, Nan Ge opened the watch again, intending to send Xiao Yan a message as Xiu Cai. Before he could send it, Xiu Cai had already sent it himself: "If I'm just a substitute, did you ever truly love me all these years?"

Nan Ge looked at him and thought that while the question was direct, it also showed the scholar's sincerity and urgency. So he quickly added, "If I'm just a substitute, have you ever hated me all these years?"

The car glided through the tunnel of sycamore trees. A sudden gust of wind swept through, and Nan Ge suddenly realized it was the lingering warmth that kept this city alive. Every narrow lane here had been walked hand-in-hand by a couple, in every small shop, joy had once been shared; beneath every towering sycamore, two people leaned against each other in passionate kisses; in every house, two people dreamed of a lifetime together; and with every storm, someone would instinctively think of the other. Nan Ge felt he and the Scholar were no different. The question the Scholar wanted to ask, he too had someone he wanted to ask it of—only he couldn't bring himself to say it.

Xiao Yan had just returned to his newly rented apartment after confronting Xiao Qiao when he received a message from Xiucai. Reading the two messages side by side, Xiao Yan felt a mix of absurdity and deep emotion.

"If I'm just a substitute, did you ever truly love me all these years?"

"If I'm just a substitute, have you ever hated me all these years?"

Xiao Yan was too sensitive. Knowing someone had sought out Xiao Qiao only solidified her previous suspicions—or rather, she had never doubted her judgment.

She could instinctively tell which messages came from Xiucai and which didn't. She felt a kind of resonance with this man who could understand her so deeply despite the scarcity of information—a connection that had existed since the very first message, even if she hadn't realized it herself.

Xiao Yan was the kind of child who cried and laughed at Snow White stories, never outgrowing that innocence. In college, she met her future fiancé, Zhang Wen, a boy from Shandong, and poured all her feelings into him.

It wasn't surprising that Zhang Wen and Xiaoyan ended up together. Freshman year, Zhang Wen was still keeping in touch with his childhood sweetheart, until distance ruthlessly stripped away the veil between youthful romantic ideals and reality. In truth, Xiaoyan had actively pursued this kind of guy back then, naively believing that a boy capable of sentimental love was already a rare find.

Back then, Xiaoyan seemed too perfect. Zhang Wen felt a bit insecure at first, but over time, the raw, unfiltered love of youth washed away those doubts. The most memorable incident occurred when Zhang Wen lit a massive sky lantern beneath Xiaoyan's dormitory building—it could easily have been mistaken for a hot air balloon. As it rose slowly, the entire dormitory rushed out to see the illuminated characters "Xiaoyan" above. But before it reached the fourth floor, the wind scattered their love, setting fire to half the iron trees in the grove and even requiring the fire department to respond. Zhang Wen nearly got expelled over that incident.

As for the everyday anecdotes Xiaoyan loved to recount—like delivering lunch boxes or tying shoelaces—they seemed childishly trivial to Xiaoyan.

In the first semester of their sophomore year, Xiaoyan and Zhang Wen rented a house in a neighborhood right by Huju Road, just steps from campus. Those sweet days of shopping for groceries and cooking together gave them a blueprint for imagining their future.

But they were still two inexperienced kids. Xiaoyan clearly remembered the first time she went alone to the hospital for an abortion while Zhang Wen, unaware of anything, was playing basketball on the court. They drifted apart for over half a year because of this incident. Who exactly failed to say that crucial word? They never really argued it out clearly.

Their love back then was intoxicating. Though many boys pursued Xiaoyan, she believed that even through hardship, fidelity to love must be upheld. She was just angry with him—not that she didn't love him.

The story that followed was more mundane. They lived together like a married couple. Zhang Wen cooked for her every day, accompanied her to every park, and the rest was just the two of them having wild, passionate s*x.

Over three years, Xiaoyan underwent three abortions. The year they graduated, they separated for a while. Zhang Wen never knew until his death that the doctor had told Xiaoyan her uterine lining was naturally thin, and after three miscarriages, she would likely never be able to conceive again.

Back then, boys always swore they'd shield girls from life's storms, not realizing they themselves were the storm.

Yet Zhang Wen relentlessly pursued Xiaoyan's return. He couldn't fathom where he'd gone wrong, driven only by an unwavering determination to win her back. He never understood how much Xiaoyan had sacrificed to come back to him.

Finally, they began their life together. Through years of hardship, Zhang Wen learned how to love Xiaoyan, and the two grew increasingly alike—their expressions when speaking, their thought processes, their ways of doing things. Close friends would often hear the same joke from both of them.

During the years spent rushing between film sets, they consciously created some distance, which paradoxically allowed their bond to mature. Being apart helped her discern more clearly which communications stemmed from habit and which from genuine longing. The temptations and controversies of the entertainment world constantly tested them, with Zhang Wen naturally bearing more pressure. He often remarked, "Two dogs fight over a bone, but two people fight over the idea of a bone." He understood that only by navigating these challenges could they reach their destination.

The Zhang Wen Xiao Yan loved was one who was constantly changing, growing, and transforming. The Zhang Wen who loved Xiao Yan was the one who remained unchanged all these years. Xiao Yan remembered the lies he told to please her mother when he first met her, how he spoke earnestly about his career and his love and promises to her. He admitted he might not always live up to the promises he made that day, but he vowed to never treat her badly. His sincerity and earnestness won over his future mother-in-law instantly. Xiao Yan thought, if she were a mother, she too would trust him with her daughter.

Zhang Wen was the one who could make Xiao Yan laugh the most. Actually, he didn't even need to try—just seeing him would make her smile involuntarily. It had been that way for many years. Even after living together day in and day out for so long, when Xiao Yan looked at Zhang Wen, he still felt like the Saturday morning sunlight, warming the blue quilt, the scent of soy milk coaxing her out of bed. The breakup rate for college sweethearts was practically 100%. Watching countless couples reach their end only strengthened their conviction in their own destiny. They understood clearly that their mutual devotion and perseverance meant their meeting was a gift from heaven, and their love was a gift to each other.

The reality might not have been as idyllic as Xiaoyan remembered, but she chose to recall only the sweetness. For ordinary lovers, affection often meant embracing each other's pain—a pain that kept them vividly alive. The day that ache faded, their hearts would turn to ashes, drifting aimlessly with the current. The poem says, "In youth, one knows not sorrow's taste; now, sorrow's taste is known to the fullest." It speaks of loving for love's sake in youth, where that heart-wrenching thrill is indispensable. But once that phase of relishing torment passes, and true heartbreak arrives, all one wishes to remember are the beautiful moments. Those beautiful moments alone are enough to kill a person a thousand times over.

The accident struck too suddenly, as if heaven itself grew jealous of their perfection. Without warning, Zhang Wen collapsed on set. Xiao Yan, filming in Suzhou at the time, received Zhang Wen's call. He was still joking on the other end, assuming it was nothing serious—just a case of poor digestion from eating boxed meals on set for too long. By the time Xiao Yan rushed back to Nanjing and arrived at the hospital, Zhang Wen's brother skipped the usual preamble before delivering the diagnosis—it knocked her flat. She refused to believe it. Even when the doctor pronounced the death sentence, she clung to the hope it was a mistake, or that Zhang Wen and his rowdy friends were playing a prank on her. Yes, just acting to tease her. For days, she acted as if nothing was wrong, teasing Zhang Wen about how long he planned to play this game—just a stomach bug, after all. How many more days did he intend to lounge in bed? It wasn’t until Zhang Wen’s parents arrived at the hospital, wailing and distraught, that Xiao Yan finally accepted the reality of it all.