Mermaid

As the days passed by, I had grown into the you in my heart.

“Disciple Mo Ran Welcomes Shizun Back From Seclusion.”

“It's better to be bitten by a dog than fooling around with you.”

Chu Wanning thought he was going to say something vulgar, but just as he was about to get angry, he heard the man whisper in his ear, “...Woof.”

I held your hand, Wanning, my heart is warm.

“You idiot! How did you die too?!”

He saw Chu Wanning's hands, raw and bleeding from climbing more than three thousand steps, carrying him on his back when he was still alive, he saw those hands slowly touching the table.

“An absolute unit, truly awe-inspiring.”

“Don't rely on yourself. If I'm here, you can rely on me.”

Where there was Shizun, there was light.

Where there was Chu Wanning, there was a flame.

Because Chu Wanning liked him, the wind was sweet and the waves were sweet.

Chu Wanning... liked him.

“Would you like to see my eyes?”

“Your eyes…?”

Mo Ran’s gaze was gentle, reflecting the figure of a man in white. He said, “Did you see that? He’s the most beautiful person in the world.”

She didn’t shed tears or drag him down. She followed him silently for twenty years.

“Your Majesty,” the old man sighed softly, “Never mind; you are no longer that young man from the past.”

“I'm not...?”

“You are not.”

“.....I can't go back?”

“You can't go back.”

A misunderstanding of one year is a misunderstanding.
A misunderstanding of ten years is an injustice.
A misunderstanding of a lifetime, from life to death, is fate.

Their fate was blighted.

Mo Ran said: “But I don't remember, I need someone to tell me. Where can I find someone who knows? Who could tell me... how I used to look?”

He remembered how Chu Wanning lowered his lashes then bent down to slowly gather the wontons from the floor, that could no longer be used, and then, after himself... with his own hands, he threw them away.

“Every once in a while, all of a sudden, I remember a joke I told when I was young, out of nowhere, just an urge to blurt it out, but then I realize, not a single person who would understand is still here.”

That person under that year's Haitang would never again... never raise his head and look at him again. Not even one last look, one last time.

“Shizun, I want to hold an umbrella over you for as long as I live.”

He hugged him, kissed him, and pressed Chu Wanning’s hand against his chest, where his heart was beating.

“Remember this position.”

“If one day I am guilty of an unforgivable crime, kill me, from here,” Mo Ran muttered as he rubbed the tip of his nose against Chu Wanning’s nose