A first love in a lifetime

Author: Li Mengchao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-05-01
Features: The Death of a Tang Princess; Love is a Simple Thing; I'm Afraid of the Dark, She's Afraid of Death; Love on a Terrifying Road; Who Can Stop Me from Feeling the Wonderful and Heartbreaking Separation with My Psychologist? The stories in the book cover everything, including "A Love That Occurs Only Once" about childhood sweethearts, a beach villa, death, and a love letter lost at sea; "Love on a Terrifying Road" about first love, "three-companions" women, emotional infidelity, and a small street; and "The Death of a Tang Princess" about Lijiang, shamans, hints, and the Tang princess's cottage.
Wu Ren has already undergone 43 treatments, and he has told almost all the trivial details of his life. At the age of three, he fought with a child in kindergarten; at nine, he joined the children's choir at the youth center; at fourteen, he broke his teacher's window; and at twenty, he took a make-up exam, and so on and so forth. Let alone the major events—promotions, marriage, and having children. There is nothing extraordinary in the 30 or so years of Wu Ren's life, and the Cultural Revolution did not greatly affect his family.
Starting from the ninth treatment, Wu Ren began to repeat his life story over and over again, especially his six loves, which he described with great enthusiasm. After the 31st treatment, his six loves seemed to become a recurring sentence in the treatment program. He couldn’t talk about other things for long and would say, "This reminds me of one of the six women in my life, the xth one. She, ah..."
I had to briefly summarize the situation of Wu Ren and his six women, otherwise, the story couldn’t continue.
The first woman was the League branch secretary in high school. She was usually serious and dressed modestly. During senior year, Wu Ren often daydreamed in class and decided to rank the female classmates in his class based on their beauty, like a heroic hierarchy in Water Margin. When he ranked her as the 22nd, their eyes met, and he had to awkwardly smile. Unexpectedly, she smiled back at him. The strings of a young heart were touched, and a joyful dance of love began. She immediately jumped from the 22nd place, "the star of death, Li Kui," to the 1st place, "the star of timely rain, Song Jiang." After that, they started dating. Wu Ren became an active member of the League branch, and her math grades mysteriously dropped. So, she suggested to the homeroom teacher that a tutoring group be formed with the top students in each subject. The teacher was delighted by the students' enthusiasm. Wu Ren naturally became the leader of the math group, and the activities continued until the day before the college entrance exams. Of course, by then, only two members remained. After the exams, they had to part ways, so they went to the park together. They had an unhappy time playing, and on the way home, their small hands held together. In the end, they both left tears of youth behind. Then came letters, but within half a year, the correspondence broke off. It wasn’t a breakup in the traditional sense, as they had never discussed love or anything like that.
The second woman was a university classmate, a lively girl who loved to laugh and talk. She was infatuated with Wu Ren and, encouraged by her roommates, wrote a love letter after getting drunk. Of course, it was a collective effort, borrowing from the copyrights of small, Shakespeare, and Liu Yong. They started dating, watching movies, eating late-night snacks, holding hands, and having ceremonial kisses. But it didn’t last long because a handsome man, a creature that handsome men hate, appeared.
The third woman was met in the school dance hall after a breakup. She was a senior girl with average looks but a trendy style. Everything that happened fit Wu Ren’s needs at the time. Less than three months later, their relationship became extraordinary. Wu Ren learned some basic knowledge and skills that a "bad man" should have from her. Less than five months later, they broke up because she said Wu Ren lacked charm. This breakup didn’t make Wu Ren too sad. It was expected. The first breakup was traumatic, the second was a fatal trauma, and the third—just a habit.
The fourth woman was an introduction after he started working. By then, Wu Ren had some experience in the love game and didn’t need to write love letters anymore. He could speak sweet nothings with his mouth. The girl dated him for three years, meeting every two weeks. Eventually, Wu Ren decided to leave her because she "lacked passion."
The fifth woman was his wife, a kind and virtuous girl. They dated for two years and then got married. After that, they had children. His wife was a woman with no flaws and no extraordinary qualities. "She’s like water—has no taste, but life can’t live without it," Wu Ren said.
The sixth woman was met at a conference in a foreign city. She was a strong, well-dressed, and socially adept woman. They had a one-night stand and then occasionally met through phone calls during his business trips. Wu Ren said, "She has many lovers, not just me. There is only a purely physical relationship between us."
Starting from the 43rd treatment, silence became more frequent. Once, Zhang Jun broke the silence and said, "I feel like our therapy is like an old gramophone playing a scratched record—always repeating the same thing but never moving to the next track. What do you think?" Wu Ren smiled lightly and recounted his six women’s stories, this time with a touch of sadness.
Not long after, Zhang Jun revealed his own experience of a breakup, and Wu Ren’s reaction was silence. Zhang Jun was an excellent therapist, and I knew that the critical moment of the treatment was approaching. But what would happen? The spark was lit when Zhang Jun said during the 51st treatment, "I feel like you think your life is very boring." At that moment, Wu Ren suddenly exploded and said, "That’s not true. I’ve never thought that." Then he stood up and left the therapy room. This was the only time he ended the treatment early. Later, during our supervision sessions, I asked him why he said that. He said, "It was mainly due to empathy. During the process of accompanying him, I repeatedly experienced his inner bitterness and frustration. Of course, other things also provided clues, like him seeking mistresses."
After Zhang Jun received supervision, a month later, Wu Ren appeared. The moment he entered the therapy room, he sat down, closed his eyes, and started talking nonstop. I thought it would be better to write down his words directly.
"You were wrong last time. I didn’t feel bored. I had a real love in my life, the one I called my 'love that occurs only once.' I don’t compare her to the other six women because she was so unique. During the summer vacation of my sophomore year, I went to my aunt’s place in Dalian for a vacation. Opposite my aunt’s house was a church. My aunt was a devout Christian and often took me there. Once, during a church event, I volunteered and met a group of nuns. It seemed that many Christians sent their children to the church for a period of time, just like the Dai people send their children to be monks for a while. They heard I was from a distant place and asked me to visit them when I had time. It turned out they lived in the church’s building, not far from where I stayed. A few days later, with nothing to do, I went to visit them. Their place was an old Gothic-style building with long, dark corridors. When I knocked, a pretty girl with big eyes opened the door. She was wearing a white long dress and asked if I needed water. I mentioned a few names, and she said they were all out and asked me to wait. I went inside their dormitory and sat for a while. She said, 'Let’s play chess,' and we played Go. She wasn’t very good, so we switched to five-in-a-row. I still won. She said, 'I’m tired of playing. Let’s chat,' and we talked for a while. She knew I was just looking for someone to play with. She smiled and said, 'If you want a tour guide, why wait so foolishly? I’ll take you out.' She took me to the streets, and Dalian was beautiful. There were villas of various styles from different countries along the coast. She said, 'If I could live in one of these houses someday, that would be great.' I said, 'What’s so great about these houses? I wouldn’t even live in them.' She stared at me in surprise and asked, 'Then where do you want to live?' I said, 'Heaven!' She laughed and said, 'Hell is closer to you.' I laughed too and said, 'Yes, very close, right next to me.' She paused, then suddenly blushed and hit me with a laugh. Later, I learned that 'hell' had a lewd meaning in The Decameron. Later, we often went out together. At first, her fellow nuns often teased us, but she didn’t seem to care at all, and I naturally acted very generous. Eventually, no one else wanted to go out with us anymore. You know the reason—no one wants to be left out.
The summer vacation, the time students both longed for and feared, was coming to an end. In a week, I would have to leave her. That day, I told her I had to leave the next day. We went to see a movie together, a romantic one, like all romantic movies, boring, full of lies, and student-like fantasies, but we both cried. On the way home, we didn’t speak the whole time. When we reached a square near her dormitory, she said, 'Let’s sit here for a while.' It was a small but cozy square where pigeons often came to beg, perching on people’s shoulders or hands. Those pigeons didn’t know how scary humans could be, just like me and her at that time.
At that moment, all was silent, the wind had died down, the setting sun only left a faint red, and the rose-yellow moon hung in the pale sky. It was such a wonderful scene—before the sun set, the moon had already risen. She said she had learned martial arts and knew some pressure points. I didn’t believe her. She said, 'Then let me press some points on you.' She pressed hard on my acupoints, starting with my hands and then my back. She bit her teeth and pressed hard, asking if it hurt. I bit my teeth and said I didn’t feel it. Her effort and eagerness were so adorable, like a kitten playing with a ball of thread. Even if it hurt, I wanted to see her cute expression again. Suddenly, she cried and said, 'Why don’t you feel it? Why don’t you feel it?' I panicked and explained that I was actually in excruciating pain but had been holding back. She laughed, and under the setting sun, her face, wet with tears, smiled at me. I stared at her blankly, and she didn’t say a word. Our lips naturally met, and my kiss drank up her entire past and future. I held her hand tightly, not letting life take her away from that moment. Time stopped. My arms embraced her, and we fell from the edge of that moment into nothingness, or eternity, or whatever. We were in love! Though we said nothing.
Later, she came to see me off, and the tears of a young man formed a river. We wrote letters crazily, loving each other as if loving the air. Writing love letters became the most important thing in our lives. The next summer vacation, we met again, and this time, we confirmed our relationship. You know what that means. It was the most perfect summer night in the world. We lay by the sea, and the monsters and birds in the ocean fell into a deep sleep. The night sky hung low with twinkling stars like diamonds. I picked up a handful of water and said to her, 'I can’t afford a diamond ring for you right now, but I can give you the stars in the sky!' She threw herself into my arms, and her tears sparkled like new stars. She said, 'I don’t want a diamond ring, I don’t want stars, I just want to be like this with you forever!' But at that time, she was living with her French teacher, Paul!
I completely lost control. I smoked, drank, and went to dance halls every day, looking for a woman to take revenge on. That’s how I met my third woman. I didn’t open any of her letters; I just tore them up. Soon, she stopped writing to me too. I guessed the same was true—she was only writing to me out of guilt. A year passed quickly, and I was also doing an internship. That’s when she started writing to me more frequently. Curiosity drove me to open the letters, but every one emphasized that she still loved me and wanted to meet me. The letters were always written in a simple and straightforward way. But a broken heart couldn’t be restored, and besides, I no longer believed those words. I had learned to live like a stone. I didn’t reply to any of the letters, and later, she stopped writing too.
Suddenly, a short while later, I received a telegraph from Paul, saying she was critically ill and hoped I would come see her. At that time, I was busy with internship exams, so two weeks later, I went to see them. As soon as I got off the train, I called her, but it was Paul who answered. Paul came to pick me up and took me straight to their place—a villa by the sea. People in their industry were very wealthy, and even a simple sailor could be considered a rich man in China. On the way, Paul didn’t say a word, and I didn’t want to talk to the woman who had stolen my heart. As soon as I sat down, I asked where she was, and Paul told me she had already—cough, she had already died. I panicked and accused him of lying. Paul said nothing but looked at me with sorrow. That day, we drank a lot. Later, I learned that she had once gone from the deep sea into the cabin without opening a decompression valve. The extreme pressure difference immediately caused pulmonary edema, and she died despite rescue efforts. Paul said she kept calling my name until the end. I was furious and demanded to know why Paul didn’t take better care of her. Paul got angry too and argued with me in broken English for a long time. It took me a long time to understand what he was saying. It turned out she had always loved me, and she got along with Paul because he fulfilled her dreams, letting her live in a villa by the sea. But a villa without love only made her more empty. She had always thought of me. Paul showed me her diary, and almost every entry had my name. I had pasted every letter I wrote to her in it, and she had replied to every one in the diary. Paul also showed me her room, and I couldn’t hold back my tears. Her room had another banner that read, 'I can’t afford a diamond ring for you right now, but I can give you the stars in the sky!' Paul said, 'I told you, sooner or later you would return to her. We hadn’t been living together for a long time. I was just taking care of her life. We were waiting for you to come and say those words to her.' The next day, we burned her diary and the letters I had written to her in front of her ashes. There was only one thought in my mind—I didn’t want to repeat it. Just before I left, Paul told me he had always suspected she had committed suicide because such a common mistake was something no diver would make. I thought she was my seventh woman, and my eternal love, the one I called my 'love that occurs only once.'
Then, Wu Ren cried freely in the therapy room.
"What happened next?" I asked Zhang Jun curiously. "After that, he never came again. I called him to ask if he wanted to turn his story into an article, and he agreed. We signed an agreement," Zhang Jun said.
Then, I was disappointed and wrote the story. After finishing it, I felt I couldn’t fully capture the feeling and set the story aside. Unexpectedly, something else happened. Three and a half months later, Wu Ren wrote to me, saying, "Dr. Zhang, I must tell you this because I don’t want to deceive others anymore. The 'love that occurs only once' I mentioned earlier wasn’t as exaggerated as I said. I did go to Dalian, and I got along well with a group of nuns. She was one of them, and we always had other people around when we played. The only time I held her hand was for about 30 seconds, and then she pulled away. I wrote her a few letters, but she didn’t reply, and that’s how it ended. We never saw each other again, and I don’t know what happened to her. That day, I had planned to tease you. I made up a story out of thin air, patching together bits from Sanmao, Shakespeare, and a few poets, and I told you it was all fake. Then I watched your awkward expression. I wanted to take revenge on you for saying my life was boring. But when I was telling the story, I actually started to believe it. And I cried. When I got home, I couldn’t believe it—I cried for a fake story I made up. For weeks, that piercing pain didn’t go away. I began to realize that this story had always been hidden in my heart, and my entire life was hidden behind this story. I couldn’t or didn’t dare to say it because if I did, I would have to face how ridiculous my teenage dreams were. This story was the driving force and source of my past life. Because of this story that I didn’t know but belonged to me, I was able to endure the mediocrity and boredom of my life. I was a child who always told myself there were wonderful things in life worth remembering, and I always believed there was a Snow White waiting for me in some place. But in reality, my life was just like a black-and-white movie—ordinary, with no thrilling or groundbreaking moments worth sharing with the world. This made me feel bored and anxious. I never had the courage to just accept my own life and instead made up beautiful stories to steal the show. It was like drug addiction—each story gave me temporary comfort, but the truth of life stood silently behind the stories. Finally, I knew the story had to end. Now, I can finally stop running from my ordinary life. Part of the credit goes to you, Dr. Zhang. If you hadn’t noticed my true feelings at that time, I might still be living in a daydream like a high school student, feeling inexplicable anxiety and pain every now and then. It turns out that only by letting go of those fantasies can I realize how happy a plain life can be!"
Now, I think neither Wuhan nor Zhang Jun is ridiculous. It’s me who is ridiculous!