The wind didn't just blow; it hunted. It clawed at Lin Hao's collar, slipping beneath the fraying fabric of his coat like a cold hand searching for a heartbeat. He didn't shiver. Shivering required a rebellion of the muscles he no longer possessed. He simply stood, a vertical shadow against the jagged gravel of the rooftop, watching his own silhouette stretch toward the edge—long, thin, and precarious.
Below him, the city was a restless, neon beast. Horns blared in a rhythmic discord, and flickering signs cast bruised purples and sickly yellows over the throngs of people moving through their lives. They moved with purpose, with the frantic energy of those who still believed their presence mattered.
Lin Hao felt the weight of the phone in his palm. The screen was a black mirror, reflecting nothing but the hollows of his own eyes. It hadn't buzzed in three days.
The pain in his chest wasn't sharp anymore. It had aged into a dull, structural ache, like a beam in a house that had been rotting for a decade. He wasn't thinking of the cold. He was thinking of the specific way Shen Yue's gaze used to be an anchor—and how, over the years, it had turned into a flinch.
I am the ghost in her peripheral vision, he thought.
Then there was Anya. Five years old, with eyes too bright for the grime of their neighborhood. The way she had whispered "Uncle"—a title he hadn't earned but desperately wanted to keep. The word had lodged itself between his ribs like a splinter. He had never pulled it out. He'd just smiled and let the skin grow over it.
He closed his eyes, let the wind buffet his face. He felt no malice toward Zhao Mei and her "gentle" concern that tasted like poison, nor for Chen Rui, whose quiet insinuations were more effective than any loud accusation. He didn't even hate Shen Yue for believing them.
He only felt a profound, weary apology. It rose in his throat, unsaid, a prayer to a God he didn't believe in: I'm sorry I wasn't enough to make you stay.
The wind surged, a violent shove against his chest. It wasn't an invitation to jump; it was an expression of total indifference. The universe wasn't asking him to leave; it just wouldn't notice if he did.
If I disappear, he whispered to the gravel, the air in their lungs might finally feel light.
Flashback: The Golden Mirage (14 Years Earlier)
The sun was an intruder that day. It spilled through the cheap lace curtains of the wedding hall, highlighting the dust motes dancing over second-hand plastic chairs. It was a wedding built on hope and recycled decorations.
Lin Hao adjusted his cuffs. The suit was a size too small, the fabric straining across his shoulders, a physical reminder of a life he was trying to outgrow. But then Shen Yue's fingers were there, brushing his lapel.
"You look like a king," she breathed.
He looked down at her. Her dress was borrowed, the lace slightly yellowed by time, but she was radiant. She was the only clean thing in his world. Her hands trembled as he took them—small, bird-like things that he promised himself he would never crush.
"I don't have much to offer you," he said, his voice a raw fracture in the silence.
She didn't hesitate. She stepped into his space, her smile turning the cheap hall into a cathedral. "You have you, Lin Hao. That's the only kingdom I want."
When she said "Forever," it didn't sound like a vow. It sounded like a fact of nature.
The Erosion
The descent wasn't a cliff; it was a slope.
It was the apartment with walls so thin they inherited their neighbors' grief. It was the scent of garlic and ginger in the kitchen that slowly gave way to the smell of cold takeout and silence.
"You've worked so hard," Zhao Mei would say during her frequent visits, her voice like silk over a razor. "A woman like you, Yue'er... you shouldn't have to wait until midnight to see your husband's face."
Lin Hao would stand in the doorway, covered in the gray dust of the construction site, watching his wife's expression shift. She didn't defend him anymore. She just looked at the flour on her hands and sighed.
Then came Chen Rui. "Don't let the work bury you, Hao," he'd say with a heavy hand on Lin's shoulder. The subtext was a funeral dirge: You're already dead to her. Why are you still trying?
The laughter died first. Then the eye contact. Then the "I'm sorrys" became a punctuation mark for every conversation, a meaningless sound they made to fill the void where their hearts used to beat in sync.
The Precipice
Back on the rooftop, the blur of the city began to look like a watercolor painting left out in the rain.
When did loving you become a crime? The question was a jagged piece of glass in his mind. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the bitterness, but it was rooted deep. He looked down at the street. From this height, the people looked like ants. Easily stepped on. Easily forgotten.
He took a half-step forward. The wind screamed in approval.
The Awakening
In a room miles away, the world was white.
The silence was broken only by the rhythmic, clinical hiss-click of a ventilator. Shen Yue felt as though she were rising through deep, dark water. Her limbs were lead; her eyelids were sewn shut with exhaustion.
Then, a voice. It wasn't in the room, but it was in the marrow of her bones. I never stopped loving you.
Her eyes snapped open. The fluorescent lights were blinding, a sterile purgatory. A doctor was hovering nearby, a clipboard in hand, his voice a low drone that suddenly sharpened into focus.
"Congratulations, Mrs. Lin. The tests are conclusive. You're six weeks pregnant."
The world stopped. Shen Yue's hand moved instinctively to the hollow of her stomach. A sob, jagged and terrifying, broke from her throat. It wasn't joy. It wasn't grief. It was a realization that arrived too late.
"Lin Hao..." she whispered, her voice cracking.
But the only answer was the steady, indifferent beat of the heart monitor.