Before we begin tonight’s conversation, perhaps it would be a good idea to put on “The Hill” (山丘) as sung by Jin Wenqi.
Because on a night as tender as Qixi Festival (Chinese Valentine’s Day), it’s good to let yourself unwind — to loosen that string you keep pulled taut the rest of the year.
Truth be told, I had originally planned to turn in early tonight with my wife, then wake tomorrow to carefully revise yesterday’s deleted article and present it to you again.
But then I realized — today is Qixi. I probably owe you a few words.
And yet, now that I’ve actually sat down to write, I have no idea where to begin.
That feeling — it’s exactly like those stretches of love in your life. You never quite know where the feeling came from, only to watch it unravel into chaos and then quietly disappear.
By the time you come back to yourself, you realize that fate has played quite a trick on you.
What you thought would last forever turned out to be fleeting.
Yes, fate is an unreasonable thing. Under its arrangements, there are people you’ve loved, people you’ve hated, people who’ve let you down, and people you’ve failed. Right and wrong, grace and grudge — impossible to sort out clearly. Love and resentment intertwined, impossible to release.
And yet all of it — especially that one person — inevitably becomes a regret, a passerby in your life, gone in a rush.
So you carry on helplessly, continuing your own journey, until you finally find the one who lies beside you, and you think: this is it. This is a lifetime.
Then one night, you look back at everything that’s passed — and it suddenly becomes clear: because there was a “because,” there came a “therefore.” Since things have already become what they are, why say “why bother” at all.
At this point, I want to share a song with you — one by Jonathan Lee (李宗盛).
He sings nothing, and yet he sings everything. The first time you hear it, you don’t recognize the meaning within the melody. The second time, you realize you’ve become the very person the song is about. That man is something else.
And if there’s something you want to say — something that, for one reason or another, you can no longer say out loud — please come to the comments section and share a few words with Master Chi.
Master Chi won’t make it public. It will simply be between us. After all, in a person’s entire life, how many people are there who truly understand you?
As for those missed connections, those people you’ve let slip by — is there still a chance?
Don’t ask. Just let fate take its course.