the fact that when we meet Xiaofeng, she seems careless and carefree, and in a sense, she is, but the tragedy of her believing herself unloved (because Li Chengyin cannot love her openly) and also the tragedy of her longing to return to a place that is nothing like she remembers
the fact that she loves him, and he loves her, and neither of them truly understands or relates to the way the other person loves
the fact that he could only be truly carefree and act like the teenager he really was only with her and around her
the fact that she blames herself for every death, for every loss, even if there was nothing she could have done to prevent it
the fact that he was so calm after she discovered the betrayal, and lost his calm only when she jumped into River Oblivion
the fact that he jumped after her into the river and told her as they were falling that he would not force her to remember if she wanted to forget
the fact that he grows to hate cats after he loses her to River Oblivion, because he might not have remembered her, but he did remember her absence, and knew that there was something important he had lost
the fact that he gets entangled with Miss Xu solely because something in Miss Xu reminded him of her (and Miss Xu eventually dying forgotten and abandoned, mourned by no one except her)
the fact that his way of loving is pushing her farther away, because he ends up destroying everything and everyone she ever cared about
the fact that at the end she feels so suffocated and trapped, that she loves him but can never ever trust him (because who would trust someone who so easily got rid of a woman they pretended to love for three years, and who killed their cousin like it was nothing?)
the fact that she believes he wouldn't have jumped after her a second time
the fact that he tries to do exactly that when she leaps to what she knew was certain death
the fact that she muses right at the end that it would have been nice to be just like him, to forget and keep on forgetting
the fact that he remembers their past right after that
the fact that she prefers to kill herself rather than fall into his hands again
the fact that he spends thirty years refusing to admit that she is dead and deluding himself into believing that she actually escaped to Xiliang like she wanted (because the knowledge of having pushed her to suicide was too much to bear)
the fact that after she dies, he grows to hate things in pairs, and focuses whatever capacity he still had for love on his daughter (deluding himself into believing her to be their child), and how he eventually loses the daughter too
the fact that he tells his son that you can never mend a broken heart, and you can never force someone into loving you
Once there was a fox.
He waited for a girl.
But the girl, she never returned.
