Oh, Xie Lian, my precious little prince... You are just like me 🥲 (or sharing some moments from the book that made me a little bit too emotional)
1. “Xie Lian had always believed in „forever” — friends would always be friends forever, with no betrayal, no deception, no breaking up. Perhaps there would come a time when they had to part, but it wouldn’t be for a reason like „things got too horrible.””
2. “In all stories he’d read, the hero and the beauty were a match made in heaven. They never parted and would remain true to each other forever and ever — and if they couldn’t, it would be because they were forced apart by a tragic death and not because the hero preferred to eat meat while the beauty preferred fish, or because the hero scorned the beauty for spending too lavishly and the beauty scorned the hero for his bad habits”
3. “When he was younger, he disliked separation by nature, and it didn’t matter what if was – as long as the objects were placed together, Xie Lian would refuse to separate them. So whatever it was he built, he’d forbid anyone to touch it, and he always wished desperately that he could glue the fragile sheets together so that it’d never collapse.”
4. “Not only had the people stopped believing in him, even he could no longer believe in himself.”
5. “…right then he really wanted to be 10 years old again and run into his mother’s embrace to cry to his heart’s content.”
6. “Whether he was suffering or not, only he knew deep down”
7. “Xie Lian didn’t want to answer with „I’ll do my best”, or „I’ll try”, anymore. His sight was going dark, and he replied, „I’m sorry. I don’t.””
8. “…I may not be a saint, but I still know a faithful heart. If I did not love someone, I would never cross any such lines with them. If I did, I would never allow that person to suffer any speck of grief, even if I had to beg and collect scraps, or busk and perform on the streets to support my family.”
9. “If I am to become a God of Misfortune, then so be it. As long as I know deep down that I am not.”
10. “I choose to believe in the person who gave this to me and I’ve decided to keep wearing it”
11. “You… come back here first. Come back here and I won’t be scared.”
12. “It’s been so long since anyone listened to me talk. Won’t you stay?”
13. And the last blow. “He was clearly a god of heaven but in that moment a feeble voice cried out at the bottom of his heart… Save me —“
14. I want to finish this with something hopeful. “Rather than remembering how I was butchered and trampled hundreds of years ago, I’d prefer to remember that I ate a delicious meat bun, yesterday, no?”
