Chapter Four | We Pretend There’s Still a Tomorrow

Lin Nian still went home with Gu Chen.

It was a place she thought she had already said goodbye to.

The moment the key slid into the lock, her hand shook violently. The sound of metal scraping echoed endlessly in the quiet corridor.

The door opened.

Nothing had changed.

The umbrella she hadn’t taken with her back then sat on the shoe cabinet. The floor lamp in the corner of the living room—the one he used to complain about but never replaced. The pothos on the balcony, which she had once killed, and which he had quietly brought back to life.

This place didn’t feel like somewhere someone had “died.”

But it didn’t feel like a place where life could go on either.

Lin Nian stood at the doorway, suddenly unable to speak.

Gu Chen set the medicine down on the table, his movements light, as if afraid of disturbing something.

“You take the master bedroom,” he said. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Lin Nian turned to look at him, her gaze sharp as a blade.

“So now you won’t even allow yourself the right to sleep in the same bed as me?”

Gu Chen’s back stiffened visibly.

“I’m afraid that one day I might—”

“Shut up.”
She cut him off. “If you’re really that afraid, then don’t come back.”

The silence was terrifying.

In the end, Gu Chen said nothing.

That night, they still lay on the same bed.

With the distance of one person between them.

Lin Nian lay with her back to him, eyes open until dawn.

She didn’t dare sleep.

She was afraid that the moment she closed her eyes, he would stop breathing.

At four in the morning, there came an extremely soft cough from behind her.

She jolted awake, spinning around instantly.

Gu Chen was curled up, his face frighteningly pale, his forehead drenched in cold sweat.

“Gu Chen!”
She almost lunged at him.

He opened his eyes and forced a small smile.

“It’s fine.”
“Just the usual.”

But Lin Nian suddenly broke down.

She clutched his clothes tightly, her voice shaking beyond control.

“Don’t die beside me.”
“If you make me watch it happen again—I really will go crazy.”

Gu Chen raised his hand and gently touched her head.

The familiarity of the gesture made her chest ache.

“I’m sorry.”

Only then did she realize something even more cruel—

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to live.
He was using the last stretch of his life to accompany her in pretending to be normal.

The days that followed, they lived like an ordinary couple.

Buying groceries together. Cooking. Taking walks.

Gu Chen remembered all her habits—less salt, soup a little hotter, never letting the air conditioner blow directly on her.

And Lin Nian began to memorize his.

How many times a day he took his medicine. When the pain would come. What kind of weather made things worst.

She even started learning basic medical care.

Late at night, she stared at her phone screen reading articles until her eyes were bloodshot.

She didn’t dare say “the future.”

She only dared say “today.”

That afternoon, Lin Nian came out of the bathroom and saw Gu Chen sitting at the desk.

A stack of documents lay spread out before him.

She walked closer and realized they were—
Property transfer papers. Insurance beneficiary changes. Addenda to a will.

Her name appeared again and again.

Lin Nian’s fingers slowly tightened.

“What are you arranging now?”

Gu Chen didn’t look up.

“Nothing.”

“Gu Chen.”
Her voice turned cold. “Do you think that as long as you give everything to me, it counts as staying with me until the end?”

He finally looked up.

In that instant, she saw fear in his eyes.

Not fear of death.

Fear of her.

“I’m afraid you’ll be alone,” he said.

Lin Nian suddenly laughed.

She laughed until tears spilled out.

“Then why aren’t you afraid I’ll hate you?”
“Why aren’t you afraid I’ll spend my entire life living under the shadow of waiting for you to die?”

Gu Chen stood up and walked toward her.

He reached out to hold her, but she dodged away.

“Do you know what the cruelest thing is?”
Lin Nian looked at him, enunciating every word. “It’s not that you’re going to die.”

“It’s that you’re making me practice losing you every single day.”

Gu Chen’s hand froze in midair, then slowly dropped.

That night, his condition spiraled out of control for the first time.

Lin Nian held him on the floor, her hands slick with his cold sweat.

By the time the doctor arrived, dawn had already broken.

Before leaving, the doctor pulled her aside.

“At most… six months.”
“Prepare yourself mentally.”

Lin Nian nodded.

She didn’t cry.

Back in the room, she looked at Gu Chen’s sleeping face and gently held his hand.

“Six months is fine,”
she whispered. “This time, I’m not leaving.”

What she didn’t know was—

After Gu Chen woke up, he had already secretly changed the timetable to three months.

What he wanted to leave her
had never been companionship—

but room to say goodbye.