Chapter Five | The Day You Started Pushing Me Away, I Knew Time Was Running Out

Gu Chen began to grow very quiet.

Not the gentle silence he used to have, but a deliberate one—distant, controlled.

He no longer let Lin Nian accompany him to the hospital, no longer took his medicine in front of her, and even began picking fault with the food she cooked—too salty, too bland, no appetite.

The first time he told her, “You should go back,” Lin Nian stood frozen at the doorway for a long time.

“I’m not嫌弃 you,”
Gu Chen said as he lowered his head to tie his shoelaces, his tone unnaturally flat. “I just want to be alone for a while.”

Lin Nian nodded.

She didn’t say anything. She simply put the keys back into her bag.

She understood.

She understood far too well.

That night, she sat alone in the living room and turned on every light.

The brightness was blinding, yet it couldn’t drive away the darkness in her heart.

At one in the morning, the door opened.

When Gu Chen came back, his face was worse than before. His steps were unsteady.

Lin Nian immediately stood up to help him.

He instinctively dodged away.

“Don’t touch me.”

In that instant, her heart felt as if it had been squeezed mercilessly.

“Gu Chen,”
her voice was very soft, “do you think that if you’re colder to me, I’ll be able to leave more easily?”

Gu Chen didn’t answer.

He just stood there, like a wall that could collapse at any moment.

Lin Nian suddenly laughed.

There was no warmth in that smile.

“Don’t underestimate me.”
She walked up to him, enunciating every word. “I’m not living because of you.”

“I’ve lived until now—for you.”

Gu Chen’s eyes finally reddened.

From that day on, an invisible crack appeared between them.

Gu Chen began to “disappear” frequently.

He said he was meeting friends, going for checkups, or just wanted to take a walk alone.

Lin Nian never exposed him.

She only memorized the signs—his breathing growing shorter each time he came home, his lips growing paler, the pain he could no longer hide.

At night, when she held him, she would deliberately tighten her arms.

As if to confirm—

He was still there.

One dawn, Lin Nian woke up to find the space beside her empty.

Her heart sank violently. She ran barefoot through the entire apartment.

In the end, she found him on the balcony.

Gu Chen stood by the railing, the night wind whipping his clothes loudly.

Lin Nian grabbed his wrist in one swift motion.

“What are you doing?!”

Gu Chen turned to look at her, his eyes terrifyingly calm.

“Nian Nian,” he said, “if one day I’m not here anymore—”

“Shut up!”
She almost screamed. “If you dare jump from here, I’ll jump with you right now.”

Gu Chen froze.

In that moment, he finally showed fear.

Real fear.

“You can’t do this,”
he said, his voice shaking. “You can’t tie your life to mine.”

Lin Nian smiled, though tears wouldn’t stop falling.

“Then why can you?”
“You get to decide life and death on your own, and choose my future for me?”

She stepped closer, pressing her forehead against his.

“Gu Chen, remember this.”
“You’re not my whole world.”
“But if you’re gone, I’ll never be whole again for the rest of my life.”

Gu Chen closed his eyes.

That night, he cried in front of her for the first time.

Cried like someone utterly powerless.

Three days later, Lin Nian discovered something.

An entire strip of Gu Chen’s medicine was gone.

She stood in the kitchen, her palms icy cold.

That night, she waited for him to come back.

She waited until morning.

When her phone rang, she almost lunged for it.

It was the hospital.

“Mr. Gu Chen has suffered a sudden severe complication. He’s currently in the ICU.”

Lin Nian stood where she was, her ears buzzing.

She asked only one question:

“Is he conscious?”

There was a one-second pause on the other end of the line.

“His consciousness is unclear.”

Lin Nian hung up, grabbed her coat, and rushed out the door.

In the hospital corridor, for the first time, she felt—

She might really be about to lose him.

And she hadn’t even had the chance
to say a proper goodbye.