Having seen the ocean, other waters seem insignificant.

 　　 The lights were dim, the grayish color of a concrete road at dusk. It was noisy all around, the kind of sound that seemed to rush in from all directions, assaulting my ears with a painful intensity.

　　 The drinks were awful, the music was awful.

　　 Sitting in the farthest spot from the dance floor, quietly observing, subtly watching, I stealthily entered this run-down, unknown, low-class bar, observing the stories of those living a life of drunken stupor in such rudimentary conditions.

　　 I longed to discover souls with stories among these people; I desperately hoped to find the inspiration I craved, yet which had long since dried up.

　　 Everywhere I looked, there was only groaning, sickly intoxication. But this wasn't what I was looking for.

　　 A head slowly lifted from a corner, and I quickly scanned it.

　　 Her bloodshot eyes met mine. What eyes they were! Huge eyelids hung like canteens, ready to burst forth from any corner, washing over her young, beautiful face. Her

　　 eyes, which should have been beautiful when she smiled, were now bloodshot and swollen.

　　 She walked up to me, glancing forlornly at the notebook in my hand. The following exchange ensued:

"What are you writing?"

"I'm looking for a story."

"I have a story to tell you, please write it down. Please… I've never told anyone, I've always carried it all alone…"

　　 She needed an outlet.

　　I said, "Then begin."

　　 She was just an ordinary girl who had migrated from the west to the east to work and support her family. She had a beautiful name, Meizhi.

　　 Three years ago, she met a boy five years younger than her.

　　 Her story was fragmented and disjointed, clearly just a collection of scattered fragments of her inner pain. When she spoke of the boy, tears streamed down her face again.

　　 The boy dropped out of school in his teens, his parents helplessly watching his eagerness to take control of his life. He resolutely left the ivory tower for the bustling city.

　　 The girl said, "The age gap doesn't matter. I take care of him, and he tolerates me. Besides, we truly love each other."

　　 Her sincere and fervent eyes, her skillful and adept way of explaining, clearly showed that she had tried to dispel societal prejudices more than once.

　　 The girl said, "I love him so much, I'm willing to do anything for him."

　　 I asked, "What have you done for him?"

　　 The girl rattled off many things without hesitation: "Every time we broke up, I went back to him; I took care of him; when he drank and slept on the street, I went to find him; when he cheated on me, I forgave him without hesitation..."

　　 I seemed to smell the scent of a rotten apricot. It was the kind we were familiar with, a little sweet, but upon closer inspection, nauseating. Love, in the end, is like such a rotten apricot.

　　 Since you compromised and wronged yourself for him, why are you crying now?

　　 She said, "I've done so much, and he still wants to break up with me. I don't know why. Haven't I done enough?"

　　 Although I don't understand love either, many things in the world are balancing acts; only when both sides are in equilibrium can things last. The girl was clearly the one constantly giving, which piqued my interest in learning more about the boy she was talking about.

　　 The boy was handsome and refined, working as a waiter in a restaurant in Menshang. His family was of modest means, and his parents were relatively conservative and old-fashioned, which made his personality a mixture of cowardice and rebellion.　　

　　

　　 I asked, "Has the boy ever asked you for money?"

　　 She was silent for a long time, her head down, staring at her wine glass. I saw a tear fall into it, dissolving silently into the wine.

　　 She said, "I've never told anyone about this. It's because I think if I love him, I shouldn't care about these things."

　　 She said that all her savings had been spent on this boy. In Menshang, she bought everything—food, clothing, and daily necessities. And she seemed to have become his gentle money bag. Whenever he asked her for money, she would find a way to raise it.

　　 She said, "If he doesn't ask me, he'll borrow from someone else."

　　 I felt that their seemingly ordinary and common love-hate entanglement was mixed with something else, something glaring and heartbreaking.

　　 She said, "I had no other choice.

　　 " I couldn't help but interrupt her tearful outburst, "What exactly do you like about him?"

　　 She said, "I don't know either.

　　 " "Having seen the ocean, other waters are insignificant; having beheld the clouds of Wushan, other clouds are not worth seeing." Meeting someone meant being prepared to gamble everything and lose everything.

　　 Clearly, the full picture of this girl's love story was now visible.

　　 This wasn't a particularly special story; like most, it had a melodramatic plot: the boy relied on his girlfriend for daily expenses, and the girl stubbornly remained faithful to him. This was probably not the first time the boy had said he wanted to break up, nor would it be the last.

　　I finally gave up on recording her story. All I could do was offer her pale words of comfort.

　　Perhaps it was my sympathy and heartache for the girl that made me write these words. Perhaps it was my own shared experience of love and hate that touched my heart. What

　　I want to say is, knowing he's the wrong person, yet still sacrificing yourself for what you believe to be love, no one can save you. "

　　Having seen the ocean, other waters are insignificant; having beheld the clouds of Wushan, other clouds are not worth seeing." It happened with the right kind of love.

　　This is all jumbled up; I don't even know what I'm writing. 😵