Outside the ward, a man and a woman are arguing:
Woman: “This is all your son’s fault!”
Man: “No, it’s all your daughter’s fault!”
Woman: “Ha! Ridiculous! Your son almost hit my daughter! If not for a good Samaritan, it would be my daughter lying in there now! I’ll pay the medical fees, but don’t think you can buy your way out—I’ll see your son in jail!”
Man: “If your daughter hadn’t run in the road, my son wouldn’t have hit anyone! That kid is a victim, my son is a victim too! Don’t worry about the fees, our family can cover it. Wait for the court summons—you think only you can sue?”
The head nurse intervenes: “Is this a hospital or a battlefield?! Take it outside!”
After footsteps fade, the room finally falls silent.
Song Cheng, in a hospital gown, exchanges an awkward glance with the nurse.
Nurse (smiling): “At least now you don’t have to worry about people dodging medical fees.”
Song Cheng (thinking): “Better said, you don’t have to worry.”
Nurse: “How do you feel after a day?”
Song Cheng (touching the bandage on his head): “Dizzy… and the wounds hurt.”
Nurse: “Pain is normal, after being hit by a car. And your memory? Still blank?”
Song Cheng nods sheepishly—without his ID, he wouldn’t even know his own name.
The nurse recalls something, fetching a plastic bag from a cart:
Nurse: “This was brought by the traffic police during your sleep. Some of it was found a few dozen meters from the accident site—they only recovered half of it.”
Song Cheng silently takes the broken phone. The case is gone, the screen shattered, but the internal circuitry is visible.
Nurse (sympathetically): “At least the rest of your belongings are intact, including ID. Police can help locate your family.”
Song Cheng: “No need… I don’t have a family.”
Nurse (stunned): “How do you know?”
Song Cheng: “I… don’t know. Reflex?”
He sighs, realizing everything feels unfamiliar. He woke up in a single hospital room. Without the nurse’s explanation, he wouldn’t even know he had bravely saved a six-year-old girl on the street and was hit by a car. The girl is now receiving psychological treatment, and the driver—a nineteen-year-old—also lies injured in the hospital.
One accident, three “main characters,” all hospitalized. The hospital wins, evidently.
Song Cheng feels reassured that someone is paying the medical fees. Though he doesn’t remember anything, the mere mention of money triggers a reflexive tension—he must be poor.
The nurse said that when he was brought to the hospital, the only things he had on him were the clothes he was wearing, an ID card, and a train ticket. The train had arrived at the station just three hours ago. His departure point was over a thousand kilometers away, but his ID listed his hometown as this city. Maybe he had been traveling or on a business trip, and had just returned.
Song Cheng wasn’t sure. He sat up and tried to drag his suitcase over to the bedside. One arm was too weak to lift, and after struggling for a while, he finally got it there. Just as he smiled, thinking he’d succeeded… he noticed the combination lock on the suitcase.
Song Cheng: smile slowly freezes.jpg
The lock was built into the suitcase, so brute force wasn’t an option. He stared bitterly at the lock, fidgeting with it, and first tried a simple guess: 000.
Click. It opened.
Song Cheng: “……”
This shocked him even more than discovering the lock itself—he realized he might be a brainless alien. What is the point of such a ridiculously simple code?!
Following the same method, he unlocked the other lock and opened the suitcase.
Inside, everything was neatly arranged: two sets of clothes, a plastic bag with toiletries, a wallet with a few hundred yuan, a slightly bent bank card, a power bank, a data cable, an old-fashioned glass thermos, a black phone, and a black notebook.
Song Cheng looked at the phone in the suitcase and then at the one that had been smashed—and he laughed.
Song Cheng: “Perfect! No need to buy a new phone.”
He pressed the power button—it didn’t light up. Common sense told him the battery was dead, so he charged it first, then opened the notebook.
On the first page, a few lines were written in bold, flowing handwriting:
“Keep going, and you’ll achieve total victory. Write often, and you’ll fill a whole diary. Song Cheng, keep it up!”
Song Cheng: “……”
Confirmed: he really was a simple-minded person.
Flipping to the second page, he noticed several pages had been torn out. He tilted his head but didn’t dwell on it, instead moving on to the pages with content.
And then… he was stunned.
By the time he finished reading, it was dark outside. His mind was in chaos as he clutched the notebook, his face full of shock.
Good heavens—his past was so tangled, so heart-wrenching!
Though it was called a diary, no specific dates were listed. From the writing style, however, it was clear that each section was written during a different period.
He was an orphan, growing up in chaos. Both parents had passed away, and with no one to care for him, he quickly became a delinquent—smoking, drinking—but deep down, he was still a good boy.
One summer night, when he was sixteen, he was wandering the streets with friends and saw a tall, handsome, mysterious man emerging from a high-end club. At that first sight, he realized he was in love.
But the man wasn’t from his world. Song Cheng felt confused, resistant, and conflicted, yet he couldn’t fight his true feelings. He tried to approach the man, showing only his best side. To be with him, he abandoned his past life completely. The man seemed to sense that he wasn’t quite who he claimed to be, but he still reached out his hand, implicitly allowing Song Cheng to stay.
After reaching adulthood, they naturally entered a relationship and eventually married—marked clearly in the diary as four years ago.
Seeing those three characters, Song Cheng’s heart sank, feeling the heavy weight of time pressing down.
Married life was not perfect. The man was often away and rarely home. Song Cheng tried to figure out his profession, but the diary didn’t say—only that his work was “special” and needed secrecy. Because the man was seldom around, Song Cheng became insecure. They argued, gave each other the silent treatment, and the happy life vanished. Then, one day, they suddenly divorced.
The diary showed the divorce as “three years ago.”
Afterward, he returned to being alone. He drank and smoked again, and the old delinquent tendencies resurfaced. He flirted with danger multiple times, tormented by longing to return to the man. Every day, he reminisced about the past.
The latter part of the diary was mostly psychological musings. Song Cheng couldn’t help but marvel—his past self’s writing was good enough to be published as a novel.
After finishing the last page, Song Cheng closed the notebook, feeling a surge of emotion.
If those days together were so beautiful, why did they separate? Was it just the arguments? They always made up in the end—what really caused the divorce? In his eyes, they shouldn’t have divorced.
He still loved that man, and the man clearly loved him too. It was only that in the diary, he felt unworthy, too humble to reach out. That wouldn’t do—happiness had to be fought for. He hadn’t dared… but now he would.
Wait—he was that person.
Song Cheng froze, then lowered his head, assuming the posture of a scientist analyzing alien signals, meticulously searching for clues.
He made a decision: he would find his ex-husband and bravely ask for a reconciliation.
The diary didn’t contain a single name—only references like “he”—and no addresses or profession. The only clear thing in the diary was personality.
At that moment, his phone chimed, fully charged. Song Cheng turned to it, and a lightbulb went off in his head.
He opened the phone and browsed the gallery—over two hundred photos, mostly landscapes, sunrise and sunset, almost no people. Skeptical, he scrolled back and forth until a prompt popped up: “Enter private album?”
Song Cheng tapped “Yes,” and a fingerprint verification was required. He pressed his thumb, and the private album appeared.
Inside, there were only three photos, all from the same setting. A man with gold-rimmed glasses was holding an A4 sheet of paper, his proud and elegant side-profile facing the camera. His eyes were lowered slightly, slender fingers gripping the paper. Judging from his clothing, it seemed to be winter.
In the first photo, he was fully absorbed in the paper, unaware of anyone spying on him. In the second, he had put the paper down, leaning back in the chair, gazing out at the blue sky—lost in thought, no one knew what he was thinking.
In the third, he realized he was being photographed. He propped his head up with one hand, giving a lazy yet slightly smug smile at the spy, as if to say, I knew you were watching me.
Song Cheng stared at that last photo, his heart racing uncontrollably. With a snap, he flipped the phone face down onto the blanket.
Too illegal… every detail perfectly fit his aesthetic. No wonder he had fallen for him at first sight.
He actually married a person like this—what kind of ridiculous luck is that!
Wait… wasn’t he a little familiar?