The first day of the new year—everything renewed.
In the early hours of the morning, the night was especially lively. Fireworks bloomed across the sky above the entire city.
Light slipped through the gaps in the curtains and into the room. Li Jichuan lifted his head from his laptop, paused for a moment, then turned to look at Su Pu’s sleeping face, illuminated by shifting colors.
Explosions signaled rebirth. People were desperate to break free from the old year; the whole city was new, moving forward.
That night, Li Jichuan dreamed of a bus filled with roses. All of them were sitting on it as the bus kept driving forward, passing through flower fields and cities, down streets and alleyways.
At some point, in the dream, he looked around—and realized Su Pu wasn’t on the bus.
He pushed through the thick roses and stuck his head out the window, only to see Su Pu running behind the bus.
Su Pu ran as he waved at them.
The poor little mute couldn’t make a sound. His pants were torn in several places, his clothes filthy—he’d probably fallen more than once.
Li Jichuan panicked and shouted for the bus to stop, but it kept moving forward. All the passengers were laughing loudly.
“Stop—wait—wait for Su Pu!”
He shouted with all his strength, but no one paid attention.
Time kept moving forward. The bus kept going.
Only Su Pu was left behind…
…
The nightmare felt endless. But when Li Jichuan jolted awake and checked the time, it was only a little past three in the morning.
The sky outside was still pitch-black, with only a few stubborn fireworks quietly blooming in the distance.
Unable to fall back asleep, Li Jichuan left the family bed, sat down in his wheelchair, and rolled over to Su Pu’s hospital bed.
Su Pu was sleeping peacefully, clutching the teddy bear.
This was his fourth day in the hospital, yet there was still no sign of improvement. Doctors had come, specially invited experts had been consulted—everyone was at a loss.
When the heart is sick, where does the medicine come from?
All they could do was wait.
Wait for a miracle. Or, worse, wait as time passed—until this whole life slipped away.
Still, there was one small consolation.
Li Jichuan realized that the current Su Pu no longer had nightmares.
But Su Pu slept day and night, always holding that teddy bear, as if he hadn’t slept in a very long time.
Li Jichuan desperately wanted to know why this bear had such power—
why it had to be this one.
When the teddy bear was swapped out for plush dogs, rabbits, or kittens, Su Pu wouldn’t even spare them a glance.
But whenever Li Jichuan took advantage of a moment when Su Pu was awake and handed him his phone, trying to get him to explain why, Su Pu would clutch the phone with a blank expression, as if he had no idea what it was even for.
It was as though Su Pu had forgotten how to type at all…
After evaluation by the doctors, Su Pu’s current psychological age was estimated to be around seven or eight—possibly even younger.
To him, all of them were just unfamiliar adults.
The moment that thought surfaced, an unprecedented sense of crisis surged in Li Jichuan’s chest. From time to time, he would shake Su Pu gently by the arm and tell him,
“Your name is Su Pu. You’re twenty-four—after the New Year, you’ll be twenty-five. You have a job you like, you make really good coffee, and you have two close friends, one named Ouyang and one named Pei Zhicheng…”
“And most importantly, you’re married. Your husband’s name is Li Jichuan. He loves you very much, and he can’t live without you…”
Su Pu listened in a daze. After a brief pause, his eyelids started to droop again.
He turned over, hugged the bear, and fell asleep.
Li Jichuan reflected on it—he’d said too much. Of course Su Pu would feel tired.
So he bent down, leaned close, and pressed a kiss to Su Pu’s cheek.
Then he spoke very softly, this time focusing only on what mattered.
“Su Pu, I’m your husband. Li Jichuan… don’t forget me.”
Afterward, he felt that what he’d just done was incredibly foolish.
How could he be this childish? Was he eight years old too?
Li Jichuan let out a hoarse chuckle and lowered his head, returning to his work.
Tap.
A few drops of water fell onto the back of his hand and onto the keyboard. He wiped his face, then smiled again as he murmured,
Su Pu, please—don’t forget me.
I’m begging you.
…
Early on New Year’s morning, Uncle Wang came by, carrying a carefully prepared, nutritious breakfast from Mantian and Changchang.
“They kept insisting on coming to visit,” Uncle Wang said cheerfully, chattering away as he spoke. “But the doctor said you need peace and quiet, so I didn’t let them come…”
As he talked, he took the packaged food out of the bags and laid it out on Su Pu’s small bedside table.
The table quickly filled up. Uncle Wang reached out and tapped the nose of the dazed little person sitting on the bed.
“See if there’s anything you like today, you skinny little monkey.”
Su Pu blinked slowly. Skinny little monkey—it felt like he’d heard that somewhere before.
That day, Su Pu’s appetite suddenly surged. He ate half a bowl of porridge and two red-bean buns.
The buns were shaped like little pigs. They were a bit hot, so Su Pu pinched one by its tiny pig hoof. As he stared at it, his eyes curved into a smile.
He shifted his hand, letting his teddy bear have a look at the pig bun too.
But in the end, both buns went into his own mouth. The teddy bear could only look—no eating.
Thinking of that, Su Pu smiled smugly to himself.
After a full meal, the little mute’s condition visibly improved.
With the morning sunlight just right, Su Pu hugged his bear and basked in the sun. Li Jichuan held his phone and tried again.
“Xiao Pu, what’s my name?”
Su Pu stared at the phone in terror. It looked far too complicated—he was afraid of breaking it and didn’t dare touch it at all.
“…”
Once again, Li Jichuan failed. Holding the phone, he swiped his finger across the screen.
To his surprise, it unlocked smoothly. There was no passcode set on this phone.
His brows knit in confusion. He glanced at the little mute—who was already nodding off again—then looked back at the screen.
His fingertip hovered over it for a moment before he tapped into Su Pu’s notes app.
【When will my husband come home… I miss him.】
The very first entry made his eyes burn.
Accompanied by the long, steady sound of the little mute’s breathing, Li Jichuan kept scrolling.
Unlike the things Su Pu wrote to Grandpa, these notes to himself were far more casual.
They recorded recipes for new coffee drinks, Li Jichuan’s training data, the birthdays and preferences of the household staff…
Mixed in were his moods—but Li Jichuan had to scroll for a long time to find each one.
Warm sunlight bathed the two of them in the hospital room. Amid the steady rise and fall of breathing, two muffled sobs suddenly slipped in.
Li Jichuan bit down on the back of his hand as he kept reading.
So this is what Su Pu’s world was like…
This idiot really was an idiot…
Li Jichuan had always thought he understood Su Pu—his personality, his preferences, his passions and pursuits, and the nightmares wrapped tightly around him.
But all of that was only the tip of the iceberg.
The notes recorded a Su Pu who stood on the far side of the sun—a Su Pu no one had ever seen.
Su Pu missed Grandpa terribly. After Grandpa passed away, Su Pu still wrote to him, reporting regularly on the condition of the grandson he worried about most.
Su Pu blamed himself for not being able to help his husband, for leaving him to shoulder so much pressure alone.
Su Pu was deeply upset that he didn’t have a UK visa and that it was already too late to apply for one.
Su Pu desperately wanted to win first place in the coffee competition. Su Pu hated that he couldn’t speak.
Su Pu felt jealous of Su Hui and wished things would go badly for him.
He also despised a regular customer who always stared at his ass. Every time that man came in, Su Pu would make an excuse to go to the restroom, then squat on the floor of the break room, pretending to be a mushroom.
Su Pu didn’t dare tell anyone who he missed, who he hated, or what he wished for.
He was afraid of becoming a burden to others—and afraid that what he hoped for would so often go unfulfilled.
Su Pu hoped Li Jichuan wouldn’t be so busy, hoped he would smile at him more. He loved it when Li Jichuan suddenly leaned in to kiss him.
Su Pu was actually afraid of psychological counseling, afraid of the things he couldn’t remember.
And afraid of not knowing just how much he’d already forgotten.
Su Pu liked the new clothes in the wardrobe. Every time he went out, he wanted to dress nicely—but every time he did, he’d hear a voice mocking him, saying he was ugly, saying he was embarrassing.
Su Pu didn’t want to look ugly, and he didn’t want to embarrass Li Jichuan, so he never wore any of those clothes.
In the summer, Su Pu wanted to ask Li Jichuan to go watch the fireworks festival with him, but he was afraid Li Jichuan would be too busy, and that his request would be meaningless. In the end, he chose to stay at school, helping to collect survey data.
As a result, Su Pu missed the last fireworks of last summer.
Su Pu’s mother had been cruel—but he still missed her.
Su Pu’s thoughts were trivial, delicate, and tangled, each thread weaving into a web he couldn’t escape, tightly wrapping around him.
It was only then that Li Jichuan realized the crux of the problem: because the little mute never spoke, he had assumed Su Pu shared the same emotions as everyone else. But Su Pu’s world was far more fragile than anyone else’s.
Because he possessed so little, he clung tightly to every little thing he had.
So every hurt left a mark, and every loss was hard to mend.
Everyone else was busy living, busy growing, charging ahead like warriors conquering obstacles. Time moved forward relentlessly; the bus of life kept rolling.
But Su Pu was left behind.
Only Su Pu remained, picking up the fallen roses.