Bringing the Nation's Husband Home

As Lu Jinnian said this, he suddenly covered his face with his hand, and quietly knelt there in front of the gravestone. His shoulders started to tremble ever so slightly.

After two hundred and fifty-one days of being reunited, they had to split up again. The anguish was far more intense than imagined.

Every moment of these two hundred and fifty-one days gradually replayed in his mind in slow motion, one frame at a time.

They were cold as strangers when they were pretending to be husband and wife. To draw himself closer to her, he removed all but one beds in the mansion. Finally, he got what he wished for. With her lying beside him in bed, it actually felt like torture. Night after night, he was unable to sleep.

He still clearly remembered the first night. Whilst she was asleep, she unknowingly stuck to his arm. It was like a bolt of lightning had shocked his entire body, and he pushed her off the bed...

In his mansion in Mount Yi, she looked after him when he was sick... Shooting scenes with her on "Alluring Times", singing that song "There was You in My Youth" with her at the Royal Palace, going to watch a movie together, the streets they’ve walked together, the restaurants they’d eaten in, the words they said...

And the secrets that she didn’t know. The "paper, scissors, rock" confession for her, the gift brand "Shmily" that he personally created for her, the note hidden in the porcelain doll he gave her, the song "What a Pity" he sang for her...

The memories that accompanied him... They were like a hand that ruthlessly grasped tightly onto his heart. The pain made his entire body shiver, causing uncontrollable tears to fall through the crack between his fingers. Tear-by-tear, they crashed onto the gravestone in front of him.

Lu Jinnian stayed by the grave for most of the night. Besides his eyes that were slightly red, his expression looked as calm and cold as usual. He sat in the car for quite some time after, then casually turned some the music in the car. A mellow song came on.

"Miss you, not only because of loneliness. In the end, I didn’t lie to you, there’s really love.

"I dare make the whole world my enemy. For you, I have suffered the utmost. These sufferings, I would even accept...."

Lu Jinnian’s throat rumbled up and down a few times. He slowly stepped on the accelerator, as he turned the steering wheel down the mountain.

"What a pity, to have lost you in the end. Sorry, I tried my best.

"I never gave up, I just stopped seeing you. I thought this would mean I won’t be hurt..."

In the dead of the night, there wasn’t a single person on the suburban streets, just Lu Jinnian’s speeding car.

"What a pity, we can’t go back. The sad tears grow more intense.

"I have always gracefully declined other people’s love, all because of your uncertainty..."

He stared straight at the road ahead, tears flowing down his face once again. His lips moved, but no sound came out. He slowly mouthed the lyrics along to the music,

"I have always gracefully declined other people’s love, all because of your uncertainty.

"Actually, in my heart, I want to beg you not to leave..."

-

The day after Qiao Anhao left Mian Xiu Garden and flew to Milan with Zhao Meng, she shot the cosmetics commercial that Lu Jinnian had previously helped her get.

The commercial was just over ten seconds long, but the shoot was quite demanding. It needed to be shot in five locations; Milan, Paris, Rome, Athens, and the Vatican city.

Qiao Anhao stayed in Europe for almost half a month until she finished the shoot. Her ticket was booked for a next day return from Paris to Beijing.