Part 4 — I was left alone at the station when my ticket was handed to someone else, but after my calm reply, the expression on his face changed.

 

Part 4

The call had disconnected, but the woman’s final words lingered in the room.

The blame for everything will fall on you.

Qin immediately snatched the phone from my hand.

— “Who was that?”

— “Let go of my hand.”

— “Tan, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

— “No, Qin. For the first time, I know exactly what I’m doing.”

Ms. Lin stepped in, holding Qin’s hand back and gently pulling me behind her.

— “Do not touch her phone again.”

Wang Zhuang stood near the doorway. The girl who smiled in those photos was no longer visible on her face; her eyes were bloodshot.

— “Qin, what document was she talking about?”

— “Nothing.”

— “Are you lying to me again?”

He looked toward her, but could find no answer to give.

A few minutes later, I called my mother and explained everything. Her heavy breathing carried clearly over the line.

— “Peking University called me,” she said. “They found the rejection letter sent in your name suspicious because the signature didn’t match. But what the accountant said is a different matter entirely.”

— “What is it?”

— “There is a loan taken out in your name under Qin’s father’s company.”

Strength drained from my knees.

— “In my name?”

— “They had an old copy of your ID. Qin asked me to send your documents two years ago, claiming he needed them for a scholarship application. Daughter, we need to go to the police right now.”

Qin overheard this.

— “Tan, that debt was my business. I only used your name as collateral.”

— “Without my permission.”

— “I was going to cover it later!”

— “Just like you covered my ticket? Just like you covered my future?”

He stepped toward me.

— “You don’t understand. My father was about to close the company. If I hadn’t taken that money, everything would have collapsed.”

— “So you used my name?”

— “You were my person.”

Once upon a time, that phrase would have sounded like love to me. Now, it echoed like a chain.

Ms. Lin pulled a small recorder from her bag.

— “The accountant sent this to me. She said she recorded her conversation with Qin.”

Qin turned pale.

— “You have no right…”

— “The recording is for me,” I said.

I pressed the button.

Qin’s voice sounded through the room, clear and composed:

“Use Tan’s name. She will stay with me anyway. If she sees the debt, she’ll be scared at first, but I’ll calm her down later. The main thing is that she doesn’t go to Beijing.”

The recording continued:

“She thinks I care. Sometimes you shouldn’t tell a person the truth if you don’t want to lose them.”

The recording ended.

Qin sank into a chair. Wang Zhuang backed against the wall.

— “Did you really say that?” she asked.

— “I… the context was different.”

— “That’s your voice.”

— “Wang Zhuang, I did everything for you.”

— “No,” she shook her head. “You did everything against Tan and called it love.”

That night, we went to the police station, where I filed an official report. Peking University confirmed my enrollment and formally voided the fraudulent rejection letter. Qin’s father sent an attorney, but she listened to the details for only a few minutes before closing her briefcase.

— “I cannot defend you against a man who left his own words behind as evidence,” she told him.

For the first time, Qin was left entirely alone.

Yet the worst was still ahead for him. In the morning, the accountant sent me another document showing that an internal audit of the company had already begun, revealing several falsified accounts signed by Qin that carried my name.

Qin did not know this yet.

His phone kept ringing as I walked out of the hotel. His father’s name flashed on the screen, followed by the company director, then the bank.

And for the first time, I didn’t look back.

The following day, Qin called me twenty-one times. I answered none of them.

On the third day, his attorney came to my home, holding a printed statement.

— “Qin says everything between you was a misunderstanding,” he told me.

— “In the recording, too?”

The attorney lowered his gaze.

— “The recording changes things.”

— “Then tell him that instead of asking for my forgiveness, he should prepare to answer for his actions.”

A few weeks later, law enforcement searched the company offices. I was not there. I didn’t want to watch Qin fall. He had to account for his debts, his forged documents, and the obligations he had placed under my name all on his own. I simply provided my documentation.

One evening, I listened to the accountant’s recording again. It was the moment that stayed with me the most. For the first time, I heard a man completely hollowed out of his true self in Qin’s voice.

“She will stay with me anyway.”

Those were his words.

His voice.

His choice.

And yet, when the recording ended, I felt no joy—only exhaustion. For three years, I had tried to turn Qin into a good person. In the end, I realized it was never my duty to save him.

Returning home, I opened the door to my room. There was no longer space in my closet for the suitcase I was supposed to take to Lhasa. Sitting on the bed was a single item—an old photograph of Qin and me as children, holding a single red umbrella.

I didn’t tear the photo up.

I simply tucked it into a drawer.

An empty shelf spoke far louder than any courtroom.

Two months later, I moved to Beijing. My dormitory room was small, with the hum of elevated trains drifting through the window. In the mornings, I walked to the research center; in the evenings, I stayed at the library; and at midnight, I cooked rice in a tiny kitchen.

During those first few weeks, I often forgot that I didn’t need to consult anyone about which book to read or where to go.

Then that freedom became second nature.

My mother visited me in November, bringing along my little niece, Lin. She explored the room, walked up to the map hanging on the wall, and pointed at a tiny crane drawn in pencil.

— “That’s you,” she told me.

— “Why a crane?”

— “Because Grandma said cranes fly far away, and they only come back when they want to.”

I lowered my head so the child wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes.

— “That’s right,” I told her. “They get to decide for themselves.”

The season’s first snow fell in December. White flakes settled over the bicycle seats in the university courtyard. I wasn’t wearing gloves, but the cold no longer frightened me. In my pocket rested my grandmother’s brass crane.

That evening, a text message arrived from Qin:

Everything is over. My father sold the company. I am leaving the city. Please listen to me just once. I am waiting for you at the old tea house.

A second message followed shortly after:

Wang Zhuang left too. You are the only person I have left.

I stared at the screen for a long moment.

The old Tan would likely have gone right away, plotting on her way how to comfort him, what to forgive, and how to save a man who had drowned her name in debt.

Instead, I sent a single reply:

Your loneliness is no longer my responsibility. I hope you learn to live peacefully with your own choices.

Then I blocked his number.

Qin attempted to reach out one last time, sending an email to my university address claiming that our childhood memories were still real.

I sent no reply.

Memories can be real and still offer no reason to return.

A few months later, I went to Lhasa again—this time alone, with my own money and my own plan. I stood in front of the Potala Palace for a long time. The wind brushed against my face, and my grandmother’s brass crane swayed gently on my bag.

Coming to this place with Qin was once a promise.

Now, it was simply a place I had reached because I wanted to.

My phone no longer rang.

No one was waiting for me.

And for the first time, that didn’t mean I was alone.

The crane caught the sunlight and gleamed. I touched its tiny wing and smiled.

I was no longer returning to a place where my seat had been given away to someone else.

This time, the path was entirely my own.