When I tried my best to recall Liu Xingzhi, from 1918 to 1928, ten years passed in the blink of an eye, and only these seven encounters.

In 1918, on the deck of a passenger ship in Wuxi, the river breeze carried the tide, and he solemnly bid me farewell.

"Yu Ge, I am sorry for what I did to you."

In 1919, at the law school's grand lecture hall, he, dressed in a long gown, shouted to the crowd below.

"I must express our stance in the current situation."

In 1922, on the corridor of a Beijing hotel, he turned his back, raised his hand, and attentively lit a cigarette for me.

"I will be careful."

In 1925, at the glass window of a bank in Shanghai, he slightly raised his head so that I could recognize him.

"I thought you might come, so I waited here."

In 1927, inside the Jinling Hotel in the French Concession, amid the red dream, he subtly reminded me.

"Miss, if you are stood up, it's better to go back early."

In 1927, at the Zhengzhang Dry Cleaner on Pubai Road, he looked vigilant, secured the doors and windows before asking me.

"Yu Ge, when did you..."

In 1928, at the entrance of Nanjing Railway Station, he pretended to be a couple with someone else, unable to say a word.

And the only time we truly spoke was at the Zhengzhang Dry Cleaner.

During the most critical moment of the revolution, at a time when life and death were at stake for us, I received an urgent order from superiors: using a white coat as a clue, personally deliver the information to the shopkeeper Shi Yu at the Zhengzhang Dry Cleaner.

Both fortune and misfortune happened at once.

Fortunately, if we hadn't met that time, he would have never known that I was his colleague.

Unfortunately, Liu Xingzhi was fighting in the bright side of the revolution, while I was silently moving forward in the dark of the revolution.

Therefore, he would write letters but wouldn't risk sending them to me.

What stood between us was initially the social etiquette of the old society, then the journey of revolutionary struggle.

I picked up the letters on the table, did not read them, but followed Liu Xingzhi's instructions, burning each one in the coal basin, watching the papers turn to ashes.

The old lady timidly asked, "Miss Yu, don't you want to see what he wrote?"

"I'm not going to look. He's dead, reading them will only make it harder."

I could guess what Liu Xingzhi wrote in the letters, he must have been missing me.

Meng Siyu, Cheng Qiuyu, Shi Yu, Zhang Liuyu.

These were his love letters to me.

In his pseudonyms, he always included my surname.

But I couldn't read those letters.

I was afraid that if I did, I would find it even harder to let go.

Looking back, my happiest days were in the spring of 1927 when the provisional municipal government was established in Shanghai.

The workers' armed uprising was a success, and the streets of Shanghai were filled with the cheers of student workers.

I was so excited, I wanted to go see Liu Xingzhi immediately.

I wanted to tell him that for the past five years, I had followed in his footsteps from Beijing to Shanghai, always by his side.

I wanted to tell him that I had read "New Era" and "Passion Daily," I had rid myself of the duplicity of capitalists and firmly joined the proletariat.

I would tell him that the shackles of the old era could no longer bind me. The future was arduous but distant, and I hoped to walk alongside you.

But what I encountered was the sound of intense gunfire, the betrayal of supposed allies.

The enemy, with the cruelest methods, shattered my fantasy of reaching Liu Xingzhi.

That year, the dawn was almost extinguished.

I knew I could no longer tell him.

People were arrested every day, and betrayal was constant. Some betrayals were unbearable for the organization.

The traitor hidden by the enemy at the Jinling Hotel was the information I reported to my superiors.

I wanted to witness that traitor's death.

But Liu Xingzhi didn't know, he just reminded me to go home early.

He knew the old me, but not the person I had become.

Looking at the Liu Xingzhi disguised as a waiter, I thought, we were so close to fighting side by side.