I'm going to lose him.

There was no reason, just intuition, even if he went to class every day with those thick black-rimmed glasses, as usual, and studied those steam engines in his studio after class, as if everything was normal.

But I just knew I was going to lose him.

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My name is Qin Yuexin, I am six years old Chinese New Year's Eve today, I have a husband who loves me, and I have a pair of lovely children. In the eyes of many people, I am the standard of a happy life and the measure of a good life. But only I know that I have never gotten him from beginning to end.

His name is Shi Sheng, a rare surname, a very common name. The first time I saw him was in the library on the university campus, where the winter sun shone through the large floor-to-ceiling windows on the beech tabletop. He sat across from me with a book in his hand and read it very carefully.

I don't know what kind of psychology I had at that time, and I don't know where I got the courage, but I, who had always been shy about talking to strangers, couldn't help but ask him a question after he sat down for five minutes.

"Classmate, are you from the School of Philosophy?"

I still remember the way he looked, looking up a little dazedly, his black pupils as deep as a well, and he couldn't see his thoughts. He wore a pair of black-rimmed glasses with thick lenses, and his voice was low, as if he were a little sad.

"Oh, I'm not, I'm a major in thermal power engineering, not a philosophical college."

He was very polite, but there was some faint resistance in the politeness, and that feeling was as if he was the only one in the whole world. Moreover, that was the first time I knew that our school also had a major in thermal power engineering.

However, he didn't seem to be a person with very low emotional intelligence, and after answering my question, he quickly understood the source of my problem. In his hands is a thick copy of "Mao Zedong's Selected Works", looking at the quality of the pages, it is at least a few decades old.

"This is my hobby, it's rare, isn't it?" , he smiled, a little shy, a little detached.

That was the first time I saw him, my love, my husband.

————————————

The second time I met him was three months later, when he represented the School of Power and Mechanics in the Student Innovation and Technology Competition jointly organized by the school and the Beijing Municipality, and his entry was a half-human-sized steam engine.

At that time, I probably only knew that the steam engine was the main power of mankind before the advent of the internal combustion engine. In my mind, the steam engine is associated with the clattering of the locomotive and the coal that blows ash everywhere. To me, the steam engine is like a monster from ancient times, cold and hideous.

But the steam engine he made had a different beauty on the stage of the finals, shining silver. I don't understand the comments of those experts on thermal efficiency, conversion rate, etc., I only know that he won the second prize in the end, and he laughed like a child on stage.

That night, through my sister, I asked him for a call and asked him to dinner.

Looking back now, it was the most important decision of my life.

——————————

“…… Girls don't like these things in general. ”

In the small café outside the east gate of the school, he stirred the coffee with a spoon in one hand and pressed the other elbow on the table top of the small round table, looking at me with some curiosity.

"Do you like it?"

"Ah...... Oh...... I ......"

I was a little flustered, this was the first time I had taken the initiative to ask a strange boy out for dinner, and even I couldn't tell why it was him. Maybe it was Cupid who passed by the library that day and shot an arrow in my back. Maybe it was the spirit of his steam engine that he seriously introduced on the podium last night. Perhaps, it's just a casual act that I don't know which brain twitches.

“…… I actually...... It's good ......", I muttered, although I initiated this date, but I really sat across from him, and I realized that I knew very little about him. I didn't know where he was from, what movies he liked, what books he read, what sports he played, whether he had a girlfriend or not, and even the reasons why I wanted to ask him out were blurred in my nervous mind.

"Oh, it's pretty rare", he seemed to misunderstand what I meant, and opened up the conversation, "...... You know what? The steam engine is actually a more efficient energy source than the internal combustion engine, and it is less polluting to the environment, and the steam turbine used in the thermal power plant is a typical example. Moreover, in terms of the efficiency and upper limit of high-power output, the steam engine is also much higher than the internal combustion engine, and the steam turbine has a much higher utilization rate than the gas turbine in the case of high-power power equipment such as extra-large ships and heavy-duty equipment......"

That night, he was excited and talked to me a lot. But where do I have any interest in listening to the technical generation difference between the three-fold reflux blades and single crystal pointing shaping, and how can I have any knowledge to understand the selection and advantages of the three-stage high-pressure steam turbine and the seventh-stage low-pressure steam turbine. I just watched him quietly and listened.

Just listening.

I don't remember who said it, serious men are the most attractive.

"Can we still meet?"

By the time we parted that day, it was already late. He wore a funny little hat and rubbed his hands together. Beijing was not warm in late winter and early spring, and he and I wanted to go back to the dormitory as soon as possible.

"We're ......," he hesitated, "it's better if you don't like me." ”

"Huh?!"

It was the first time I was rejected, before I even knew if I liked him or not. But to my surprise, I wasn't much angry, just a little funny.

Where did he get the confidence to think I would like him?

“…… I'm sorry I ......."

He seemed to know that such an answer was an offense, but it seemed that something was pushing him in the shadows, and he couldn't stop.

“…… I'll leave someday, I'm afraid to hurt you. ”

That was the last word he spoke to me that night. In the deep darkness of the night, under the dim street lamps of the school, he turned away with a thin figure with glasses, determined and alone.

It's as if the hero who walks alone towards an invincible enemy is intoxicating.

————————

We're still together.

It was not quite what I imagined, but after just a few meals and two movies, he took the initiative to hold my hand. His hands were warm, and his palms were a little wet. I don't remember which book I read it in, but when people are nervous, their palms get wet. But I remember that he was never nervous.

Never.

Whether it's that excellent graduation thesis, or the opportunity to study abroad, or the good news that I want to accompany him. Whether it's me giving him his favorite Difference Machine in English on his birthday, or him standing in front of me with a ring on my hand, I've never seen him nervous.

It's as if he is a passer-by in this world, and all the existence of this world, including myself, is just a landscape for him.

I know the idea is ridiculous, and I know he's as real as I am. But I don't know why, after countless times of our crazy sex, I leaned on his arm, listened to his deep voice, recalled the bits and pieces of our experience, but there was always some illusion that I couldn't grasp something.

I know his hobbies, his recipes, the movies and books he likes to watch. I know he writes science fiction novels and has high-level accounts on several well-known science fiction and military forums. I know that he was obsessed with Marxism and Mao Zedong Thought, and even wrote two papers on guerrilla tactics. I know he likes the steam engine, the kind that goes crazy. I know everything about him, all of him.

But I always felt that I never had him.

——————————

"I'm leaving, wait until I get back."

After getting married, he returned to teach at our alma mater, and I worked as a secretary in a state-owned enterprise. We bought a tiny house in Beijing and gave birth to a son and a daughter. The son's name is Pine Cone and the daughter's name is Potato. He doesn't smoke or drink, rarely party, and comes home on time almost every day, and I don't have any hobbies, I just read novels and write something on the Internet, and in the eyes of everyone, our lives are a happy mess.

But I always felt like I was going to lose him. Maybe it was the first time I went on a date, and his words made a deep impression on me, so I always unconsciously had fear.

My best friend, who studied psychology, once helped me analyze it, and she told me that my mentality is typical of Stockholm syndrome, because I was threatened to leave on my first date.

Is that really the case? I do not know. All I know is that every night, or afternoon, the moment he comes back from class and opens the door, it is the happiest time of my life.

Even I don't know why I like him so much.

————————

"Do you know why my name is Shi Sheng?"

One day, after dinner, after the children had fallen asleep, he was lying on the bed with a copy of Lenin in his hand, and turned his head to ask me. I lay lazily on the bed with my eyes closed. The exhaustion of putting my child to sleep made me not concentrate too much, and I could only give vague answers.

"Because in the legend here, there is a thing called the Sansheng Stone, and it is said that from that stone, you can see your own three lives. I turned the word upside down and removed the three, which is Shisheng. ”

He reached out and stroked my forehead, gently and lightly, his palm, as usual, a little wet.

“…… Didn't your parents give you your name? ”

I subconsciously answered and fell into a deep sleep. At that time, I didn't know what he meant.

Until now, I don't know what he meant by those words.

————————

"I'm gone, love you."

On that day, as usual, the children went to school and kindergarten, and the house was full of toys and the remains of the over-energetic babies, and he stood at the door and said goodbye softly. I poked my head out of the bedroom and waved at him.

Go ahead, have me at home.

I rarely hear him talk about it, but I know that he really likes me. In his favorite studio, there is always a picture of me. As his wife, I had to go into that room every week to clean the small lathes and tools, as well as the large bookshelves and countless books. I used to browse through the books in my spare time, looking at their names one by one.

"Capital", "Selected Works of Mao Zedong", "Marxist Speculation", "Party History", ......

"New Dynamics", "Research on High Temperature Blade Engineering", "Key Points of Engine Design", ......

"Ten Generals of World War II", "Hundred Years of War", "Three Industrial Revolutions - The Gears of History" ......

I don't know why his hobbies are so special and independent of each other, just like I don't know why I invited him to eat at the café next to the school many years ago. I carefully cleaned the room, put everything back in place, and sometimes, I could see his half-finished products.

It was power machinery, large and small, with different roles and appearances, and the only common denominator was that they were all steam engines.

Perhaps, the man who likes old objects and old ideas is the man who attracts me, right?

I closed the door to his room and went to work. The work in the state-owned enterprises is relatively easy, and many times, I work later than him.

But no matter what, every night, we would go back to our home, back to this warm and comfortable place, like a cruise ship that had been floating for a long time, back to the harbor.

——————————

"I'm back."

That night, he returned. We eat, play with the children, and put them to sleep as usual. But for some reason, he suddenly had a strong interest that day, we had crazy sex, and his requests seemed endless, which once made me feel like I had reached heaven.

I don't know why, but I always feel strange.

It was as if something had left his body.

From that day on, he hadn't been to his favorite studio for a long time, and after a while, he had moved out all the books he liked, the books he had collected for a long time, the small machine tools that he had spent millions, and the designs and parts that filled the entire basement.

I didn't ask where he had moved, I just stood in the door and watched him and the moving company go away.

It was only then that I remembered that that morning, when he went out to say goodbye, he didn't add the sentence I hear every day at the end of the sentence, as usual.

"Wait until I get back."

————————

My life is the same as usual, husband, children, house and happy life. In the eyes of others, I am simply a model of a happy life and a benchmark for a better life. But only I know that I have lost him.

Maybe it was the morning when he said "I love you" and pushed the door open, maybe it was the moment he brought me the ring, maybe it was the moment I sat across from him and watched him pick up the spoon and stir the coffee.

Perhaps, I never got him.

I always remember the first time I saw him, his eyes. Those deep black pupils were deep, as if no one in this world could see the bottom.

——————————

"Don't fall in love with me, I'll leave someday, I'm afraid to hurt you."

One night, I suddenly understood what he meant. Although there is no reason, although the man named Shi Sheng is still lying next to me, I just understand what he wants to say at night many years ago, standing under the dim street lamp.

Perhaps, you are really just a passerby in this world.

Shi Sheng, my love.