Chapter 32: When the Past Breaks Through
The flashback came without warning.
It happened on an ordinary Thursday afternoon—
the kind of quiet day that should have meant safety.
Lu Zhen had gone alone to the riverside grocery near Lanqiao Bridge after therapy, wanting something simple: fresh fruit, tea leaves, and time to clear his thoughts.
The weather was mild.
The streets were calm.
Nothing felt dangerous.
Which was why, when the sound came—
a glass bottle shattering somewhere behind him—
his entire body locked in terror before his mind understood why.
The crash echoed sharply through the store aisle.
One second he was reaching for tea tins.
The next—
the world vanished beneath memory.
—
Glass breaking.
A scream.
His mother's voice.
Not distant now.
Not fragmented.
Close.
Terrifyingly close.
"Zhenzhen—run!"
The memory hit like lightning through bone.
Lu Zhen staggered backward into a shelf.
His breath vanished.
His vision blurred violently.
And suddenly—
he was no longer standing in a grocery store.
He was seven years old again.
Barefoot in a dark kitchen.
Shards of broken glass glittering across tile floor.
His mother kneeling beside the counter—
blood on her temple.
His father shouting.
A bottle in his hand.
Rage filling every corner of the room.
The memory cut there—
abruptly.
But the damage was done.
Lu Zhen collapsed to his knees in the aisle.
Hands over his ears.
Breathing ragged and sharp.
A store employee rushed toward him.
Voices blurred around him.
Someone asked if he was hurt.
Someone else called emergency services.
But all Lu Zhen could hear was his mother screaming his name.
Again.
And again.
And again.
—
By the time Lin Xu arrived, Lu Zhen was sitting in the back office wrapped in an emergency blanket, pale and trembling uncontrollably.
The moment he saw Lin Xu—
the fragile control he had been holding shattered.
His eyes filled instantly.
Lin Xu crossed the room in three quick strides and knelt before him.
No questions.
No pressure.
Only presence.
Only arms opening.
Lu Zhen fell into them like someone drowning.
His whole body shook with delayed terror.
Lin Xu held him tightly, one hand pressed firm against the back of his head.
Grounding him.
Keeping him here.
In the present.
Safe.
"It's okay," Lin Xu whispered.
"You're here now.
You're safe now."
But Lu Zhen could barely answer.
Because the memory had cracked something open.
And what waited behind it felt enormous.
—
That evening, Dr. Mei made emergency room for him in her schedule.
The office lights were dimmed lower than usual.
The air quiet and warm.
Lu Zhen sat wrapped in a blanket on the sofa, exhausted from crying.
Lin Xu remained in the waiting room outside—
close enough if needed,
far enough to let this part belong to Lu Zhen.
Dr. Mei spoke gently.
"What did you remember?"
Lu Zhen stared at the floor.
Then answered in fragments.
"My mother was bleeding."
Pause.
"My father threw something."
Pause.
"She told me to run."
His breathing shortened again.
Dr. Mei waited calmly.
Then asked:
"What happened after that?"
And there—
the wall rose.
Lu Zhen's face went pale.
His whole body stiffened.
"I can't see it."
Dr. Mei nodded.
"That's okay."
But Lu Zhen shook his head desperately.
"No—it's there.
I can feel it.
Something worse happened after."
His voice broke.
And for the first time,
true fear entered not just memory—
but anticipation.
Because whatever remained hidden,
his body still remembered enough to fear it.
—
That night, back home,
Lin Xu did not leave his side once.
He made tea.
Sat beside him in silence.
Stayed awake until long after midnight while Lu Zhen lay curled against him on the sofa beneath blankets.
Eventually, in the hush between midnight and dawn,
Lu Zhen spoke.
Barely above a whisper.
"What if I did something terrible?"
Lin Xu's expression tightened with heartbreak.
He turned fully toward him.
"Why would you think that?"
Lu Zhen's eyes stayed fixed on the darkened window.
"Because I can't remember what happened after she told me to run."
His voice trembled harder now.
"What if she died because I froze?"
The room fell still.
Lin Xu took his face gently in both hands and made him look at him.
Then said with unwavering certainty:
"You were a child."
Tears spilled immediately down Lu Zhen's face.
Lin Xu continued:
"Whatever happened—
whatever that memory holds—
none of it was your fault."
The words echoed his mother's letter.
And perhaps that was why they hit so deeply.
Because truth repeated in love begins to sound believable.
—
Near dawn, exhaustion finally pulled Lu Zhen into restless sleep.
But before sleep claimed him fully,
one final memory fragment surfaced:
His mother collapsing.
A phone falling from his small shaking hand.
And a door slamming shut behind him.
He woke with a gasp just before sunrise.
Heart pounding.
Eyes wide.
And whispered into the quiet room:
"I was there."
Lin Xu, still awake beside him, heard the words.
And understood immediately:
The deepest truth was almost ready to surface now.
Not yet fully revealed.
But close.
Dangerously close.
And when it came—
it would change everything.