Epilogue

Two years swept by.

Our daughter obtained her trial medicine at last. She placed it in my trembling hands.

“Mom, give this to Dad. Don’t dismiss it again. If you won’t do it for him, do it for me.”

I swallowed my doubts. But when she was gone, I kept doing as I had always done building him a new memory.

“Do you remember?” I said, voice light as I knitted, weaving stories. “You and Yulan studied together once. A single sweet potato, you split in halves. One bite hers, one bite yours.”

I laughed, pretending it amused me as if it were real.

But then, his deep voice broke the air:

“Even a scrawny chick can grow into a swan.”

I froze. My hands locked tight.

He was looking at me Shen Weilin fully awake. Fully present.

Softness warmed his lips. With measured gravity, he took the knitting from my hands, lifted my trembling fingers into his own.

For the first time in years, he held me.

“Then later, we had Aling. She was thin and plain as a quail. But I said, just wait one day, she’ll grow into a swan.” He smiled. “And then we had our son. Heavy, rambunctious. He hurt you in childbirth. I swore, when he was old enough, I’d spank him for it.”

His hands brushed the tears streaming down my cheeks tears that wouldn’t stop.

He pulled me into his arms.

“I woke a month ago,” he whispered into my neck. “I only wanted to see what stories you’d invent for me. For years I thought my feelings should have been obvious. Haven’t you realized? How could you believe I ever still loved someone else?”

He kissed the crown of my head, voice thick with quiet laughter. “Our daughter was right. Sometimes you’re meticulous to the core. Other times, Lanying, you’re obtuse enough to make a man tear open your head to see what lies inside.”

He tilted my face upward.

“There was never anyone else. No Yulan. No ghost. From beginning to end, I chose you.”

He held me tighter, guilt unraveling in one word:

“That night, long ago, I asked Yulan to find Yan Ming. To leave me alone with the one I truly wanted. Everything that happened after was my selfishness, not yours.”

I broke down against him, sobbing, clutching him as if I’d lose him all over again.

He buried his head against my shoulder with a sigh. “I thought you still liked Yan Ming. I thought for decades I had stolen you. But it turns out I was the thief. A selfish, lucky thief.”

His arms wrapped firm and safe around me.

And at long last, I knew.

I had not stolen the moon.

The moon had always come for me.

END