I Don't Like This World, I Only Like You (我不喜歡這世界，我只喜歡你) by Qiao Yi (喬一)

Last year, I was doing an event in a pretty remote mountain area. I got jostled in the crowd and fell—my leg hit a rock hard, and the pain made me see stars. A colleague came over and helped me up, asking if I was okay. I patted the dust off and said I was fine, slapped on two band-aids, and kept working.

It wasn't until later that I realized the lower half of my pants was soaked in blood. I limped to the infirmary, where the doctor said I needed two stitches—but they had no anesthetic. Since we had work the next day and I couldn't afford to delay, I steeled myself and told them to go ahead. I'd tough it out.

I didn't make a single sound through the whole thing.

A colleague was watching from the side—this big, six-foot-tall Northeastern guy—and his eyes actually turned red. He said, "I really respect you."

I felt kind of embarrassed and said,
"It's nothing. I had surgery as a kid that hurt a hundred times more than this, and I got through it."

Back in Beijing, F came to pick us up. As soon as I got in the car, I passed out asleep. I woke up halfway and overheard my colleague chatting with him, saying,
"If she were born a few decades earlier, she'd have been Liu Hulan." (a revolutionary martyr in Chinese history)

"Is she this tough at home too?"

F replied,
"No. At home she's really clingy—cries during movies with tears and snot everywhere, always asking me to comfort her. Like a little kid."

My colleague was puzzled.
"Why?"

"Because when she's with me, she doesn't have to be strong."

I lay there listening quietly, and suddenly my nose stung with emotion.

I once read something in a book that stayed with me:
In a person's life, meeting love and meeting sex aren't rare. What's rare is meeting someone who truly understands you.

I think... this is what understanding is.