Maybe there were people out there whose love could survive anything, but mine was fragile. It needed to be nurtured in order to thrive and grow.
She was so small.
Nezha couldn’t register the choking gurgles in her throat, the glassy panic in her eyes, or the warmth of her blood as it spilled down his hands. He couldn’t, or he would shatter. As Rin bled out over the sand, the only thought running through his mind was that she was so small, so light, so fragile in his arms.
Then the twitching stopped, and she was gone.
Then, in June 2021, in a major break in their past approach, all EU members plus the UK and Norway joined the US in imposing sanctions on four Chinese CCP officials based in Xinjiang, including the party’s second most senior representative, for their treatment of the Uighur population. Beijing immediately retaliated by sanctioning five members of the European Parliament who had consistently challenged China over its human rights violations. It also extended the sanctions to the EU’s Political and Security Committee and the Berlin-based MERICS think tank, which had long warned about the risks that a more repressive China posed for Europe. The Europe–China relationship went from fragile to frayed.
“You’ve known Neha for a few years. You met him when he’d perfected his masks and pretensions. But I’ve known him since we were children. You think that he's invincible, but he is more fragile than you think. Yes, I know he’s a prick. But I also know that he’d throw himself off a cliff for you. Please stop trying to break him."
"People are fragile and desperate fools. They don’t know what’s real and what’s false, so they’ll cling to their little truths, because it’s better than imagining that their world might not matter so much after all.”