Teacher Ye Tan:
I am a post-90s entrepreneur, please call me Liangzi. I have been following you silently and admire you for remaining calm and transparent in the face of illness. You are like a beam of light, allowing us in the darkness to see persistence and hope.
Today, I mustered up all the courage to write this letter, telling you the deepest suffering and helplessness in my heart, and asking you to give me and my wife some guidance.
I have been in love with my wife since high school, and it took me ten years to marry her into my family. My father left me when I was in high school. At that time, my family was poor and my future was unclear. Her appearance illuminated my gloomy youth and gave me the courage to fight hard. After marriage, I focused on my career and tried my best to provide a stable world for her.
We are deeply involved in smart lock installation and after-sales service, and have gone through ups and downs along the way, and have achieved many achievements: 58.com ranked first in Kunming for 8 consecutive years, Meituan ranked first for 4 consecutive years, and JD.com ranked first for two consecutive years. Later, it undertook official installation and after-sales service for many well-known brands such as Samsung, Bosch, Cadiz, Deschmann, EZVIZ, Haier, and Lucker, laying out the entire Yunnan service market and making its service the best in the province.
I just ran forward, but forgot about my wife who was silently supporting me behind me.
As the official service provider of many brands, my wife always walks side by side with me. She supports the entire family and the entire team, taking orders, communicating, and coordinating every day, facing countless customer emotions and trivial disputes, and working overtime until one or two in the morning all year round. Day after day, she is physically and mentally exhausted. But I was immersed in the glory of my career, ignoring her increasingly tired body and her silent hard work.
October 8, 2025, is an unforgettable day in my life. My wife, who was only 32 years old, was diagnosed with breast cancer with bone metastasis. At the age of 32, it is the right age for flowers to bloom. The sudden bad news made my life instantly press the pause button, and the whole world collapsed.
I took her to many hospitals and sought medical treatment everywhere. He was initially diagnosed at the First People's Hospital of Yunnan Province, and then went to the Yunnan Provincial Cancer Hospital and West China Hospital of Sichuan University. Everywhere I went, I held the greatest hope, just to find a glimmer of hope for her.
In the past few months, we have insisted on regular treatment. Although the breast mass has shrunk, the bone metastasis is still progressing. Just today, I accompanied my wife for another review. The moment I took the report sheet, I felt anxious and at a loss.
Later I learned that the Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University has Lu177 that can be used to treat bone metastases. When I heard that one injection costs 50,000 yuan, I realized: in the face of life and health, all industry firsts, career achievements, wealth and glory are as light as dust.
In order to focus on taking care of her, I took the initiative to shut down the platform operation this year and only retained the most basic smart lock installation and after-sales service. I have to support the family, have a stable income, treat her illness, and protect her.
Now I try my best to take good care of her. Every morning, I accompany her for a walk in the park; at seven o'clock in the evening, I get her off work on time; I encourage her to take a break at noon over and over again. However, years of busyness have long been engraved in her bones. Although she has tried hard to change, it is still difficult for her to develop the habit of taking a lunch break.
To outsiders, everything seemed normal except that she couldn't exercise strenuously. Only I know that every re-examination and every report keeps me awake all night and makes me feel heartbroken.
I was calm on the outside, but inside I was full of helplessness and suffering, and fell into deep regret. I once thought that starting a business successfully would mean giving her the best life. But in the end, instead of allowing her to enjoy peace and happiness, she was forced to stay up late and work hard with me, carrying heavy loads, and eventually her body collapsed from exhaustion. This guilt gnaws at my heart day and night.
Teacher Ye Tan, you are the most tenacious and powerful role model I have ever seen on this difficult road. Your calmness and openness in facing the pain gave me the courage to carry on.
I really hope to get some advice from you, it will be a great comfort to our family to see the light of the future.
I sincerely wish you safety and health, success and worry-free, and always be treated gently by time.
Sincerely, Ryoko
March 2, 2026
Dear Ryoko:
Thank you for the warmth you bring to this world.
The world has a cruel side and a gentle side. I have seen couples who were in love with each other in the ward, and I have also seen couples who announced their divorce just a few months after suffering from cancer.
The world of illness is extreme, and everything is compressed to the extreme, including extreme tenderness and extreme indifference, and patients and their families strive to find a balance between the two ends.
After spending nearly four years fighting cancer, I have always advocated that we should not mythologise family ties, friendship, or let patients have hallucinations, so that we can live peacefully.
There is no life-long contract that must be fulfilled in this world, because we are sentient beings with seven emotions and six desires, full of compassion, but also full of shortcomings. Most of us are afraid of trouble, dislike the old, and cannot withstand long-term pressure.
Accept ordinary human nature, calm your mind, watch flowers become flowers, see trees become trees, be grateful when you receive love, and be indifferent when you lose love.
Although I can usually accept the changes in this world calmly, seeing that gentle glimmer of light in a broken world still makes me moved to tears.
Looking at you is like looking at a boy and girl walking hand in hand with a smile, and a hole in my heart is filled.
The moment you hold the hand of your beloved girl, your heart must be filled with flowers, just like the grassland in spring. Doesn’t it feel like the sky is getting brighter? You have worked hard to start a business after marriage, hoping to have a warm and wealthy home in the future. You are constantly traveling for business, and your wife is constantly answering the phone. This kind of hard work is the daily sweetness that ordinary people cannot ask for.
You are like a big tree struggling to take root, trying to flourish and protect your loved ones from the wind and rain – you have always done this, and you have done it, and you have done so well.
If you want to continue to take good care of your wife in the future, please first say to yourself, I did it, and I did it well.
Did you know? Sometimes, when faced with great fear, people will instinctively want to grab something or blame something, as if this can regain a sense of control in an out-of-control world.
Regret is one such emotion.
But it's not your fault that your wife is sick. Life is very random. We never know when a card will fall from the sky and hit us on the head, which happens to be the one we fear the most.
In the past, you and she worked happily for the future. That is not wrong, it is a form of love. You have created that ordinary but happy little family together. It is the result of your more than ten years of hard work and perseverance. It is her willingness to marry you. It is the hardships you have endured together and the sweetness of laughing together. It is the hands you are holding in front of the hospital bed now, and it is the tears you shed late at night.
There is nothing wrong with this love, and there is nothing wrong with you desperately trying to give her a future.
Try to forgive yourself for being busy, even if only for a moment. We are all mortals, we are all groping forward in life, we are all working hard according to mortal methods, and we cannot see the script of fate in advance.
Now, love has changed into a form, it has become companionship, it has become a rush on the road to seek medical treatment, it has become your steady look when she wakes up, and your punctual shoulder at seven o'clock in the evening.
You did everything you could – put down your work, take her everywhere to seek medical treatment, and be her most solid support. Don't be hard on yourself.
You love her so much that you turn your love into confession.
If you repent all the time, how can you be worthy of such a good woman? Love her self so much?
Even in the most difficult times, you have to give yourself time to be grateful. Thank God for making me so happy every day in the past. Even if we lose today, our happiness is eternal; thank God for allowing us to walk hand in hand and giving me the opportunity to take care of the people I love.
If you are in pain and tired right now, just lean against me for a while and don't say anything.
Ryoko, be fully mentally prepared. Taking care of patients may take a very long time, five, ten, twenty, or thirty years. If you can't hold on anymore, stop and take a breath, find a place where no one is, cry, and talk to someone.
Only by turning the turbulent waves in your heart into calm, daily gratitude, and daily medical expenses can you go a long way.
There are also some things that, although mundane and vulgar, are important.
Calculate the cost of living and treatment, see how much money you have saved before, and how much income you can earn every month now to maintain cash flow; don't hide your illness from each other, and be deliberately optimistic.
Allow your wife to be afraid, and allow yourself to be nervous, look into her eyes, and say to her: "I know you feel uncomfortable and scared right now, and so do I. But it doesn't matter, fear is normal, we are afraid together, and we will face it together."
When you catch her fear, you catch your own fear.
In terms of treatment, there are now many treatment options and drugs. It is recommended to find a reliable doctor in a large tertiary hospital and establish a long-term relationship. In this way, the doctor will know your situation very well and your mind will be settled.
Ryoko, you are great. You are not superman and don’t need to solve every problem. You are the one who, no matter what, is there for her, has the solution, and holds her hand.
Live a good life day by day, take the current path step by step, without looking back at the past or looking at the future. Stay in the present moment.
Please, please, definitely take care of yourself. You two are everything to this family.
Your sister Tan
Saturday, March 7, 2026
(Sister Tan’s email address: yetanbusiness@163.com. The letter authorizes Yetan Finance to use the content of the email. If you reply, the reply will only be made public and will be commented by readers. At the same time, you are authorized to use it for book compilation. Please be careful when writing.)
