But if she had been so fearless and reckless back then, perhaps she would still be standing here alone now.
Su Li laughed and said, "I know, no one did well on the exam that year. Several of my friends did not do well either."
“Our class teacher once asked us to write down our ideal university and make it into a poster to stick on the back blackboard of the classroom. I wrote Renmin University. Looking back at it now, I don’t know why I wrote that school, but Renmin University has become like a belief to me. Maybe this is what they mean by 'unattainable'.”
After a moment of silence, someone slowly said, "Some people say that you like a place because there are unforgettable people and things there. Song Jianan, what do you think?"
She suddenly looked up at the man in front of her. He had only a faint smile on his lips and was looking into the distance. Song Jianan felt a tremor run through her body. It was as if the fear she felt when she first met him had surged up again. She really felt that he was implying something, but he never got back to the point. Was it because she was guilty that she couldn't understand what he meant?
Seemingly noticing her embarrassment, Su Li smiled at her and said, "It's nothing, I was just saying."
They walked side by side without saying a word to each other, until they reached a coffee shop. He reached out and pushed open the door. "It's snowing, and it's very cold. Would you like a hot drink?"
It turned out to be the famous Water Through Stone Cafe, with a very exquisite layout. She had only caught a glimpse of it last time she came, and she didn't expect to have the chance to go in and take a look again. Su Li was naturally much more familiar with it than she was, and said to the owner, "Two cups of hot lemon black tea, to go."
There were only a few girls having a late-night snack in the coffee shop at that moment. Someone saw them and immediately whispered to the person next to them, "Doesn't this guy look like Su Li from the Class of 2000 in Economics and Management? He looks so familiar."
"They've been out of school for years, and you still remember them? We were only freshmen back then."
"They're too famous. There's nothing you can do but go up and ask them."
One girl was bold enough to run up to him and ask, "Are you Su Li from the 2000 class of Economics and Management? I'm your junior from the 2004 class."
He nodded slightly, "That's me," which immediately drew gasps from the remaining girls. He smiled politely at them, then handed the hot tea to Song Jianan, "I have to go now, sorry."
Lifting the lid, a wave of hot white steam rushed out, the heat and cold mingling on her face. Song Jianan looked at the man beside her, finding him more and more handsome. She said cautiously, "Su Li, I didn't expect you to be so popular. You were a freshman, you should be a senior now, and you still remember me."
He said casually, "I don't know either. I rarely cared about these things when I was in school."
"You must have had a lot of girls confessing their feelings to you, didn't you know that?"
He turned his head to think for a moment, "Not many, I don't remember." Then he added, "I didn't think about too many things back then. Every day was just going to class, studying, and listening to music. That's how four years passed."
Then he lowered his head and casually threw the paper cup into the trash can, and slowly said, "Song Jianan, you don't know very well how I spent those four years, so why are you asking me? Is it because there was a gap of one year and three months in between?"
The sky was a vast expanse of gray, and snowflakes were falling continuously before my eyes. In this vast expanse of blankness, there stood the boy I had secretly loved for ten years. Ten years had passed, yet he still looked vaguely the same as he did back then.
Her feet stopped, and she couldn't take another step. It felt like a surge of energy was about to burst forth from her heart, the kind of urge to say everything without thinking. She opened her mouth and gasped for breath, her heart pounding. She heard her voice trembling slightly in the wind and snow, but she couldn't stop it.
“Su Li, I..”
Author's Note:
close to you
I'm losing interest in writing; I want to write something new, or maybe I should just stop. I'm such a fickle person.
Just a quick plug: "Ear Piercing" is coming out soon, it'll be available in the next few days. I'm a little embarrassed, but I still hope you'll check it out!
Someone told me that Song MM's personality is like that of a tragic heroine.
Let me clarify something here: Song MM is definitely a very insecure person. She appears glamorous on the surface, but those ten years of unrequited love have practically drained her. If she weren't insecure, she could be standing right in front of Su Li now, using every means to woo him.
And here, during the New Year, she was alone, in a bad mood, with no one to confide in. It's like when I'm alone in front of the computer typing during the New Year, with no one paying attention to me. That feeling is incomparable to being in a lively karaoke bar with friends; it's a feeling of utter helplessness, a feeling of having to constantly comfort myself. When the New Year arrives, my heart is absolutely empty. There's no one to cheer with me, no one to wish me a Happy New Year. And Song Jianan, the character I'm writing about, is just like me.
People who have been lonely for a long time are not used to loving and being loved. This is indeed the case. Song MM is a sensitive woman who lives in her own world.
"Time's Edge" by Sheng Li, Chapter 32 — Jinjiang Original Website [Works Library]
Her voice trembled with coldness, whether from the weather or from the overwhelming urge to tell everything that frightened her, she didn't know. The man in front of her suddenly stopped and turned around.
The words that were about to come out got stuck in her throat. In an instant, she lost all sense of direction, her mind went blank, and all she could see were the swirling snowflakes and that handsome, pale face.
Suddenly, a melody snapped her out of her reverie. She frantically pulled out her phone and answered it. It was Song's mother calling, who immediately asked, "Song Jianan, you brat, did you dump Xi Luoyu?"
She was stunned for a moment. "Mom, what are you talking about? There's nothing between him and me." She looked up at Su Li, who gently turned his head away, subconsciously distancing himself from her private conversation.
Mrs. Song continued, "I think that other people are quite good. You, my daughter, haven't brought a boyfriend home all these years, and I've never seen you dating. It's understandable that you didn't date in college, but you didn't date in graduate school either because you said you weren't settled. Now that you're working, you still haven't dated. Is there something wrong with you?"
Song Jianan was completely speechless. "Mom, you called so late just to talk about this."
"No, no, I was just mentioning it casually. By the way, I saw Duan Jiachen's mother at the supermarket today. She said Duan Jiachen has been back for a week. Have you seen him or contacted him?"
An unknown chill crept into her heart, tinged with a hint of helplessness. "No, I didn't even know he was back."
"Oh, it's okay. His mother said we've been neighbors for so many years and haven't seen each other in a long time. Since Duan Jiachen is back, we should have the two families get together for a meal sometime. I agreed, so I just called to ask if you've been busy lately."
She quickly replied, "Busy, of course I'm busy. I'm on a business trip in Beijing right now."
"Then let's talk about it when you get back. It's okay, there's still plenty of time before the New Year. A meal won't take up much of your time. I'll set it for next Sunday then. It's settled then. Get some rest."
There was no sound from the other end, only the loud "beep beep" of the busy signal echoing in the quiet night. She silently hung up, forcing a smile at Su Li, but didn't know how to start a conversation.
Snowflakes fell from the sky, scattering along with the smile on her lips and the emptiness in her heart, drifting to the ends of the earth.
The roads were extremely difficult to navigate due to the snow. By the time Song Jianan returned to the hotel, it was already past midnight. She was completely exhausted and had a splitting headache from sleeping in the car. When she got out of the car, she was still groggy and didn't know where to go. As soon as she entered the hotel, she saw Fang Yanyan sitting on the sofa, greeting her with a grin, "Sister Jianan, is Renmin University fun?"
She leaned closer and whispered, "How come Su Li is in Beijing?"
“How would I know? He told me a few days ago that he went on a business trip, but I didn’t know it was in Beijing. Then today I told him that he had left me alone and gone to Renmin University to have fun, and that’s when he told me that he was actually in Beijing.”
Song Jianan looked at him suspiciously but didn't say anything. Fang Yanyan, on the other hand, laughed and said, "So, Renmin University is pretty good, isn't it?"
She thought for a moment and blurted out, "It's exactly what I imagined a university to be like, just like what Su Li said before. Everything is just as I imagined, and it's no different from the ones I've been to before."
"You've been to Renmin University before?" Fang Yanyan immediately seized on the opportunity. "When did that happen?"
Song Jianan was speechless for a moment, "I... it seems like it's been a long time, I can't remember exactly, maybe when I was a child."
"Your parents brought you to university so you could be immersed in university culture when you were little, haha. When I was little, my mom would always take me with her to work. I would cry in the office and insist on going back. Look, she used to be a teacher at your school." Fang Yan blinked, making Song Jianan feel guilty.
"I'm going to bed now, I need to get back tomorrow." She stood up and smiled slightly at Su Li. "Thank you for today."
He simply nodded slightly. "It's nothing, just a small favor."
She was exhausted, but she couldn't bear to fall asleep. How many secrets did this place hold? The city where he had lived for four years was full of endless scenery. Song Jianan reached out and pulled back the curtains in the room. She sat in a chair and looked out. The entire night in Beijing was shrouded in a blanket of snow. The lights flickered, charming yet lonely.
I casually turned on my computer and logged into MSN in stealth mode as usual. I thought I'd add a short note to my QQ space, when suddenly my previously grayed-out avatar lit up: "Song Jianan, you're in Beijing? Is it snowing there?"
It turned out to be Xi Luoyu. It had been such a long time since we'd been in touch, so long that I'd gone without a word after asking that trivial question. She replied immediately, "Yes, it's snowing heavily outside right now, and it's freezing cold. I just wonder when it will snow where we are?"
"Have you been to any places in Beijing, like the Forbidden City or the Temple of Heaven?"
She answered honestly, "No, I didn't go anywhere else, I just went to Renmin University."
There was a sudden silence on the other end, followed by a long pause before a message appeared: "Song Jianan, be honest, is the person you like at Renmin University?"
How did you guess?
"It's too simple. When you like someone, you also like things related to them. Especially for you girls, if I don't have this kind of reasoning ability, then I've wasted all these years."
She didn't know how to continue for a moment, when the other person said, "So all that effort I put into persuading you to move on from the past was in vain. Never mind, never mind, let's just be friends."
A pang of guilt welled up inside her, and she smiled helplessly, “Well, we’re still friends.” After thinking for a moment, she added cautiously, “Actually, I’ve thought about letting go of the past and living in the present, but just when I was about to pack up my memories and bury them in my heart, things didn’t go as planned, or perhaps it was just a twist of fate that changed everything.”
"Heh, it's fate, but no matter what, we're still friends."
She smiled gently. "Yes, we're still friends."
But why could they become friends, while their childhood friendship of so many years collapsed in an instant? She still clearly remembers the cold look in Zhang Jingkang's eyes, as if she were the one who should never have appeared.
In the early stages of getting to know each other, it was just a period of innocent childhood bliss. At that time, the small town could not yet be called a provincial capital in the true sense, and the two families were neighbors living on different floors of a cluster of low-rise buildings.
She remembered that the fig tree in his yard would climb up to her balcony. Back then, she would squeeze through the gap in the railing, desperately trying to grab that purplish-red fruit, while he stood on the flower bed with a bamboo pole in his hand, looking up at her and shouting, "Be careful!" She eventually gave up because she couldn't reach it. But in the evening, the pretty aunt downstairs led a boy with big eyes up. He was holding a bowl of ripe figs and said to her, "Next time you want to eat figs, come to our house. Mom said it's dangerous for you to reach out and grab them." She still remembered his big, bright eyes blinking. At that time, she was still taller than him.
Together they navigated around the dense network of electrical wires in the compound, climbed to the rooftop to admire the city view—the construction sites here and there, the bustling crowds—and he carefully shared half of the sesame candy his mother had made with her own hands with him.
Later, after moving to a new home, still in the same neighborhood but not in the same building, he and she became classmates. Kindergarten, elementary school, junior high, high school—it's been so many years, but all the memories seem to be related to him.
She really couldn't understand why things had become so deadlocked between them. Song Jianan sighed deeply, opened her usual email account, checked the emails, and was about to close the browser when suddenly an email address she hadn't used in a long time popped into her mind.
Back then, she used another email address to send songs and pictures to Su Li. She never looked at it again until it was no longer used. It was probably a kind of passive escapism. Maybe this email address no longer exists, she comforted herself with that thought. She randomly entered a few passwords, none of which were correct. Finally, she randomly arranged some commonly used numbers, and the webpage redirected to a strange display in front of her.
She suddenly froze. The black text displayed a clear number 167, 167 unread emails, all from the same email address, clearly an address composed of Duan Jiachen and his birthday.
Each letter was short and contained different content. "Song Jianan, on my first day of class, I couldn't understand the teacher's accent, so I had to borrow notes from my classmates. As I was copying, I remembered the English notes you lent me before. Your handwriting is very beautiful and neat, as if it were carved with a knife. Actually, I didn't tell you that your mother was sorting out your review materials after the college entrance examination that year so she could sell them. I secretly kept one of your English notes, and it's lying under my desk now."
“It’s snowing here today, a lot, more than I remember. I remember you loved snow when we were little, and you would build snowmen with us. You also loved the icicles that formed on the old house, they were so long. You would always ask me to let you play with the longest ones, and you would always beg me pitifully, and you would promise to give me Golden Monkey milk candy. Do you remember that you were already shorter than me back then?”
"In class today, the Chinese girl in front of me asked me if I had ever had a childhood sweetheart. I immediately thought of you and blurted it out. Then I just stood there, stunned. When we were little, there was Hua Yin, Kang Shuai, Tao Tao, Jia Qi, and many other people. Why did I only think of you?"
"Song Jianan, I find myself thinking about you more and more inexplicably these days, whether it's looking at the sky, listening to music, walking, eating, sleeping, or having parties."
"I didn't mean to write that email to you. When habit turns into friendship, and friendship turns into family, love fades. How could I say that? I just didn't have the courage to ask you what the boy you used to like was like. I couldn't ask him that with a smile. But I know that his name was Su Li, and he was the class monitor of Class 8, right?"
“I was really confused for a moment. At that time, I just wanted to escape far away from the place that scared me. I was afraid to see you, afraid to see your eyes, because your eyes had once lingered for someone else. But I found that I was really wrong. You have always been such a trustworthy person. You said you would cherish the beauty of the world. I should have believed you wholeheartedly instead of constantly suspecting and questioning you. In fact, later I felt that everything you said to me was a false lie.”
"I don't know if you'll ever see these letters. I write one every day, but my inbox is completely empty. I find it all ridiculous. I know your other email addresses. I'm just betting that one day you'll forget the hurtful things I said to you, open this email, and see my regret."
"I've been waiting for so long, I don't want to write anymore. Goodnight, Song Jianan."
When she reached the last message, she hesitated for a moment before pressing it. "Song Jianan, I like you."
She slowly leaned down on the table, the icy touch instantly gripping her heart. All the warmth, the small moments of happiness, and the little joys she had so painstakingly gathered slowly faded away.
She couldn't cry; her smile was even more unsightly than her tears.
It turns out that a hundred years have passed in the blink of an eye.
Author's Note:
homecoming