On a winter night, the sky was utterly dark. The unnamed trees beside the inpatient ward had lost all their leaves, their bare branches casting dappled, desolate shadows in the corridor. The lights outside the hospital gave the illusion that it was already late. The light shone outside his shadow, making him appear even thinner and more aloof, as if isolated from the world, as if the noisy, vibrant world around him didn't exist.
Looking at his back, Song Jianan felt dizzy and lightheaded. The phrase "you're not familiar with each other" haunted her mind like a ghost. Her hands and feet were stiff and numb, her palms were damp and cold, and a chill ran up from the soles of her feet.
They weren't close. Yes, apart from their correspondence over the past decade, she couldn't think of any other time they had met. Besides knowing that he liked listening to Chen Sheng and Sinead O'Connor, liked tangrams, and liked Stephen Chow, she knew nothing else. Besides knowing that he was a cold, gloomy, but rich in inner life and full of talent, what else did she know?
She knew very little about them; they had never had a complete conversation. She didn't have the courage to mention their old school, teachers, classmates, or shared memories. They were so close that she didn't even have the courage to joke about it.
This feeling was terrifyingly unfamiliar.
Suddenly, the lights in the corridor, the lights on the stairs, and the lights outside the window all went out. Before I could react, everything went dark. I lost my footing and before I could even cry out, I fell to the ground.
In an instant, her arm was gripped tightly, the force seemingly immense. She could feel a sharp, jolting pain deep within her bones and a hoarse scream. Tears welled up in her eyes, and though her feet had just touched the steps, her heart still seemed to be in mid-air.
In the darkness, everything seemed unusually sensitive. She didn't know what kind of ambiguous position they were in, but he seemed very close to her, and she could clearly feel his breath right next to hers.
He smelled faintly of lemonade, and his hand was still around her arm; she could feel the warmth of his body through her clothes. The wind ruffled his hair, a few strands brushing against her cheek, and their breathing suddenly grew closer.
"Are you alright?" Su Li asked softly.
"I'm fine, I'm fine." In the midst of her panic, her vision had returned somewhat. She looked down and saw the buttons on Su Li's trench coat, which gleamed metallically in the darkness. Just as she was about to look up, she felt a warm breath on her cheek. In the silence, she didn't know whose heartbeat was lingering and ambiguous in the rapidly chaotic dark night.
Her icy palms touched even colder tears, and in that instant, the phrase "you two aren't familiar" flashed into her mind again. She quickly pulled her arm away from his grip, and just as she regained her footing, the corridor lights suddenly came back on, and someone shouted, "The power's back on!" The noisy ward immediately erupted into chaos. In her panic, Song Jianan lowered her head, her long hair neatly covering half her face. She murmured, "No need to see me off, I'll go back myself. I have some things to do."
Before Su Li could react, she gathered her hair and ran down the stairs quickly. By the time he realized what was happening, she had already disappeared into the vast darkness.
Su Li stood alone on the stairwell, not knowing what to say or think. He stood there quietly for a long time. The cold winter wind blew on the back of his hand, chilling him to the bone. He raised his hand and, under the light, discovered a dried water stain.
The winter nights in this city are still reeling from the Christmas celebrations, yet they are already preparing for the New Year with even more splendor. Everywhere is filled with colorful lights and bustling crowds. In this noisy city, loneliness seems so shameful.
Numbly standing on the subway platform, she looked blankly at this familiar yet unfamiliar city. The changes day by day and year by year had already robbed it of its original flavor from ten years ago. Her figure was printed on the huge billboard, all alone.
The once joyful correspondence, the lively chatter, the delightful arguments and debates—all of it was erased in the face of reality. Su Li, when that illusion became reality, they finally fell silent.
If possible, for the rest of her life, she would quietly lock that youthful flutter in the most private place in her heart, letting those impulses and affections slowly melt away with the passage of time. To not see or hear him is the wisest choice.
The carriage door opened, people got on, people got off, the door closed, the train started moving, and the surroundings were plunged into darkness.
The lights in the carriage were still blindingly bright. She took out her phone and flipped through all the contacts in her phone book, looking at each one one by one, but she couldn't find anyone she could confide in.
Suddenly a figure flashed through her mind. Song Jianan smiled, gently leaned her head against the railing, and whispered to herself, "No, you can't. You know me best. The closer you are to someone, the more secrets you have, and the harder it is for you to open up."
But why do I miss you so much from that time, Duan Jiachen?
Author's Note:
On this Christmas Day, I accidentally tormented Song Jianan again. What a sin!
When Christmas Comes to Town
----------------------------------Benefits and perks
Weddings are tiring and long. Quietly, Wenxin was once again "coincidentally" squeezed into a corner of the crowd. She lowered her head to ponder Ning Yan's words, but after thinking for a while, she couldn't figure it out. She looked up and around.
Ning Yan held a bouquet of flowers in her hands, and all the girls excitedly shouted to the bride, "Here! Here!"
It looks like a scene from an ancient brothel where the top courtesan is deflowered! It's so lewd! How could there be such an evil ritual in a wedding? It's completely incomprehensible.
Should I stand quietly and detached to the side, seemingly untouched by worldly affairs, and then, in a casual glance, our eyes meet, roses quietly bloom, and then—I'll be the next one to get married?
It's utterly absurd. If getting hit by flowers means you can get married, then she should order flowers from the Netherlands and New Zealand every day and have them delivered directly from the air to a certain spot downstairs in the lab building so she can just wait there.
I really want to get married! Because when you're married, you can do the things you wouldn't do if you weren't married, without feeling guilty. How happy, sweet, and fulfilling that would be!
A bouquet of white lilies floated silently into the air. She saw all the girls leaping up, and, well, it seemed they were only about the same height as her if she hadn't jumped. She watched expressionlessly as the bouquet slipped before her eyes, only to be caught firmly by a pair of hands. "It's mine!"
She glanced over indifferently. "Ning Qing, didn't you say beforehand that you didn't want the bridal bouquet?"
"Saying something doesn't necessarily mean you have to do it. Who says you have to do what you say, or that you have to say what you do? There's no necessary or direct connection between the mind and actions. You can call it instinct for now."
“Is that so?” Wen Xin habitually tilted her head back at a 45-degree angle. “A conditioned reflex of a wild animal.”
Ning Qing, on the other hand, wasn't annoyed at all. As if she was used to Wen Xin's way of speaking, she grinned and shouted at the person on the other side, "You idiot, I'm the next person to get married, you better hurry up!"
Fan Chen was drinking tea when he suddenly spat it out with a "pfft," then silently turned and walked away.
What composure, what grace, what patience, and what shamelessness! Why did Han Tianyuan leave after Fan Chen? I was so looking forward to it, and I was trying my best to move my tiny steps closer to the organization.
She could only lean gently against the corner of the wall, quietly watching all the joy and laughter around her, yet she couldn't feel any happiness reaching her ears.
Han Tianyuan is leaving, going abroad. The man who always liked to fill her books with chibi versions of Prince of Tennis and Slam Dunk is leaving her. The man who would tell those who mocked her expressionless face, "Wenxin's eyes always hold a lot of thoughts," is leaving. She still remembers the first time she met him on the school playground in junior high school. Han Tianyuan touched her head in surprise and said, "Little girl, do you know how to play basketball? You're so tall."
Okay, although it was just like the scene in Slam Dunk where Sakuragi Hanamichi first met Akagi Haruko, and she accepted the basketball he handed her with a blank, infatuated expression, she was definitely a sports idiot.
Later, Wenran told her with a smirk that Han Tianyuan hated tall girls the most, so she should give up.
At that time, she remained silent, expressionless.
Ning Qing called out to her, "Wen Xin, over here, over here! Shall we go out for karaoke right away?"
She walked over and asked, "Aren't you going to have any more wedding night pranks?"
Ning Qing calmly curled his lip, "They've already slept together, what's the point of making a fuss? If they don't do it today, they can do it tomorrow. They can do it and then rest, it's endless."
"Wow, that's pretty tough," she thought, silently wiping the sweat from her brow. "Alright, you can arrange it, I don't mind."
She doesn't want to do anything, she just wants to do nothing, or do whatever others tell her to do.
It seemed that quite a few people around them had become indistinct under the influence of alcohol. Ning Qing suddenly asked her, "What are you studying at the Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences?"
"Medicinal chemistry".
A questioning gaze fell upon them, followed by many more curious eyes—all of them from eager young girls.
"Be specific."
"Structural identification of polysaccharides, as well as research on their biological activities."
More and more admiring glances appeared. "Be more specific."
“Every day, we extract, separate, and purify those strange sugars from plants to obtain pure compounds, analyze their structures, and conduct experiments on the activity of liver cancer cells. We do this every day, sometimes we work, sometimes we rest, and it goes on and on endlessly.”
An eerie silence fell over them. Ning Qing grasped her hand with deep emotion. "Everyone works a bit, then takes a break. It's endless. But Wenxin, I really admire you."
"Why?"
She heard wet, ambiguous breathing sounds beside her ear, and Ning Qing's voice came strangely, "You look like a pretty boy!"
It was like being struck by lightning.
Ning Qing laughed heartlessly, "Han Tianyuan, look, I finally made Wen Xin make an expression."
Her silhouette was reflected in the window, her brows slightly furrowed, her lips bitten, when she unexpectedly met the gaze from not far away.
Haha, finally, an emoticon appeared!
My daughter Wenxin is the kind of girl who is very tall and has a very spirited look. If she weren't a girl, she would definitely be a pretty boy.
The male lead will appear in the next chapter! Hooray!
"Time's Edge" by Sheng Li, Chapter 28 — Jinjiang Original Website [Works Library]
When he returned to the ward, Fang Yanyan was eating and watching the news. He asked indistinctly, "You're back so late. Did you get lost again?"
Su Li didn't answer. He pulled up a chair and sat down. The TV was very noisy, which made him a little irritable. After thinking for a moment, he still spoke up, "Fang Yanyan, don't talk nonsense in front of Song Jianan next time."
Fang Yanyan didn't take it to heart. "I didn't say anything. Anyway, you and Sister Jia Nan are just classmates. I didn't say anything bad about you."
"Just classmates?" He chuckled softly. Fang Yanyan stared in disbelief. On television, a reporter was reporting on a coal mine collapse when suddenly a loud cry came from the corridor, as if a patient in a ward had quietly passed away.
Amidst the noise, Fang Yanyan vaguely heard him say, "I know she likes Lisa Ono, cute online games, and Shunji Iwai. She seems calm and gentle on the surface, but she's actually a very thoughtful and strong girl. She'll listen to only one song for days on end, close her eyes, and sit quietly in the sun on a roadside bench." He paused, "Do you think we're close?"
Before Fang Yanyan could react, he opened his mouth as if to ask, "What exactly is your relationship?" The voice on the other end suddenly grew louder. He had never heard Su Li speak in such a serious tone before, and it even sounded somewhat reproachful. "Fang Yanyan, there are many things that I want to tell her slowly. Only I can make things clear. I don't want you to tell her too much about my affairs, especially the more sensitive topics. Do you understand?"
With a "snap," the TV screen went black. Fang Yanyan tilted her head to look at him with a half-smile, their eyes meeting with a hint of schadenfreude. "So, you're going to pursue Sister Jia Nan? You like her?"
His expression remained unchanged, his slender fingers lightly tapping the edge of the table. "I just know what I want."
When Song Jianan returned home, the pitch-black house felt infinitely large and the emptiness made her feel even more lonely. An unprecedented sense of frustration welled up in her heart, and she really wanted to find someone to talk to.
She turned on her computer and logged into QQ. There were only a handful of people online. She opened a group she hadn't chatted with in a long time, and it was also very quiet. Only a few familiar numbers were online. However, she noticed that someone who rarely appeared was also online.
She recognized him; this was a large group chat for reporters from their newspaper. But one day, a stranger's ID appeared. The person explained that he had somehow stumbled into the group, and fortunately, no one minded. Later, through the gradual flow of the group chat, she learned that he was a surgeon at the Provincial People's Hospital, but knew nothing else about him. He rarely spoke, but when he did, his words were always insightful. Even veteran reporters at the newspaper said that such a person would be suitable to be a news commentator.
She really wanted to ask a stranger, from an outsider's perspective, what she should do.
I opened the private chat window, and it said, "Are you there?"
A smiling face quickly replied, "Hello, what's up?"
It's a common problem with doctors; they immediately ask "What's wrong?" just like asking "Where do you feel unwell?" She quickly replied, "I just want to ask you, from your perspective, how should I deal with this situation, or rather, how should I face it?"
"You speak, I'm listening."
The long story was summed up in a few words. There was a long silence on the other end. Just as Song Jianan was about to start talking to herself, a sentence appeared in the chat box: "What do you want? Perhaps you want to get what you've been secretly in love with for ten years. After all, ten years is not a time that most people can endure."
"I don't want anything, nor do I want to get anything. Perhaps I've never even had the thought of wanting anything."
The person on the other end laughed, "Nonsense, if you didn't want him, why did you wait ten years? It's self-torture. Actually, you're just subconsciously thinking that if I keep waiting like this, one day he'll appear in front of me, and then... you know, right?"
He chuckled to himself, unable to find a single word to refute it, "It seems so."
"Now that he's in front of you, isn't that enough? The timing and location are perfect, all that's missing is the right person."
After organizing my thoughts, I realized, "But we can't find a single topic to talk about. Ten years have taken away so much. Many feelings have changed. I am no longer the person I was back then, and he probably isn't him either. Many things have been taken away by time and can never be found again. I even find it difficult to start a conversation."
"Then let me ask you, when he stands in front of you again, do you ever regret liking him so much ten years ago?"
The honest answer was, "No."
"That's right. You don't regret liking him back then, which means he's still outstanding, outstanding enough to make you, who has changed in ten years, fall in love again. So the simple question is, you're not sure if you like him now."
"Yes, I'm not sure."