The Twilight Wall and the Unexpected Guest

In late autumn, Nanjing University seems to have been painted with a giant brush. The fallen plane tree leaves carpet the ground, rustling underfoot like the whispers of the season. The famous wishing wall next to the School of Humanities has become a heartwarming scene on campus. The afterglow of the setting sun, like diluted honey, lazily spills onto layers of colorful sticky notes, each carrying a young, passionate wish or secret.

Standing before this bustling sea of ​​colors, Lin Wanxing felt like a solidified gray, completely out of place amidst the vibrant life around her. At twenty-eight, she was one of the youngest lecturers at the university, wearing a finely crafted off-white trench coat. Slender and with her long hair loosely tied up, revealing her graceful neck, she possessed a weariness beyond her years, a weariness born of the passage of time.

In her hand lay a pink sticky note that Su Xiao had forced upon her, its edges edged with a cute cat paw print. This cloying pink, however, now felt like a silent irony, burning her fingertips.

A few hours earlier, the birthday party, ostensibly a "surprise" but actually a "carefully planned" one, ended with this absurd task. Her friends surrounded her, singing "Happy Birthday," the candlelight on the cake flickering, illuminating their concerned yet hesitant faces. Su Xiao, her best friend, linked arms with her, her voice carefully coaxing, "Wanxing, just one sticker! You have to accept the punishment for losing a truth or dare game. Just consider it... just consider it a new beginning, okay?"

"A new beginning?" Lin Wanxing silently repeated these words in her heart, a barely perceptible bitterness tugging at the corner of her lips. Two whole years had passed since Shen Yu left. More than seven hundred days and nights—enough time for many things to change, but nothing could erase the barren, frozen soil in her heart. She wasn't unaware of the worries of her family and friends; they were like diligent gardeners, eager to sow new hope in her seemingly withered land, as if starting a new relationship could magically uproot the past sorrow.

But she had long since lost the courage to greet the sunlight.

She unscrewed the pen cap, the black nib hovering for a long time on the pink paper, as if waging a silent resistance. Finally, she put down the pen, her handwriting carrying a deliberate detachment and calmness, writing a few lines tinged with defiance:

Looking for a boyfriend

Require:

1. Be available 24/7, without fail.

2. Maintain absolute emotional stability and always remain patient and smiling.

3. You must memorize all my likes and dislikes, including but not limited to: not eating cilantro, disliking humid air, needing two sugar cubes in coffee, and disliking any disturbances while reading.

4. When it rains, the umbrella must be tilted towards me to make sure my clothes don't get wet.

5. Possess the ability to handle various emergencies, from repairing home appliances to dealing with pressure to get married.

6. Other, but not limited to, the above-mentioned special requirements.

Contact information: 138xxxxxx92 (Su Xiao)

Note: Serious inquiries only, no time for games.

This wasn't a notice seeking a partner at all; it was more like a harsh list for an all-powerful servant, its words exuding a cold indifference that kept everyone at arm's length. She deliberately used this almost unreasonable method to build an invisible wall around herself, attempting to block all well-intentioned attempts and approaches. It was as if only in this way could she protect that inviolable territory within her heart, belonging to the past.

"Chen Yu..." This name silently cast a pebble into the lake of her heart, rippling outwards in waves of pain. That familiar, subtle pain returned, not like a sharp blade, but like the rain of late autumn, cold and slow, seeping into her very bones, bringing an inescapable chill. She could even clearly recall the last time he held an umbrella for her, its canopy unwaveringly tilted towards her, half his shoulder soaked through, yet he still smiled and said to her, "Wanxing, you're more accurate than the weather forecast."

She squeezed her eyes shut, forcibly suppressing the surging emotions within her. She quickly stuck the pink sticky note with the absurd request on it in the farthest corner of the wishing wall, a spot almost entirely devoid of sunlight. Watching the glaring pink hue curl slightly at the edges in the cool autumn breeze, like an abandoned, dying butterfly, a twisted sense of pleasure welled up within her.

"This should be enough, right?" she murmured to herself, her voice fading into the wind, carrying a sense of relief and weariness, but also a deeper loneliness. She turned and left, the setting sun casting her long, thin shadow on the cobblestone path, as if she were walking step by step into an endless, silent twilight.

...

Shortly after her figure disappeared at the end of the sycamore-lined road, a figure slowly emerged from the shadows beside the teaching building.

Jiang Chen wore a slightly worn gray cashmere sweater and dark jeans that had faded a bit from washing. He was tall with broad shoulders, but his slightly hunched posture made him appear less aggressive and more unapproachable and melancholic. His face was clean-cut, with well-defined features, the kind of handsome with a touch of heroism, but his eyes were shrouded in a layer of weariness and tranquility rarely seen in young people.

He walked to the wishing wall, his gaze landing precisely on the newly pasted pink sticky note bearing a cat's paw print. He examined it intently, word by word, as if deciphering an obscure code. His deep brown eyes shone brightly in the sunset's afterglow, yet beneath that brightness lurked a complex, unfathomable melancholy, like an undercurrent swirling at the bottom of a deep pool.

When he saw the note that said not to eat cilantro and to add two sugars to coffee, his dark brown eyes trembled slightly—it was exactly the same as the 'Little Pickiness' written in that notebook.

He extended his finger and lightly brushed it over the line of "contact information," his fingertip trembling almost imperceptibly. Then, his tightly pursed lips relaxed slightly, and he let out a barely audible breath, as if he had made up his mind.

…

A few days later, in the afternoon, Lin Wanxing's office was in the innermost room on the third floor of the School of Literature. Outside the window, the ancient ginkgo tree, its leaves mostly golden, resembled a giant, burning umbrella. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the branches and leaves, casting dappled, flickering patches of light on her light-colored wooden desk.

She was grading a second-year student's paper, titled "On the 'Time Imagery' and the Flow of Life Consciousness in Classical Poetry." The student's writing was still immature, yet it carried a sincere lament about the fleeting nature of time. This made her somewhat dazed; the passage of time, to her, seemed both frozen and accelerated. Frozen in memories of Shen Yu, accelerated in the emptiness after his departure.

Just then, there was a knock on the door.

It wasn't the hurried, restless knocking typical of students, but a restrained, steady three knocks, even carrying a politeness and hesitation that seemed incongruous with his age. "Knock, knock, knock."

"Please come in." She didn't look up, her pen still tracing a comment in the blank space of the paper, her voice sounding somewhat flat due to her focus.

The door was gently pushed open, and the person seemed to pause for a moment at the doorway, as if gathering their thoughts, before stepping inside. The sound of leather shoes on the old wooden floor was soft, yet carried a strange presence.

Lin Wanxing finally looked up from her thesis.

A tall, slender young man came into view. He looked to be around twenty-six or twenty-seven, wearing a slightly worn gray cashmere sweater and faded dark jeans. His clothes were simple and neat, yet they couldn't hide the softness and a hint of weariness from the repeated washing of the fabric. He was very tall with broad shoulders, but his slightly hunched posture made him appear less aggressive and more unapproachable and melancholic. His face was clean-cut, with well-defined features, the kind of handsome with a touch of heroism, but his eyes were shrouded in a weariness and calmness rarely seen in young people. Most striking were his eyes as he looked at her; his pupils were a deep brown, appearing exceptionally clear in the light streaming in from the window. Yet, beneath that clarity lay a complex, unfathomable melancholy, like an undercurrent swirling at the bottom of a deep pool.

"Teacher Lin Wanxing?" His voice was clear and pure, like a stream tapping on rocks in an autumn valley, but the slight hoarseness at the end betrayed his nervousness.

"Yes, that's me. And you are...?" Lin Wanxing put down her pen, unconsciously leaning back slightly in her chair, a hint of doubt in her mind. He didn't look like a student; his demeanor was more mature, and also more... weathered and weary. Like a piece of jade that had been prematurely polished by life, bearing a warm luster, yet also subtle scratches.

The man didn't answer immediately. Instead, he pulled a neatly folded pink sticky note from his pocket, its edges perfectly aligned. He unfolded it gently and slowly, as if unfolding a precious, fragile artifact, and then he gently pushed it onto her desk, between her open thesis and red pen.

The familiar cat paw print pattern on the paper was like a sudden, blinding glare, making Lin Wanxing almost unable to open her eyes. The absurd joke she had deliberately forgotten a few days ago had returned to her in the most unexpected way.

“My name is Jiang Chen, and I’m a senior about to graduate…” he introduced himself, his gaze calmly and frankly meeting hers, which suddenly turned to surprise, then embarrassment and a hint of annoyance. “I’m sorry to bother you like this. I… saw this.”

The office fell eerily quiet for a moment, save for the occasional birdsong from outside the window and the soft rustling of ginkgo leaves in the autumn breeze. The sunlight shifted slightly, landing precisely on Jiang Chen's profile, clearly illuminating the faint dark circles under his eyes that hinted at sleep deprivation, and also revealing the barely perceptible blush on his ears caused by embarrassment.

Lin Wanxing felt a surge of heat rush to her cheeks, accompanied by a sense of absurdity and offense. She took a deep breath, trying to suppress the turbulent emotions within her, and made her voice sound as calm and detached as possible, befitting the decorum expected of a university teacher. "This student, I think this... this is a misunderstanding. It was just a joke, nothing to take seriously. I lost a game with a friend, and this was a punishment assignment." She deliberately emphasized the words "joke" and "punishment," hoping the other person would back down.

“I understand.” Jiang Chen nodded, showing no surprise or being deterred by her coldness; his calmness, on the contrary, made her feel somewhat at a loss. “I called the number on the paper, and Miss Su Xiao answered. She… she told me I could come to the third floor of the School of Literature to talk to you.”

Su Xiao! Lin Wanxing almost sighed inwardly. She was determined to settle accounts with this troublemaker when she got back! She could almost picture Su Xiao's teasing and encouraging tone on the other end of the phone.

“She was just… being silly.” Lin Wanxing barely managed to keep her tone steady, her fingers unconsciously tightening around the red pen in her hand. “So, let’s leave it at that. I’m sorry to have made you come all this way for nothing.” She made a gesture of seeing her off, hoping the conversation would end there.

She thought Jiang Chen would, like most sensible people, politely say goodbye and leave. But he remained standing there, silent for a few seconds. That silence wasn't blank; it was as if filled with some heavy emotion, thick and sticky. He lowered his eyes slightly, his gaze falling on the glaring pink note on the table, then he looked up again, his eyes filled with an almost desperate honesty. Behind that honesty lay unfathomable embarrassment and a faint, unyielding persistence.

“Teacher Lin,” he spoke again, his voice lower than before, carrying a magnetic quality and a more pronounced difficulty, “I know this request is very abrupt, even… ridiculous. But…” He paused, his Adam’s apple bobbing slightly, as if swallowing something bitter, “If you feel that these requirements on the paper… perhaps you really need someone to do them…” He carefully chose his words, avoiding any hint that might offend him, “you see, could I—apply for this as a job? I… I desperately need a job right now, any job will do.” He took a deep breath, as if using all his strength, before saying the next sentence, “Regarding the salary, how about one thousand yuan a month, is that alright?”

A thousand yuan a month? Hiring a "boyfriend"? The absurdity of that statement almost made Lin Wanxing laugh. It was even more outrageous than the notice she had written. However, the seriousness in his eyes, the unmistakable urgency and pleading of someone in dire straits, was like a tiny, sharp needle, unexpectedly pricking her heart. It wasn't a joke, a game, or any form of deception; it was a genuine, desperate gamble.

She re-examined him—the cuffs of his knitted sweater were slightly loose from repeated washing, the knees of his dark jeans had barely perceptible, minute wear, and his canvas shoes, though old, were spotless. And his eyes, filled with too many complex and unspeakable emotions: persistence, embarrassment, exhaustion, and a stubbornness woven from a vulnerability and pride that he was unwilling to easily show.

"Why?" she couldn't help but ask, her voice unconsciously softening, carrying a probing tone she herself was unaware of. "Why did you..." she paused, organizing her thoughts, "Why did you come to do something that... seems so illogical? Why this particular notice?" She wanted to know what kind of situation would make a young man who didn't seem lazy at all willing to accept such an almost humiliating "job."

Jiang Chen lowered his eyes slightly, his thick eyelashes casting a small fan-shaped shadow beneath his eyes, cleverly avoiding her overly direct gaze. "I've recently... encountered some difficulties," he answered vaguely, his voice soft. "I need an income to make ends meet." He paused, as if making an important decision, then raised his eyes, his gaze falling on the "requirements," a strange light flashing in his eyes. "Moreover, I feel that the requirements you've written are very specific, very... realistic. They don't seem like a spur-of-the-moment joke." He paused again, adding, his tone carrying a strange certainty, "I think I should be able to do it."

Authenticity. This word, like a key, precisely unlocked a tightly locked box in Lin Wanxing's heart. Those demands were indeed deep within her heart, things she herself was unwilling to admit, afraid to face: a secret longing for companionship, for meticulous care, for an absolute sense of security. They stemmed from the enormous, unfillable void in her life after Shen Yu's departure, from every helpless moment she had to face alone. This man, this stranger, had seen right through the fortress she had built, revealing the fragile vulnerability beneath.

Looking at this unfamiliar man before her, seemingly battered by the waves of life and at his lowest point, a mixture of curiosity, pity, personal exhaustion, and an inexplicable sense of kinship—a feeling of seeing a kindred spirit—quietly began to grow and spread within her. The words of refusal reached her lips again, but they seemed glued to the surface, impossible to utter. She saw in his deep brown eyes a faint flame of hope, flickering gently because of her prolonged silence, as if it might be extinguished at any moment.

Silence lingered in the office. The light and shadow outside the window shifted a little further, landing on her open thesis, where the words "time imagery" seemed particularly jarring.

In the end, the dam of reason barely held back the tide of emotion. She couldn't, and shouldn't, drag herself into such an absurd, blurred relationship. She took a deep breath, shook her head with difficulty, and avoided his eyes, which were gradually dimming.

“I’m sorry,” her voice was hoarse, “this really…is not appropriate. I don’t think I can help you.”

The glimmer of light in Jiang Chen's eyes vanished instantly, like a candle flame snapping in the wind, leaving only cold ashes. His shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly for a moment, but he immediately straightened them again. He didn't plead, didn't utter another word of entreaty, but simply nodded very slightly, almost imperceptibly, his movement carrying a fragile dignity maintained to the very end.

“I understand.” His voice was so low it was almost inaudible. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

He turned around, his steps light, yet each step felt like treading on piled-up fallen leaves, carrying a heavy weight. He gently closed the door, the sound almost inaudible, as if he had never been there.

Silence returned to the office, a silence deeper and more suffocating than before. Only the pink sticky note with the absurd request remained, lying quietly on her desk amidst a collection of academic papers on "time imagery," like a forgotten topic of conversation, a sharp mockery from the real world, silently reminding her how incongruous everything that had just happened was.

Lin Wanxing sat there in a daze for a while, then as if driven by some invisible force, she stood up and walked to the window.

Outside the window, autumn was in full swing. Below, students hurried by with books, couples chatted and laughed side-by-side—a vibrant, flowing energy of youth. And she spotted the figure that had just left. Jiang Chen was walking alone out of the Literature Department building's entrance. The slanting afternoon sunlight of autumn cast a blurry, almost melancholic, edge around his slender, upright back. He walked slowly, but his steps were unwavering. Yet, the heavy, almost overwhelming loneliness emanating from his back made him stand out starkly against the bright, carefree figures below, so incongruous, so…eye-catching.

For some reason, that lonely figure stirred a cold, hard corner of her heart, a slight, bittersweet tremor. It wasn't a flutter of the heart, but a profound compassion, a resonance only those also experiencing loneliness could understand. And a vague yet intense premonition—as if something had been gently, yet irreversibly, altered by this uninvited guest named Jiang Chen. The calm surface of her life, the ripples stirred by the breeze, were only just beginning to spread.