Longing for You (Part Two)

This dream was exceptionally long and exceptionally clear.

It turns out that her name in that dream was A-Yun, but Huai Chuan's face was still unclear.

Perhaps she saw it clearly, but forgot it when she woke up; perhaps she really couldn't see it clearly, or perhaps the time just hadn't come yet.

The same person in a different setting.

This dream was much warmer than the previous ones.

It seems to be about how A-Yun and Huai-Chuan met and fell in love.

An was in a good mood after waking up. She lay in Ji Qingzhou's arms, smiled at Ji Qingzhou who had just opened his eyes, and said good morning. This made Ji Qingzhou feel as if he hadn't woken up yet, and he felt a little lightheaded.

They got up early and planned to go back. As soon as they left the hotel, they saw a temple nearby. An Yi had an idea and decided to go there.

They said they saw the temple lit up with dim yellow lights in the brightly lit city yesterday.

During the day, with the lights off, this towering temple seems to have found a place to stay in the city.

People come and go in front of the temple.

An and Ji Qingzhou went inside, crossed the threshold, walked up the steps, and arrived at the main hall.

An had already knelt down at the Buddha's feet and bowed three times.

She didn't want to draw lots, but the old monk next to her persuaded her to do so.

Upon hearing this, An remembered to get the incense and handed it over with one hand.

Her gaze fell on the incense, then slid down her arm to Ji Qingzhou's face for a fleeting moment.

She lit three incense sticks, still kneeling, and shook the divination sticks from the container.

The bamboo skewers bounced up and down inside the bamboo tube.

"Smack—"

She picked it up, and the words on it read, "Searching in dreams amidst the cycle of reincarnation, the cycle of cause and effect is ultimately predetermined."

An pursed her lips and handed the slip of paper to the old monk.

The old monk shook his head and pushed An Yi's arm away.

“Benefactor, this old monk sees that your past karma is not yet resolved, so please do not worry too much.”

Ji Qingzhou frowned, and before An Yi could say anything, he hurriedly stepped forward and asked, "Is there any mishap? Is there any danger?"

The old monk looked him up and down and smiled, "No need to worry."

An had already thought about those dreams and found them amusing; how could they have gotten to the point where he described them as dangerous?

She thanked the old monk and walked outside with Ji Qingzhou.

In a corner of the small square inside the temple, there is a very large and thick tree, with many red ribbons with wooden plaques hanging from it.

They saw it when they came in; there were many people making wishes in front of the tree then, but now the group has changed, and they are in twos and threes.

Ji Qingzhou stopped in her tracks and asked, "Do you want to make a wish?"

An couldn't think of any urgent desires she needed to fulfill.

Just as she was about to shake her head, Ji Qingzhou had already walked towards the tree.

An had already seen a couple behaving intimately under the tree, and wrote "Together forever" on a wishing plaque and hung it up.

The girl said, "I heard that the higher you hang it, the more effective it is. Hang it a little higher!"

The boys strained to stand on tiptoe, hanging their wishes in a relatively high place.

The two left satisfied.

Love is so intense that you wish you could become one with the other person; when you no longer love them, you wish you could tear them apart, drink their blood, pull out their tendons, and grind their bones to dust.

That yearning for a miracle, that tiptoeing, at that moment must have been a fervent desire to be with the other person forever. But no one knows how far "forever" means to the other.

Ji Qingzhou brought over a large bunch of red ribbons, and the wooden sign underneath rattled loudly.

An asked in surprise, "Are you going to make so many wishes?"

"That's a bit too ambitious."

This temple is very popular and doesn't make money by selling these things; the wishing plaques are not expensive.

From a probabilistic perspective, the greater the chance of something being seen being realized.

Seeing that An had no wishes, Ji Qingzhou wrote "peace and joy" for her. After she finished writing, he picked up a wooden plaque and wrote his own wish, finishing it very quickly.

An couldn't see clearly, only that there seemed to be only two or three words.

An remembered the couple from earlier and reminded them, "It seems the higher it is hung, the more effective it is."

This was the first time Ji Qingzhou had written something like this, and whatever her wish was, she hoped it could come true.

Ji Qingzhou wrote two lines and then put down his pen. He looked up at the huge tree in front of him and took a few steps back.

He tied all the wishing plaques in his hand into a knot and threw them forcefully at the branch that had no plaques attached to it.

—The wishing plaque swayed a few times with the branch attached, and then it hung firmly on the branch.

An Yi: "..."

If you say he was sincere, he bought a whole bunch but only wrote down two names; if you say he wasn't sincere, he really hung them very high.

An glanced at the wishing plaque hanging on the tree branch against the light, and then walked out of the temple with Ji Qingzhou.

They had seen the wishing tree before, on the beach in another city.

Ji Qingzhou said there would be shooting stars that day, and they would be clearly visible from there.

It was just the two of them that time. If that could be considered a date, it was one of their few dates.

The tree I saw was on the beach where I watched shooting stars.

The tree was covered with wishes, and young people gathered around it in layers.

As they passed by, Ji Qingzhou even asked if they wanted to make a wish as well.

An didn't go, but she closed her eyes and made a wish when a shooting star streaked across the night sky.

At that time, Ji Qingzhou led her forward, and when they reached a less crowded place, two shooting stars appeared one after the other.

As they were about to disappear, Ji Qingzhou signaled to An that she had made a wish.

An had made a wish that was very important to her at the time: her graduation thesis would be successfully passed.

She also told Ji Qingzhou about it.

Ji Qingzhou smiled slightly in the night sea breeze.

"What a waste of an opportunity."

"Even if you don't make this wish, it will still go through smoothly."

An had already tilted her head back and was laughing heartily.

Ji Qingzhou made neither a wish under the tree nor a wish under the shooting star.

An asked, "Then what are you doing here? Did you make a special trip just for a few seconds?"

“Yes,” Ji Qingzhou said.

Just as she was wondering if she had less romantic genes than Ji Qingzhou, she heard Ji Qingzhou say, "Come and see the bright light produced by the burning of small stones, dust particles or metal particles from space when they enter the atmosphere and collide with molecules at high speed."

An Yi, "..."

The last threshold beneath her feet pulled her back to reality.

Ji Qingzhou pulled back the foot she had stepped out and said to her, "Wait for me."

He turned and strode quickly inside.

An turned around and looked at Ji Qingzhou's back.

Time is like a shooting star; it seems to flow slowly, but in the long course of history, it is but a fleeting moment.

Just like Ji Qingzhou who was beside her back then, let alone making a wish, even a shooting star would give him a disdainful look if it passed by.

As Ji Qingzhou approached, she asked, "What's wrong?"

Ji Qingzhou smiled and shook her head, saying, "It's nothing. Let's go ask if there's a solution."

An was somewhat helpless. "Didn't you say you didn't believe in these things? And it didn't say there was any danger, so why would you need a solution?"

Ji Qingzhou raised an eyebrow slightly but remained silent.

After returning home, An felt that Ji Qingzhou was acting very strangely.

Even though he couldn't distinguish between soy sauce and vinegar, he still went into the kitchen to help Aunt Lin.

Aunt Lin was initially very happy and told him how to prepare the vegetables, but later she seemed to get annoyed by him.

An was already typing on the balcony when she heard Aunt Lin speaking behind her, her voice several decibels louder than usual.

"Oh dear, my young master, you'd better not go into the kitchen. Go and attend to your own business."

An turned around and smiled slightly, just in time to meet Ji Qingzhou's gaze as he walked out of the kitchen.

Ji Qingzhou awkwardly touched his nose.

Instead of being on the balcony reading his papers, he went back into his bedroom.

An was typing away while analyzing Ji Qingzhou's unusual behavior.

It's really difficult to do both of these things at the same time.

She wanted to write down what happened in her dream to see if she could find any connection between the ending and the beginning.

Something felt off, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it; something just felt really off.

It seems like they're trying to suppress some undisguised emotion through certain actions.

Something is definitely going to happen.

Sure enough, something really happened.

It was very late, by the time An had already gone to bed.

Ji Qingzhou moved closer to her, staring at An Yi for a long time with his eyes half-open. His bedside lamp was still on. Usually, An Yi would turn it off first, and then his would follow.

The warm yellow light cast a dim glow over the bedroom. An tossed and turned, feeling as if a gaze was fixed on her. She sighed and turned to face Ji Qingzhou.

Is there something you want to tell me?

Ji Qingzhou's eyes widened for a moment, then he nodded.

"Then you tell me."

She felt something was off as soon as she said it. If she was keeping something to herself, or if something could keep Ji Qingzhou in this state for so long, it must be something extraordinary.

Ji Qingzhou's gaze fell on her face, like a soft feather brushing against it again and again.

This matter must be related to her.

An had regained some consciousness, and alarm bells immediately went off in her mind.

Ji Qingzhou's lips moved twice before she uttered a definite question, "An Yi, do you... like me?"

An's lips, which had been pressed together, parted slightly, and she silently uttered an "Ah."

Time seemed to pass both quickly and quickly.

In short, during that long and tense period, An had thought about many things.

Why did he ask that question? What triggered him today? Had he been pondering this question all afternoon?

This seems to be the first time he asked her if she liked him.

Does he want an answer different from what she gave a year ago? Does he know what she meant by "like" before?

These questions flashed through my mind, and then the recent images flashed back.

Ji Qingzhou accompanied her to rest at Zhushui Courtyard, took her back to the old house, went to the beach with her, and took her to see a play...

Ji Qingzhou's suppressed, expectant gaze finally dimmed.

An nodded slowly.

He smiled again, like the spring breeze of March rushing across his face.

Ji Qingzhou couldn't help but move closer to An Yi, and leaned down to kiss her forehead.

"Then...do you only like me?" Her tone and gaze were even more expectant than before.

If An had just been a little sleepy, he had now vanished without a trace.

But he did ask a very reasonable question.

They are a couple; the girlfriend should only like the boyfriend, and the boyfriend should only like the girlfriend.

However, An had never asked Ji Qingzhou this question, never asked if he liked her, and never asked if he only liked her.

Ji Qingzhou's question was absolutely reasonable.

The timing of the question was wrong; it should have been asked before they got together.

The issues that need to be determined.

The order seems a bit off now.

No, it's not that the order is wrong.

An was getting more and more dizzy from thinking about it.

Or she could ask Ji Qingzhou in return, making her feel the same way she did.

Ah, is she in a difficult position?

Suddenly, she remembered the young general, the oil-paper umbrella held up in the rain, the crabapple tree in full bloom, and the head that had rolled away...

After a long silence, Ji Qingzhou gently turned off his bedside lamp.

She seemed to have fallen asleep from exhaustion, or perhaps a dream suddenly struck her and overwhelmed her.

Those issues she had always considered insignificant and had always avoided.

She was pulled into Ji Qingzhou's arms, his head buried in her neck.

She heard intermittent sounds, blending into the darkness.

"Then, could you... could you only like me... could you only like me, only like Ji Qingzhou..."

Ji Qingzhou was left with only darkness.

Huaichuan gently kissed her forehead. "Ayun, wait for me for another year. I will come back to marry you after a year."

A-Yun nodded, completely believing what he said.

From the first moment she saw him, she knew he was no ordinary person. In the days that followed, she gradually saw his mission as a general to protect the people, guard the border, and be loyal to the court and the emperor.

She believed him.

But Ah Yun waited in that small courtyard for the first year, and her grandmother passed away. She didn't see him again. She waited for the second year, and the rebellion that had been quelled broke out again. She didn't see him again. In the third year, she received news of his death.

It was a morning when dark clouds covered the sun.

A bloodstained warhorse lay dead in front of the courtyard gate.