The weight of a name

The hustle and bustle and warmth of Lu Fanxing's birthday party lingered in my memory last night like a soft filter. The next morning, as Yunxi walked down the stairs, she felt that the air around her was different from usual. It was an atmosphere woven from an invisible, unspoken sense of intimacy.

Shi Xu was already there, still holding that familiar transparent breakfast box in his hand. But today, when he looked at her, the usual coldness in his eyes was replaced by a very faint, soft light, like a corner of a glacier quietly melting in the early sun.

"Good morning." His voice was lower and gentler than usual, with a hint of barely perceptible hoarseness.

"Good morning." Yunxi took the box, and the moment their fingertips touched, they both clearly felt the lingering warmth of last night's embrace, like a weak electric current gently soothing their skin.

On the way to school, the silence was no longer an unsettling vacuum, but filled with a reassuring understanding. He turned aside with remarkable ease, making way for her on the safer inside of the road, his movements so fluid as if he had rehearsed them a thousand times—in fact, this stemmed from the deep-seated pain of countless times he had failed to protect her, an instinct etched into his very bones.

As she entered the school gate, the curious or inquisitive gazes remained, but Yunxi found herself no longer so bothered. When she moved slightly closer to him due to the crowd, he would subtly slow his pace, using his body to create a safe space for her. His vigilance was like an invisible net, not stemming from calculation, but from the irreversible consequences of momentary negligence in those cycles of reincarnation.

During her lunch break, Yunxi received a message from her grandmother saying that the package had been sent and that she had added, "There's a tin box inside. Your mother used to put your little trinkets in there. Look for it; you might find a surprise."

A tin box?

Yunxi's heart skipped a beat. Almost immediately, she thought of the cookie tin with the carved wooden bird in Shixu. A strong premonition gripped her—that tin must hold more clues connecting them to their past.

She was somewhat absent-minded all afternoon, and as soon as the school bell rang, she couldn't wait to pack her things.

Shi Xu waited at their usual spot, and seeing her slightly anxious expression, he understood. "Is something wrong?" he asked, his voice very soft.

"Yes!" Yunxi nodded, her eyes shining brightly with anticipation. "The package my grandma sent should arrive today!"

Shi Xu's eyes flickered almost imperceptibly. Anticipation mingled with a deep, almost fearful tension within him. He desperately wanted to piece together all the fragments of his memories of her, yet he feared those fragments were too sharp, that they would sever this hard-won tranquility. He silently took the slightly heavy schoolbag from her hands.

“Let’s go,” he said. “I’ll go back with you.”

Those four simple words warmed Yunxi's heart. He didn't say "You go back," but "I'll go back with you." This meant that he was willing to face any unknown Pandora's box that might be opened from the past with her.

The two walked quickly home. Just as they reached the entrance of the residential complex, Yunxi saw the deliveryman waiting at the security guard's booth. She signed for the small but heavy cardboard box.

As she carried the box upstairs, her heart pounded. Shi Xu followed silently behind her, his gaze fixed on the box, each step heavy and slow, as if he were treading on the steps leading to the source of his own destiny.

Upon arriving at her doorstep, Yunxi took out her keys but hesitated for a moment. She turned to Shixu and asked, "Do you... want to come in and look around with me?"

This is an invitation, an invitation for him to formally step into her private space of exploring the past, and an invitation for him to face together the memories that may surface.

Looking into her clear, trusting eyes, Shi Xu's Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty. A few seconds of silence stretched between them as he seemed to gather the courage to face the truth. Finally, he nodded solemnly.

"good."

Yunxi smiled and opened the door. The two of them walked into the space that belonged to her and her mother. She placed the cardboard box on the coffee table in the living room, took a deep breath, and carefully cut the tape with scissors.

Upon opening the cardboard box, the first thing that caught my eye was, as expected, an old tin biscuit box with faded peony prints, almost identical to the one Shi Xu had. Underneath the box were several photo albums and a notebook wrapped in kraft paper.

Yunxi held her breath slightly and picked up the tin box first. As she opened it, the hinges made a familiar creaking sound, like a sigh from the depths of time.

There were no cookies inside, but rather a little girl's "treasure trove": colorful glass beads, plastic beads with broken strings, several faded stickers, and a few unique feathers...

Her fingers rummaged through the clutter, her heart pounding. Finally, at the very bottom of the box, her fingertips touched a small, hard object wrapped in soft cloth.

She carefully took it out, unfolding the layers of the yellowed soft cloth one by one.

Inside lay a smooth, white, round stone, upon which two tiny figures holding hands were drawn in childlike strokes. Although the colors had faded, the design remained clear. On the back of the stone were two crookedly carved characters:

[Sequence Gap]

Yunxi's pupils contracted sharply, and his heart felt as if it were being gripped tightly by an invisible hand, almost stopping its beating.

She slowly raised her head and handed the pebble in her palm to Shixu.

Shi Xu's gaze fell on the stone, especially on the two names carved together. His face turned deathly pale in an instant, as if all the blood in his body had drained away. His slender body swayed almost imperceptibly, as if struck by an invisible force. He reached out, his fingertips trembling uncontrollably, and gently touched the cold stone surface, as if touching a fragile illusion, evidence he had sought through countless reincarnations but dared not believe truly existed.

“…This is what I carved.” His voice was terribly hoarse, each word seeming to be squeezed from a torn chest, filled with disbelief and a deep, almost overwhelming pain. “That day…by the river, you insisted…I promised you, I would carve your name and mine together from now on…”

He didn't finish his sentence, but Yunxi understood everything.

This pebble, more directly and starkly than the carved wooden bird, testifies to the bond of their childhood. It not only carries the weight of a "life-saving grace," but also the purest and most clumsy promise of a young boy to the little girl beside him who loved to cry and laugh.

(Yunxi's inner monologue: So our names were etched together by fate so early on.)

The living room was silent, save for the two people's hurried breathing. The setting sun streamed through the window, casting its light on the white pebbles and their intertwined gazes, as if casting a soft, fateful glow on this connection that had spanned so long.

The past and the present are completely connected at this moment by this small pebble.

Shixu raised his eyes and looked into the gap in the clouds. In those eyes that were always unfathomable, there was a turbulent surge—the ecstasy of something lost and found, the panic of a secret being completely exposed, and the heartbreaking sorrow of finally finding an anchor after traversing a long period of time.

He had searched for her for so many years, planned for so long, and only now, holding this token of his childhood, did he feel that he truly and completely stood before her again. No longer were they separated by a hopeless cycle of reincarnation, but he had genuinely touched that lost, beautiful beginning.

Seeing the undisguised surge of emotion in his eyes, Yunxi did not back down. Instead, she took a step forward and gently grasped his hand, which was holding the pebble. Her warm palm firmly enveloped his cold fingertips.

“You see,” she said softly, her voice trembling slightly but with unwavering determination, “the seasons and the gaps in the clouds have never been separated.”

Her words, like the final key, with a warm force, completely opened the deepest door of the rusty fortress in his heart, built of loneliness and fear.

That tender promise from summer, after a long period of loss and searching, finally found its only home on another summer evening.