As the evening breeze carrying the scent of lavender brushed past her ears on Montmartre, Zhong Hua's camera was pointed at the deepening sunset. In the viewfinder, crimson clouds, like crumpled silk, flowed slowly along the dome of the Sacré-Cœur Basilica. Just as her fingertip touched the shutter, a familiar figure suddenly appeared in the lens—Ah Yu stood at the bottom of the steps, her dark trench coat fluttering in the wind, clutching a rain-soaked plane ticket in her hand.

“The clouds in your lens are more beautiful than those in my album.” Just as he stepped forward, the Parisian night rain began to fall, the fine raindrops hitting the camera body and splashing up tiny spots of light. Zhong Hua instinctively wanted to close the lens cap, but he pressed his wrist down: “Don’t move, this is just right.”

In the viewfinder, his silhouette overlapped with the sunset, raindrops weaving a transparent net between them. The flames of that arson night three years ago suddenly exploded in his mind. Zhong Hua abruptly closed his eyes, his nails digging into his palms. Ah Yu's hand quickly covered his, the warmth of her palm seeping through his skin: "Didn't we agree that seeing rain would make you think of good things?"

When she opened her eyes, the rain had stopped. The windmills in the distance turned slowly in the twilight, like gears forgotten on the horizon. Ah Yu took a tin box out of her pocket. When she opened it, the silver ring she had bought in Tibet gleamed softly in the twilight. The three words "Be Happy" on the bottom of the box were in Lin Wanqing's handwriting—she had engraved them on the box last year when they weren't looking while they were circumambulating the snow-capped mountains.

“At the ICU entrance, you were reading your interview transcript and saying who you wanted to thank most,” Ah Yu’s voice was softly carried by the evening breeze, “and I thought to myself, if I could help you stop reading with trembling hands, anything I do in this life would be worthwhile.” Zhong Hua’s eyelashes trembled, the camera slipped from his hand, the strap dangling from his arm. She suddenly laughed, raising her hand to touch the scar at the corner of his eye—a mark he’d gotten from protecting her during the mudslide.

"My mother's medical report from back then was tucked inside Gu Yanting's suicide note." She bent down and kicked at the pebbles at her feet. "He knew I had asthma, so he deliberately put a humidifier at the press conference—it turns out that even the most wicked people can still have a sliver of kindness." Ah Yu bent down to pick up the camera and found 327 photos on the memory card, from lavender fields in Provence to prayer wheels in Tibet, with a blurry figure in every corner of each photo.

The night rain started again, and the two walked along the stone path towards the guesthouse. Passing an old bookstore, the old newspaper in the window was stuck on the front page of the day the truth-revealing press conference—Zhong Hua, dressed in a hospital gown, stood under the spotlight, his right hand bandaged, his left hand holding a recorder. In the corner of the photo, Ah Yu held up her lost work ID; the photo on it was taken three years ago at a party, when she was still Gu Yanting's "President's Wife," and he was the photography assistant who had sneaked into the venue with Lin Wanqing.

“Lin Wanqing sent a video yesterday.” Zhong Hua suddenly stopped and pulled his phone out of his bag. On the screen, the starry sky of the African savanna stretched out like a dazzling Milky Way. Lin Wanqing stood by a campfire, holding a wine glass, the scars on her face faintly illuminated by the firelight: “I heard someone’s planning a sneak attack in Paris? Tell Ah Yu, if you keep dawdling, I’ll print your photo on a public service poster.” At the end of the video, the red string on her wrist swayed—exactly the same two as those on prayer wheels in Tibet.

The fireplace in the guesthouse was already burning brightly. When Zhong Hua poured mulled wine, the rim of the glass first bore her lipstick mark, and when he handed it to her, it bore Ah Yu's mark as well. Outside the window, snowflakes fell softly onto the lavender field, turning the purple sea of ​​flowers into a pure white expanse. Ah Yu suddenly got up and pulled a brass key from her suitcase—a keepsake from her father, now used as the guesthouse's address. When Zhong Hua took it, he noticed three initials engraved on the back: Z, A, and L.

“The lawyer said that the Gu family’s estate was awarded to the victims’ foundation.” She stroked the engraving on the key. “When we used the remaining money to build the ‘Truth Foundation,’ Lin Wanqing anonymously donated a large sum. Do you think she was afraid that we would live too shabbily?” Ah Yu was adding firewood to the fireplace. When he heard this, he turned around, and the firelight danced in his eyes: “When she was distributing supplies in Paris, her phone’s screen saver was a picture of the three of us at a cocktail party.”

Zhong Hua's fingers paused. The crystal chandeliers at that year's party were dazzlingly bright. Lin Wanqing, dressed in a red gown, stood in the center, her left arm linked with Ah Yu, who had just been released from prison, and her right hand holding Ah Yu's still trembling hand. The reporters' flashes came like a tidal wave, but Lin Wanqing suddenly smiled: "If you want to take pictures, hurry up, my friend has to go for an interview tomorrow."

The phone vibrated at that moment. It was a message from Lin Wanqing, containing only one photo—three wine glasses placed side by side on a rock under the starry sky of the African savanna, each filled with moonlight. When Ayu handed the phone to Zhong Hua, the screen automatically lit up the screen saver, a photo taken last year in Provence: Zhong Hua was sitting in a lavender field writing, while Lin Wanqing squatted beside him adjusting the camera, and under a windmill in the distance, she was secretly taking pictures of them with her phone.

"Do you remember the day of the mudslide?" Zhong Hua suddenly spoke, her fingertips tracing the twin lip prints on the rim of the cup. "When you carried me out of the ravine, I had the ginkgo leaf specimen you gave me stuck in my hair. At that time, I thought that if I could get out of here alive, I would never want to be a CEO's wife again." Ah Yu held her hand and found that her fingertips were still trembling slightly—the old injury from seeing the words "CEO's wife" was like a fine thorn stuck in time.

He reached out and covered her eyes, his palm pressed against her eyelids: "Smell it now, it's just lavender." Zhong Hua laughed in the darkness, her breath brushing against his palm, carrying the sweet scent of mulled wine. The firewood in the fireplace crackled, and the sunlight streamed through the window, casting swaying shadows on the floor, like someone gently rocking the cradle of time.

As the midnight bells rang, the two stepped onto the balcony. The Eiffel Tower shimmered in the distance, while the rooftops of the nearby guesthouse were blanketed in snow. Ah Yu took out her silver ring, about to speak, when Zhong Hua suddenly pointed to the horizon: "Look at that cloud, doesn't it look like the rain from when we first met three years ago?"

The clouds were indeed moving, their shape strikingly similar to that stormy night—she had escaped from Gu Yanting's villa, fallen into a puddle at the alley entrance, and Ah Yu stood under a streetlamp, camera in hand, her body soaked through, clutching evidence that could destroy the Gu family business. Lin Wanqing had arrived in her car then, the splashes from her red sports car hitting them both. She leaned out and shouted, "What are you all standing there for? Going to jail?"

The ring was finally slipped onto Zhong Hua's ring finger. When Ah Yu lowered his head to kiss her, he tasted the sweetness of mulled wine, and a hint of saltiness—it was her tears. The church bells rang out in the distance, three times, no more, no less, as if someone in the distance was echoing this belated promise.

"A true confidante is someone who shields you from the thorns of fate and clears a smooth path for you when you are walking through the thickets of destiny."

As the voice-over begins, the camera slowly pulls back. The lights of Montmartre merge into a sea of ​​stars in the night. On the balcony of the guesthouse, two figures embracing gradually overlap with Lin Wanqing, who is holding a wine glass on the distant grassland. All three wine glasses contain the same moon, like a silver coin polished smooth by time, one side engraved with reunion, the other with eternity.

The rain started again, this time it was warm. In Zhong Hua's camera, the last photo was taken at the moment Ah Yu looked up, the sunset behind him spreading over the church steeple, like a farewell that would never end.