In his dream, he was at a sugar painting stall in Beijing's West Market. The warm yellow of an oil lamp illuminated the hunched back of Old Man Zhang. A young man in a blue shirt crouched before the stall, holding a freshly made sugar phoenix. The sugar threads shimmered amber in the night breeze. He looked up, and it was none other than the young Jiang Yan, with his handsome features and a sly smile.
"Miss Jinli," he waved at her, his voice as clear as it was back then, "Look, I bought you a sugar painting."
Su Jinli wanted to run over, but her feet felt like they were filled with lead. She looked at the young Jiang Yan, tears welling up in her eyes: "Jiang Yan! Don't go!"
The young man, Jiang Yan, smiled, a smile as gentle as the spring sunshine. "Silly girl, don't be sad." He took a step closer, his blue shirt still carrying a faint scent of ink. "I'm just... going to prepare the betrothal gifts for my next life."
"In the next life..." Su Jinli choked, "Will you still marry me?"
"Of course I will." The young man Jiang Yan stretched out his hand, his fingertips seeming to touch her cheek. "Not just in the next life, but in the next life after that, as long as you are here, I will find you."
"Then let's make a pinky promise!" Su Jinli extended her little finger, just like she did fifty years ago.
The young man Jiang Yan also stretched out his hand, and his two young fingers overlapped in the light and shadow of the dream.
"We'll make a promise to each other for a hundred years, no change."
When she woke up, the morning light was dim outside the window. Su Jinli touched her cheeks, tears soaking her pillow. But her heart felt calmer than ever, as if the dream had washed away all the sadness. She knew Jiang Yan hadn't left; he had simply gone to fulfill a promise beyond reincarnation.
The days flowed slowly through her longing. Su Jinli gradually returned to her former self, though a touch of calmness crossed her features. She began helping Xiaoyueer revise her storybook, recounting stories of her and Jiang Yan's youth to her great-grandchildren. She even picked up her paintbrush again, sketching crooked dragons and phoenixes on rice paper.
"Grandma, please take a look at my new story!" Xiaoyue threw herself into her arms, holding the thick storybook. "It's about Grandpa and your next life!"
The cover of the storybook depicted two children in pigtails. The boy held a sugar-painted phoenix, the girl clutching a twisted sugar-painted dragon. The bustling West Street was in the background. Su Jinli flipped to the first page. Xiao Yue'er's childish handwriting read, "Chapter 1: Encountering a small sugar-painted phoenix on West Street, a fateful relationship between us will last for three lifetimes..."
"Will grandpa and grandma fight again in front of the sugar painting stall in their next life?" Xiaoyue asked with her little face raised.
Su Jinli looked at the little boy in the painting who looked exactly like Jiang Yan, a gentle smile playing on her lips. "Yes," she said. She stroked the paper, as if touching the lines of time. "Grandpa would give the phoenix sugar painting to Grandma and say to her, 'Miss Jinli, does this phoenix look like your eyes?'"
"Then grandma will say: 'I do!'" Xiaoyue clapped her hands happily, with a glint of longing in her eyes.
"Yes." Su Jinli nodded, a tear falling onto the drawing paper, leaving a small stain. "Then grandma will say, 'I do.'"
It was late autumn again. Su Jinli, leaning on her cane, arrived at Jiang Yan's grave. The photo on the tombstone swayed slightly in the autumn breeze, and Jiang Yan's smile remained gentle. She put down the sugar-painted phoenix she had learned to make herself. Though it was crooked, it carried a strong aroma of syrup.
"Jiang Yan," she said, sitting beside the tombstone, fallen leaves gracing her shoulders. "Look, I learned to make sugar paintings from Old Man Zhang's grandson. Isn't it similar to what you did back then?"
She rambled on and on, saying how Xiaoyue'er's storybook had been recognized by the bookshop, how Su Heng had finally learned how to hold his grandson, and how Su Qingyao's newly blended rouge had been rewarded by the palace. Finally, she looked at the name on the tombstone, her voice as soft as the autumn breeze:
"Jiang Yan, you said you would bring sugar paintings to marry me in your next life. I'm waiting."
"No matter what you look like, a poor scholar or a little beggar, I can recognize you."
"Because you were the one who snatched the sugar painting from me."
"He's the one who gave me the Phoenix and said he would protect me from getting into trouble."
The autumn wind blew the fallen leaves from the ground, like a grand farewell. Su Jinli stood up, brushed the dust off her skirt, and turned to walk back to the mansion. Her back stretched out in the sunset, but she no longer looked lonely.
She knew that, in some unknown time and space, a young man clutched a sugar-painted phoenix, making his way through the bustling crowd toward her. Their story, which had begun at a streetside sugar-painted stall and weathered fifty years of trials and tribulations, ultimately wrote a new chapter in the cycle of reincarnation.
The years are peaceful, and we'll continue in the next life. Those sweet moments, those years spent holding hands and sharing the vicissitudes of life, will all begin anew in a different way, one spring day when the flowers bloom. And she, carrying this promise that transcends life and death, awaits her next street encounter with hope.
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