Unfinished puzzle
As autumn deepened, dusk fell early. When Lin Wanxing returned to her office after teaching her last class, the streetlights were already on outside the window. She put down her lesson plan, her gaze inadvertently falling on the slightly dusty square cardboard box on the top shelf of the bookshelf.
As if guided by a ghost, she moved a chair, stood on tiptoe, and took the box down. Brushing away the dust, she opened the lid. Inside were countless, brightly colored pieces of a "Starry Night" puzzle, along with a huge reference image of a starry sky poster. This was the puzzle she and Shen Yu had enthusiastically bought years ago, supposedly containing a thousand pieces, capable of creating a magnificent Milky Way and deep nebulae. They had once, one weekend afternoon, pieced together a portion of Orion and the Big Dipper, and then… then it was forever shelved.
She laid the puzzle pieces out on the small coffee table with its glass top, the fragments clattering softly like a silent ritual. She sat on the carpet, picking up a deep blue piece with her fingertips, trying to locate it based on her memory and the diagrams. What had Shen Yu said back then? He pointed to the third star in Orion's Belt, saying that star was actually a giant nebula, giving birth to new stars… His voice, the slight upturn of his lips as he spoke, the gentle furrowing of his brow as he intently stared at the puzzle—all were as clear as if they happened yesterday.
Her gaze inadvertently swept across the corner of the coffee table, where a delicate metal gear model lay quietly, spilled out along with the shards. It was the first little gadget that Shen Yu had personally crafted when he was obsessed with mechanical engineering. He had once jokingly called it the "first part" of their future home. Now, the gear was slightly oxidized, gleaming with the faint light of old objects, like their abruptly interrupted youth.
A mix of warmth and sharp pain gripped her, making it almost impossible for her to breathe. She was drowning in this sea of fragmented memories, everything around her becoming blurred.
There was a gentle knock on the office door.
Lin Wanxing was suddenly jolted awake from her reverie, as if she had done something wrong and been caught doing something wrong. She hurriedly pieced together the few pieces of debris beside her.
"Please come in."
Jiang Chen pushed open the door and came in, carrying a thermal bag. "Teacher Lin, you didn't go to the cafeteria tonight, so I brought some porridge and side dishes." His voice was as steady as ever, but his gaze froze when it fell on the starry sky puzzle spread out in front of her, which was less than a tenth complete. The lines on his face seemed to tighten slightly for a moment, and the hand holding the bag tightened imperceptibly.
Lin Wanxing noticed his odd behavior and followed his gaze to the puzzle piece. That inexplicable sense of unease resurfaced in her heart. "Put it there, thank you." She paused, then subconsciously pointed to a spot near the edge of the puzzle piece. "This piece... I've been looking for it for a long time, but something just doesn't feel right."
It was an irregularly shaped notch, surrounded by a transitional deep blue.
Jiang Chen stood still, not immediately putting down the insulated bag. His gaze was fixed on the empty space, his Adam's apple bobbing slightly. A few seconds later, he almost stiffly walked forward, his eyes not searching too much in the pile of fragments, but instead bending down and precisely picking up a piece from a small pile of fragments near Lin Wanxing's hand.
“It’s this one.” He handed the fragment to her, his voice low. “There’s a scratch on the back of its lower left corner. It should be stuck in the groove of the pale blue crescent-shaped fragment below.”
Lin Wanxing didn't catch the shard; she simply looked up at him, her gaze fixed on him. Only a desk lamp was on in the office, casting a dim, yellowish light that shrouded half his face in shadow, making the other half appear exceptionally striking. Her voice was soft, tinged with inquiry and confusion: "Jiang Chen, how do you...know all this?"
Even she herself was blurry about many details of this starry sky puzzle, yet he was able to locate it so precisely, and even knew the details of the scratch on the back of that piece. More importantly, that scratch was deliberately made by Shen Yu with his fingernail so that he could remember it.
Jiang Chen's hand, holding the fragment, hovered in mid-air, neither retracting nor lowering. He avoided her direct gaze, looking at the unfinished starry sky, his eyes filled with complex and unreadable emotions that Lin Wanxing couldn't understand—like a struggle, or perhaps some kind of deep pain.
“I…” he began, his voice unusually hoarse, “I’ve seen the blueprints.” This explanation was weak and unconvincing.
"Really?" Lin Wanxing pressed, her tone carrying a pressure she herself didn't realize, "Did the drawings even mark the features behind each fragment?"
Jiang Chen fell silent. The office was so quiet that the faint sound of traffic from afar could be heard through the window. His fingers, gripping the small shard, turned slightly white from the pressure. That shard felt like a red-hot iron, burning his fingertips and his heart.
In the end, he didn't answer. He simply and slowly, almost stubbornly, placed the fragment next to the empty spot where it should have been, without putting it back together. It was as if completing this action would have exhausted all his strength.
"Eat the porridge while it's hot." He straightened up, his voice returning to its usual deep tone, but tinged with an indescribable weariness. He didn't look at her again, nor at the jigsaw puzzle, and turned to leave the office quickly, the door closing a little louder than usual.
Lin Wanxing stared at the perfectly fitting fragment he had placed beside the empty space, then at the door he had closed behind her. The doubts in her heart didn't dissipate; instead, they deepened. Who was he? How did he know about the scratches on the back of this fragment? Why was he so familiar with the memories of her and Shen Yu?
She lost the courage and will to continue. That unfinished starry sky, like a giant mockery, stood between her and reality, and between her and Jiang Chen. The battle between the past and the present appeared so clear and cruel on these silent fragments.
...
A few days later, one afternoon, Su Xiao came to Lin Wanxing's office. Since the elevator incident and receiving that box of "logically clear" vitamins, her relationship with Lu Ziang had maintained a superficial and fragile calm. They would nod to each other when they met on the street, but that was all. The sense of absurdity in her heart was still there, but she no longer deliberately avoided it as before.
When she pushed open the office door, Lin Wanxing was staring blankly at the computer screen, with dark circles under her eyes, clearly indicating that she hadn't rested well.
"Wanxing, are you alright?" Su Xiao asked with concern, her gaze immediately drawn to the eye-catching starry sky puzzle on the coffee table. "Huh? Why did you dig this out?" She was one of the few people who knew the origin of the puzzle.
Lin Wanxing rubbed her temples and sighed, "It's nothing, I'm just a little tired." She didn't want to talk about the puzzle anymore.
Su Xiao sat down next to her, hesitated for a moment, and then said, "It's quite a coincidence. Today I went to the pediatrics department to deliver new picture books to Xuanxuan, and the head nurse told me that the disinfection equipment in their activity room was upgraded to a new set a few days ago. It is said to be more efficient and safer for the children."
"Oh? That's a good thing," Lin Wanxing replied absentmindedly.
“Hmm,” Su Xiao nodded, her tone carrying a complex meaning. “I heard that someone made optimization suggestions to the logistics department based on previous environmental sampling data, which led to the special approval for the replacement.” She paused, as if mentioning it casually, “The head nurse also remarked that she didn’t expect Dr. Lu to be so attentive to these small things in pediatrics and to have such solid data.”
Upon hearing this, Lin Wanxing looked up at Su Xiao. Su Xiao shrugged, his face displaying a knowing, helpless expression.
“He…” Lin Wanxing hesitated for a moment, “was he helping you…”
"Help me?" Su Xiao smirked as if she had heard something amusing. "He didn't say that. In his mind, it was probably just the optimal solution derived from 'data' and 'infection control logic,' and I just happened to be in that environment."
She spoke casually, but Lin Wanxing still detected a subtle change in her friend's tone, different from before. It was no longer pure anger or sadness, but rather a... an attempt to understand, even a slightly teasing acceptance. The iceberg was indeed melting, even if the way it melted was so unconventional.
“Perhaps… he’s just doing it his way,” Lin Wanxing said softly, as if speaking to Su Xiao, but also as if speaking to herself. Everyone expresses their feelings differently; some are passionate, some are clumsy, and some… like Jiang Chen, silent and complex, carrying unspeakable secrets.
Su Xiao remained silent for a moment, not denying it. She looked at Lin Wanxing's tired profile, then at the partially completed starry sky puzzle, and a sense of unease crept into her heart. A layer of mystery seemed to shroud the relationship between Wanxing and Jiang Chen.
“Let’s go,” Su Xiao stood up and pulled Lin Wanxing up. “Stop staring at the computer and these fragments. Come with me for a walk and a drink. You need some fresh air.”
Lin Wanxing was pulled to her feet, taking one last look at the starry sky. A piece was still missing from Orion's belt, a piece Jiang Chen had precisely located but hadn't pieced back together for her. And what remained unfinished was far more than just this starry sky.
She withdrew her gaze, letting Su Xiao pull her out of the office. Outside the window, the autumn sunlight had an almost transparent quality, but it couldn't completely dispel the gloom and mystery lingering in her heart.
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