Chapter 19
On the campus in early autumn, the leaves of the sycamore trees were beginning to turn yellow, and the breeze carried a refreshing coolness. Feng Ling had just finished her afternoon class and was walking out of the teaching building, books in hand. Her mind was still on the phone call from her mother last night, her tone softened slightly but still filled with worry. She was kicking a pebble on the side of the road, struggling with how to bring up this matter with Qiqi, when a familiar figure caught her eye.
He was standing beneath the largest ginkgo tree in front of the teaching building, wearing a simple black coat. His posture remained upright, yet he inexplicably exuded a sense of travel-worn loneliness. He looked at her with a deep and complex gaze, filled with a heaviness she couldn't understand.
Feng Ling's heart skipped a beat, and she stopped dead in her tracks. Why was he here? And with such an expression on his face?
"Qiqi?" She walked over quickly, with a look of surprise and a hint of barely perceptible panic, "Why are you here? You didn't even tell me in advance."
Qiqi's eyes traced her face carefully, as if he wanted to carve her appearance into his bones. He took a deep breath, his voice a little hoarse: "Feng Ling, let's find a quiet place and talk, okay?"
His tone was so serious that Feng Ling's heart sank. She nodded and led him to a relatively secluded garden behind the teaching building. A few golden leaves lay on the stone bench.
The two sat down, silence spread in the air, carrying the oppressive feeling of impending storm.
It was Qiqi who spoke first. He didn't look at her, his gaze fixed on a point in the void ahead. His voice was calm, yet it carried a sense of exhausting restraint:
"Feng Ling, I'm leaving. I'm going abroad to study dance."
This news was like a huge rock crashing into Feng Ling's heart, stirring up a thousand waves. She turned to look at him in astonishment: "Going abroad? When did you decide? Why... so suddenly?"
"It's not sudden. I've been thinking about it for a long time." Qiqi finally turned around and met her gaze with a frank look. His usual playfulness and tenderness were gone, replaced only by the calmness and straightforwardness of a grown man. "Even though you didn't say it explicitly, I can guess what your parents said. They're right."
Feng Ling wanted to refute, his lips moved, but no sound came out.
"There's indeed a gap between us," he continued, his tone as calm as if he were analyzing a dance move. "It's not just our academic qualifications, but also our vision, our understanding, and the different worlds we may face in the future. What I offer you now, aside from my feelings, is too little and too uncertain."
"I don't care about those..." Feng Ling's voice was choked with sobs.
"I care!" Qiqi interrupted her, her voice suddenly rising with unquestionable determination. "Feng Ling, I love you. It's precisely because I love you that I can't pretend to be blind to these problems. I can't let you be stuck between me and your parents. And I can't... let you regret choosing someone like me one day in the future."
His words were like a blunt knife, slowly cutting Feng Ling's heart. She looked at him, seeing the undisguised pain in his eyes and the almost cruel clarity born of love.
"I'm not running away," he looked at her with burning eyes, "I'm solving the problem. I want to become better, better enough to stand by you with confidence, better enough to shut up all those who doubt us. Studying abroad is the fastest and most effective way I can think of right now."
His reasons were so honest, so well-reasoned, and even filled with responsibility for her and the future, that Feng Ling couldn't even utter the willful "I won't let you go." She could only feel the immense, helpless sadness that overwhelmed her.
Then he said the words that finally broke her down.
"This trip may take two or three years, or even longer. The road ahead is unknown, and I don't want to tie you down." He paused, as if he had exhausted all his strength before he uttered those words with difficulty, "Feng Ling... You, don't have to wait for me."
No need to wait for me.
These few simple words, like the final judgment, shattered all of Feng Ling's persistence and fantasies.
She was stunned at first, then laughed out loud as if she had heard a huge joke, tears welling up uncontrollably. She stood up suddenly, looking down at him, her voice trembling slightly with excitement and disappointment:
"Alright! Qiqi, you're great! You're amazing! You've thought of everything so thoroughly! You said it was for my own good, so you didn't want me anymore! You said you'd solve the problem, so you'd just leave it alone! You said there's no need to wait, so I don't have to wait!"
Her smile was uglier than crying, and tears slid down her cheeks and dripped onto the withered grass.
"Of course I won't wait for you! If I, Feng Ling, leave you, can't I live anymore? I will definitely be happy! A hundred times happier than being with you!"
She almost yelled the last few words, each word like a knife, stabbing Qiqi's heart and her own heart.
Seeing her tearful face yet forcing herself to remain stubborn, Qiqi's heart shattered into dust. The immense pain and urge to do so made him instinctively take a step forward and reach out, wanting to once again, and for the last time, embrace this girl he cherished so dearly.
"Don't touch me!"
Feng Ling, however, suddenly backed away as if scalded, her eyes filled with the determination and defensiveness of being "abandoned." She gave him a deep look, a look so complex it contained love, resentment, pain, and reluctance, which ultimately dissolved into a cold estrangement.
Then, she turned decisively, never looking back, clutching her book, and staggered yet determinedly walked in the opposite direction of him, step by step. The autumn wind blew her long hair and the corners of her clothes, and her back was so thin that it was heartbreaking, but also so determined that it left no room for maneuver.
Qiqi's outstretched hand froze in mid-air, finally falling helplessly. He stood there, like a tree suddenly drained of all life, watching her disappear at the end of the campus path. He felt his entire world crumble with it, plunging into a silent, cold darkness.
The ginkgo leaves are still falling quietly, witnessing this autumn's farewell. One of them heads south, the other north, and they go their separate ways.
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