Sun Guixiang's small house, located deep in the shantytown of the old city, is now shrouded in a strange silence.
Outside the house is the eternal hustle and bustle of the summer night - the chirping of insects, the vague voices of people in the distant alleys, and the occasional rumble of an old motorcycle passing by.
A dim incandescent bulb hangs under the low beam. The light is not bright, but warm enough.
The air was filled with a mixture of scents: the faint musty smell of old wood, which carried a sense of time; and the earthy fragrance of fresh vegetables just harvested from the fields piled in the corner.
There was also a hint of the sweet and mellow aroma of mung bean soup, which Sun Guixiang had specially cooked and watched him drink it.
Next to the old square table with peeling paint, Ye Qingliu sat on an equally old and seemingly unreliable wooden chair. He leaned back slightly and fell asleep against the backrest.
On the small table in front of Ye Qingliu, there was a coarse porcelain bowl that was washed white and had some bumps on the edges. A little bit of light green, cold mung bean soup remained at the bottom of the bowl.
His slender fingers were still resting loosely on the edge of the bowl, maintaining the posture of putting it down after drinking.
The dark blue school uniform jacket was carefully draped over the back of the chair.
He was only wearing the white shirt of his school uniform, with two buttons undone at the collar, revealing his graceful collarbone and a small patch of cool white skin.
Under the dim light, the cold white seemed to be tinged with a layer of warmth.
He was sleeping soundly.
His breathing was even and long, and his chest rose and fell slightly with each breath.
That face that usually looked like it was carved from ice and snow, so delicate and flawless, now shed all the coldness and alienation that kept people at a distance while sleeping, revealing an almost transparent fragility and pure tranquility.
His long eyelashes, like crow feathers, cast two small, dense shadows under his eyelids, which trembled very slightly with his breathing. His tightly pursed thin lips also relaxed, their color still very pale, but no longer looking so lifeless.
The slightly leaning back posture allows his graceful jaw and neck to fully stretch out, forming a smooth and fragile arc under the light.
Sun Guixiang was sitting opposite him on the equally short, creaking bamboo stool.
She hunched her back, her skinny body leaning forward, and her cloudy eyes stared at the boy sleeping on the chair without blinking, almost greedily.
Her posture was like that of an old mother bird, vigilantly and tenderly guarding her lost and found chick.
Time seemed to have stopped for her, and only her focused gaze was carefully depicting Ye Qingliu's face.
Sun Guixiang's gaze finally settled on the pair of glasses. The frames were extremely slender and delicate, their cold silver gleaming with a hard, cool sheen under the warm yellow light.
Sun Guixiang remembered that in the hospital ward, under the bright fluorescent lights, the glasses reflected a cold light, and the gray-blue eyes behind the lenses were as deep as a frozen lake, so calm that it made people feel uneasy.
She also remembered the cold light that flashed at the edge of his glasses when he turned and left under the Qinglan Bridge.
Just now, he sat quietly opposite her, drinking the mung bean soup she cooked and deliberately cooled down in small sips. Occasionally, a little imperceptible heat would cover the lenses of his glasses, but he never took them off.
Now, the child finished drinking and fell asleep on the chair. He slept so soundly and quietly.
Sun Guixiang rubbed her skinny fingers on her knees unconsciously, as if to encourage herself.
A thought, with cautious temptation, quietly arose in her heart.
Sleeping with glasses on... or with your head tilted back like this, the thin metal frame pressing against your nose bridge and your smooth skin will definitely leave red marks, right? How uncomfortable...
Once this thought arose, it entangled her heart like a vine.
She looked at the defenseless face of the sleeping boy, and his slightly furrowed brows - perhaps it was just because of the posture of tilting his head, or perhaps it was just because of a dream, but in Sun Guixiang's eyes, it became evidence of the discomfort caused by the glasses.
In her cloudy eyes, the pure, unadulterated love and desire to protect became even stronger.
"Little boy..." She called out very softly, almost whispering, as if to confirm whether he was really asleep.
The only response she received was the sound of her long, even breathing.
Sun Guixiang took a deep breath and felt a familiar dull pain in her chest, but she didn't care.
She slowly leaned her hunched body forward, her movements so gentle as if she was afraid to disturb the moon's reflection in the water.
The skinny hand, covered with calluses and cracks, reached towards Ye Qingliu's cheek very slowly with an almost pious caution.
Her fingertips trembled slightly with nervousness. Her target was the pair of exquisite silver-rimmed glasses.
One step after another.
The fingertips were getting closer and closer to the cold metal frame.
Sun Guixiang held her breath, her cloudy eyes fixed on her fingers and the boy's sleeping face, afraid that she would accidentally wake him up.
Finally, her fingertips lightly touched the cold metal temples.
Ye Qingliu's breathing seemed to have not changed at all and remained steady.
Sun Guixiang's heartbeat was like a drum. She carefully and gently pinched the temples of her temples near the lens connection with the pads of her index finger and thumb—that part was least likely to deform.
Then, holding her breath, she used the smallest, steadiest force, and very, very slowly, lifted her glasses upward and outward.
The movement was as gentle as plucking a piece of first snow that had fallen on a petal.
The temples of the glasses silently left the boy's fair earlobe.
Then, the exquisite frame gradually moved away from the high bridge of the nose.
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