Time flows like a calm river, rushing forward day after day, year after year; it is also like a never-ending and steadily running conveyor belt in a factory, methodically passing time little by little into the future. However, in this seemingly uneventful life, a small ripple quietly appears—Fu Jingchen unexpectedly receives a letter from home in the distant capital!
The letter was from his mother, who, as usual, began by inquiring about his well-being and reminding him to rest. But as he turned to the second page, a different tone emerged between the lines. With her delicate and subtle writing, his mother first mentioned an old family friend, Uncle Lin, and then said that Lin's daughter had just graduated from the Foreign Languages Institute and had been assigned to the Foreign Languages Bureau under a ministry, describing her as "gentle and knowledgeable." Every word seemed casually mentioned, but the intention to bring them together was palpable even through the letter.
As Fu Jingchen looked at those few lines of text, his brows furrowed involuntarily. For the first time, he felt a strange irritation towards his mother's letter, which was full of concern. He folded and unfolded the letter repeatedly, the calmness he usually displayed when reading documents or calculating data completely gone.
That evening, he declined his colleagues' discussion and went alone to the small river behind the factory. The early winter evening wind was chilly, brushing against his face, but it couldn't dispel the gloom in his heart. He remembered seeing the Lin family's daughter a few times when he was little, his memory long since blurred, only recalling her as a quiet and well-behaved girl. In the past, he might have thought this was a natural path arranged by his parents. But now…
Now, another face comes to mind—not particularly beautiful, but always radiating focus and determination; the silhouette of him discussing blueprints head-to-head under the dim lights of the library; the way he argued with him heatedly over a technical problem in the cafeteria, his eyes shining with an astonishing light; those hands, stained with grease yet remarkably steady and nimble…
Liu Li.
The name weighed heavily on his heart.
He understood his mother's meaning and knew that the two families were well-matched. But the thought of following his parents' wishes and getting along with a girl who was almost a stranger and represented a different kind of "secure" future filled him with a strong sense of resistance. This resistance wasn't just because of Liu Li, but also because he realized he had long been accustomed to the tacit understanding and resonance based on shared ideals and working side by side. It was something that had been forged in the laboratory, in the workshop, and in countless days and nights of discussing technology, something that could not be replaced by any "comparable conditions."
He kicked away a pebble in frustration. The river water shimmered coldly in the moonlight. He realized that he could no longer treat this matter like a technical problem, merely pondering and analyzing it in his mind. He needed to face it, clarify it, and, more importantly… make a choice.
This seemingly ordinary letter home, like a pebble thrown into a calm lake, stirred up unprecedented ripples in his heart. He began to seriously consider whether it was time to break through the veil of unspoken understanding between him and Liu Li, and what would come afterward.
As night deepened, Fu Jingchen stood by the river and for the first time realized that dealing with interpersonal emotions was far more difficult and important than solving a complex mathematical problem.
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