Ah Yu's ears turned bright red, and his hand unconsciously reached into his pocket—the silver ring engraved with Tibetan script was lying peacefully in the velvet box. Zhong Hua pinched his arm beside him and scolded him at the camera, "Wanqing, don't talk nonsense."
"I'm not making this up." Lin Wanqing suddenly became serious. The camera shook as if someone was handing her a cup or something. "You know what? I saw the Leonid meteor shower last night and made a wish on the biggest one."
The firewood in the fireplace crackled again, and Zhong Hua's breath gently landed on Ah Yu's hand.
“I wish you—” Lin Wanqing’s voice suddenly became very soft, as if afraid of disturbing something, “that every winter in Provence will have a fireplace and mulled wine; that Zhonghua will never again tremble when he sees the words ‘President’s wife’; that Ayu…” She paused, and the starry sky in the lens suddenly lit up, like a shooting star, “that Ayu will always remember whose smiling faces should be filled in her phone’s photo album.”
Zhong Hua's shoulders trembled slightly. When Ah Yu reached out and pulled her into her arms, she smelled the lavender scent mixed with the salty smell of her tears in her hair. On the phone screen, Lin Wanqing held up an enamel mug and raised it to the camera from afar: "I probably won't be able to make it back for your wedding."
She turned and opened her arms to the starry sky behind her, the firelight gilding her silhouette: "But I will be here, with the entire African sky as my gift."
The midnight bells rang out from the distant church, striking the windows of the guesthouse again and again. Lin Wanqing's voice drifted over, mingling with the sound of the wind and children's laughter: "Happy New Year, my friends."
The moment the video call ended, Zhong Hua looked up and met Ah Yu's gaze. The firelight from the fireplace flowed in their eyes, like the red rope tied beside the prayer wheel on the snow-capped mountain years ago, now burning into a warm ring.
"She seems to have lost weight," Zhong Hua whispered, his fingertip lightly tapping Lin Wanqing's last smiling face on the phone screen. Ah Yu hummed in agreement, and as he looked down, he saw the teardrops clinging to her eyelashes, just like the shooting stars in the video, slowly sliding down onto the back of his hand.
“Let’s go see her next year,” he said, reaching out to wipe away her tears. “We’ll bring her wedding invitation.”
Zhong Hua laughed, but the tears in her eyes flowed even more fiercely. Snow had begun to fall outside the window, tiny snowflakes landing on the glass and quickly melting into watermarks, like a blurry arc drawn on it. Ah Yu suddenly pointed at the glass: "Look at that watermark, doesn't it look like the Milky Way in the starry sky photos Lin Wanqing sent?"
Zhong Hua leaned closer to look, pressing his nose against the glass and leaving a small dot. The distant starry sky was exceptionally bright, as if the starlight of an African savanna was truly crossing mountains and seas, gently falling into this small guesthouse.
The fire in the fireplace was still burning, casting their intertwined shadows on the wall like a tree with two branches. The mulled wine swayed in the glass, creating shimmering light, and the two lip prints on the rim slowly came together in the firelight.
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