He pulled out his plane ticket stub from his wallet, the one from his return trip from Paris last year. Lin Wanqing's note, hidden in the lining, was still there: "Go after the person who fills up your phone's photo album." Now, his album contained images of Zhong Hua tying a red ribbon to a snow-capped mountain, Lin Wanqing holding a starry sky in the African savanna, the smiling faces of victims receiving compensation, and a photo of the three shadows forming a heart—a wedding gift Zhong Hua had found in the storage room, now displayed on the windowsill of the foundation's office, its edges gilded by the setting sun.
When Zhong Hua walked over with the newly received letter seeking help, Ah Yu was staring blankly at the photo. She placed the letter on the table; the top envelope had a piece of dried lavender on it, and the postmark was from Paris.
“Lin Wanqing said,” Zhong Hua opened the letter, her voice suddenly softening, “that she met an old man in the refugee camp who could repair cameras and asked us to send him an old camera.” When she looked up, her eyes shone, as if stars had fallen into them. “She said that the truth should not only be spoken, but also seen and recorded with our hands.”
Ah Yu gazed at the darkening sky outside the window, the distant streetlights lighting up one by one, like a string of lit prayer lamps. He recalled the moment in the rain at Montmartre in Paris, when Zhong Hua's camera lens captured him first, raindrops sliding down the edge of the lens like a crystal border embellishing the whole world. It turns out that some encounters truly can cleave through the thorns of fate, allowing those who once stood in the way of the sharp spikes to eventually walk on the same smooth path.
“Let’s go to the warehouse tomorrow and check on that batch of fabric.” He tucked Lin Wanqing’s letter into the fund’s articles of association. “And send a box of cameras to Tibet while we’re at it.” As Zhong Hua nodded with a smile, Ah Yu noticed a ginkgo leaf specimen tucked behind her ear—the one he had picked up from her hair during last year’s mudslide, which she had laminated into a bookmark, with the teeth marks he had made in his haste to bite it off the edge.
As night fell into the office, the two stood side by side by the window. The desk lamp illuminated the bronze plaque of the "Truth Foundation," and the reflected light cast three overlapping shadows on the wall, strikingly similar to the silhouette in the group photo from a cocktail party that Lin Wanqing had saved on her phone screen many years ago. Back then, they didn't know what kind of web fate would weave; they only knew that when they stood beside each other, even their shadows seemed to draw closer.
Ah Yu suddenly remembered the last sentence Zhong Hua wrote in his new book "Red Beauty": "All truths will eventually grow into trees, and those who sheltered it from the wind and rain will become the tree rings, engraving warmth into time, ring by ring." At this moment, the evening breeze passed through the open window, blowing the dried lavender flowers on the table, as if someone in a faraway place was gently saying "Good night".
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