"Guess what Lin Wanqing carved?" Ah Yu suddenly asked.
Zhong Hua's eyes lit up, as if she had heard an interesting riddle. She actually already knew. Yesterday, when she was tidying up Ah Yu's backpack, she saw the ring box slide out from the compartment. The engraving on the bottom was clearly visible in the sunlight—"Be happy." The strokes of the three characters even had a hint of Tibetan silver luster, the same material as the earrings Lin Wanqing wore at the party.
“Is it ‘Don’t be a coward’?” Zhong Hua teased him deliberately. “She always says you’re like a hesitant rabbit when you make decisions.”
Ah Yu's ears burned a little. Indeed, Lin Wanqing always said that to him. When they passed a map through the glass in prison, she tapped the glass three times with her fingertips. Later, he realized that it was Morse code for "Don't be afraid" in French. When he received the plane ticket she sent in Paris, there was a drawing of a rabbit chasing a carrot on the back of the express delivery slip, with the words "Run faster" written on the carrot leaves.
The wind picked up again, this time carrying the sound of temple bells from afar. Ah Yu slowly opened her right hand, placed the jade pendant in Zhong Hua's hand, and then wrapped it around her own. Her fingertips were trembling, not from the cold, but from last month when she was hiking in the snow-capped mountains, her right little finger had almost gone numb from the cold while trying to retrieve her camera that had fallen into a crevasse. Now, she would involuntarily tremble whenever she touched something warm.
“Actually, the clouds that day looked more like the dress Lin Wanqing wore to the party,” Ah Yu said, looking down at their clasped hands. “They were silvery, and when the wind blew them up, it looked like light was flowing through them.”
Zhong Hua laughed out loud, and the scar at the corner of her eye twitched. She remembered when she woke up in the ICU, Ah Yu was leaning over the bed reading her interview transcript. When she got to the part about "the person I want to thank the most," the beeping of the monitor suddenly went off-beat. Later she learned that during that time, Lin Wanqing had been sending Ah Yu emails every day, along with weather reports from Paris, saying, "When Zhong Hua gets better, I'll take her to see the cherry blossoms in April, which are even more leisurely than those in Tokyo."
Ah Yu slowly released her grip and pulled a small silver box from the inside pocket of her down jacket. The box was engraved with Tibetan-style intertwined floral patterns and made a soft "click" sound when opened. Zhong Hua's breath hitched, and when she saw the engraving on the bottom of the box, her eyelashes suddenly drooped, and a tear fell onto the jade pendant, rolling down the magnolia flower pattern like morning dew sliding across a petal.
“How did she know…” Zhong Hua’s voice choked up a little.
“When I was checking my luggage at the Paris airport, she secretly switched my box,” Ah Yu said, taking out the ring. Sunlight filtered through the patterns on the ring, casting dappled patterns on the back of Zhong Hua’s hand. “She said that the stones in Tibet remember too many vows, so it’s better to carve them on something that can go with people.”
The prayer wheel in the distance spun in the wind, its two red ropes twirling like two hands chasing each other. Ah Yu slipped the ring onto Zhong Hua's ring finger; it fit perfectly—Lin Wanqing had attached Zhong Hua's finger circumference in an email, accurate to the millimeter, followed by a smug smiley face.
“Look,” Zhong Hua suddenly looked up and pointed to the clouds on the horizon, “it looks like it now.”
Ah Yu looked up and saw that the cloud that had looked like a mud imprint had dispersed, turning into fine, continuous raindrops that shimmered with a faint iridescent light in the sunlight. It really resembled the rain from their first meeting, except this time there was no thunder, only the wind carrying the scent of lavender, drifting in from the direction of the grassland, carrying the distant sound of bells, and the warmth emanating from Zhong Hua's fingertips.
He placed the bouquet of dried flowers into Zhong Hua's empty left hand and gently held it. The two fragrances intertwined in the wind, the bitterness of lavender mingling with the richness of sandalwood, like those days and nights of the past interwoven with tears and laughter.
“Lin Wanqing said,” Ah Yu looked down into Zhong Hua’s eyes, her pupils reflecting the clouds and him, “that is, a true confidante is not someone who has to stand by your side, but someone who knows that no matter how far you go, you will always have someone protecting you from the wind.”
Zhong Hua didn't speak, but simply put the jade pendant in her right hand into Ah Yu's pocket and pressed it down with her own hand. The warmth of the jade pendant seeped through the fabric, like a tiny heart beating. The clouds on the horizon were still changing, sometimes resembling a camera lens cap, sometimes a crescent moon like a champagne glass, and finally slowly gathering into three blurry shadows, quietly nestled together under the brittle blue sky.
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