IV. The Pendulum in the Coffee Shop
Zhong Hua eventually went to that coffee shop.
Lin Wanqing said Ah Yu was by the window. When he opened the door, the wind chimes tinkled. Ah Yu was typing on the computer. The profile of her face was as soft as a watercolor painting in the sunset. The silver bracelet on her wrist swayed gently with her movements. It was a pair with Lin Wanqing's bracelet.
"You actually came." Ah Yu turned around, her eyes shining just like when she called his name while holding up her acceptance letter downstairs in the dormitory back then. There were two lattes on the table, the latte art a crooked smiley face, just like the one she drew with the ketchup she stole from the cafeteria back in college.
“Wanqing said you’re struggling.” Ah Yu stirred his coffee, the foam piling up like a small mountain on the rim of the cup. “Actually, we all know that you’re not afraid of making the wrong choice, but you’re afraid that if you choose the wrong one, you’ll feel sorry for the path you didn’t choose.” He took out a photo frame from his backpack, inside was a printed photo: three people by Qinghai Lake, with Notre Dame Cathedral added as a background in post-production, the snow-capped mountains and rose windows in a strange harmony in the picture.
“Su Rui is a good girl,” Ah Yu suddenly said. “Wan Qing saw her WeChat Moments and said that the angle of the sunset she photographed was exactly the same as when you were in college.” Zhong Hua’s fingers rubbed the edge of the photo frame, and he suddenly remembered what Su Rui had said yesterday: “My dad always says after he retired that young people ask about right and wrong, while adults only ask whether they are willing to bear the consequences.”
The clock in the café struck seven. As Ah Yu got up, she pushed a sketchbook in front of him: the last page depicted three people flying kites on a grassland, the kite strings forming a heart shape, with the words "The trip I owe you, I'll make it up to you anytime" written next to it. As Zhong Hua closed the book, he heard Ah Yu say, "We're going to Provence next week. If you come, you can catch the lavender blooming season."
V. Choices in the Morning Light
Zhong Hua suddenly understood while sorting through his mother's medicine boxes.
A sticky note was attached to the white medicine bottle, with his mother's crooked handwriting: "Take three times a day, after meals." He remembered Su Rui helping him check the medication list at the hospital, looking at it as carefully as if she were looking at a contract; he remembered Ah Yu posting a picture of toasted bread on her WeChat Moments with the caption, "Remember Zhong Hua doesn't eat butter"; he remembered Lin Wanqing always sending him weather forecasts when the seasons changed, always ending with, "Wear more clothes, you always catch colds."
In his study late at night, Zhong Hua spread out three sheets of paper. The first sheet had Su Rui's name on it, with "Sunset at Beigaofeng," "Annotations on The Little Prince," and "The Temperature of the Pork Rib Soup" listed below. The second sheet had Ah Yu and Lin Wanqing on it, with notes on "The Starry Sky over Qinghai Lake," "The Unopened Down Jacket," and "Postcards from Paris." On the third sheet, after hesitating for a long time, he wrote "Myself."
The sky outside the window gradually brightened. Zhong Hua looked at the words on the paper and suddenly remembered the debate competition in college. As the third debater, he always said in his final summary: "The meaning of choice is not to avoid regrets, but to make the chosen path worthwhile for those possibilities that may have been wasted."
He sent Su Rui a message: "Thank you for Beigaofeng, the scenery there is beautiful." When the message notification popped up, he opened his ticketing app and typed "Paris" in the destination field. While packing his luggage, he stuffed the navy blue windbreaker into his suitcase, then took out the silver bracelet from the drawer and put it on his wrist. The oxidized silver jewelry felt familiar and heavy against his skin.
His mother stood at the door, smiling at him: "Go on, back when your dad was pursuing me, he always said 'wait for next time,' and ten years passed in the end." Zhong Hua hugged his mother, then turned around and saw on the shoe cabinet in the entryway a gift Su Rui had given him yesterday—a can of West Lake Longjing tea. There was a sticky note on the tea canister with a smiley face drawn on it: "Wishing you find the place you want to go."
VI. The Answer Under the Windmill
Six months later in Provence, the lavender was in full bloom.
Zhong Hua squatted on the edge of the field, helping Ah Yu prop up the easel that had been blown over by the wind. Lin Wanqing ran over with a camera in hand. In the lens, three people wearing windbreakers were laughing so hard they were almost falling over, with the lavender field behind them surging like purple waves. "Look," Ah Yu pointed to the camera screen, "I told you, there's never a missing member in any of our group photos."
While toasting bread at the guesthouse in the evening, Zhong Hua watched Ah Yu clumsily spreading jam and suddenly said, "Actually, I still don't know if this is the best choice." Lin Wanqing handed him a cup of hot cocoa: "Last week, Su Rui posted on her WeChat Moments that she took a great sunrise photo at Beigaofeng, with the caption 'Some people's scenery is only meant to be viewed from afar.'"
The windmill turned and turned in the twilight, and three names were carved on its blades by Ah Yu sometime during the night. Zhong Hua touched the raised marks and suddenly understood that true happiness is never a multiple-choice question. Just like the sunset over Beigaofeng and the starry sky in Paris, they can both exist in life at the same time. The important thing is to admit which sky you prefer to stand under, and then walk on earnestly and without looking back.
Lying in his attic bed at night, Zhong Hua listened to the laughter and chatter of Ah Yu and Lin Wanqing downstairs, his fingertips swiping through his phone's photo album. In the latest photo, Su Rui stood in the pavilion on Beigaofeng Mountain, making a peace sign at the camera. In the shadows of the camphor trees behind her, a smiley face graffiti could be vaguely seen on a pillar—something he and Ah Yu had left many years ago.
Moonlight streamed in through the window, falling on the cuffs of my windbreaker. Three initials shimmered faintly in the night, as if saying: The so-called choice is simply having the courage to live "I" as "we," and to make "we" a part of "me." And those paths not chosen will become stars in the sky, illuminating the land beneath our feet at this moment.
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