Emotional Choices: Choosing between different emotions and reflecting on true happiness
When Zhong Hua first wrote "Su Rui" in the meeting minutes, the camphor trees outside the window were shedding their third bloom. Pale yellow petals clung to the glass, like someone had accidentally spilled a palette, creating a blurred, warm hue. He stared at those two words for three seconds, the pen tip leaving a faint mark on the paper—this was his third month as project director, and Su Rui was the contact person sent by the partner company, and the first person to handle all his obscure metaphors during the technical discussion.
1. Two unmailed postcards
The sudden downpour on Friday evening caught everyone off guard. As Zhong Hua was closing her umbrella at the office building entrance, Su Rui's car happened to be parked at the bottom of the steps. She rolled down the window, water droplets still clinging to her hair: "It's on my way, want a ride?" On the passenger seat was a well-worn copy of "The Little Prince," with a sticky note on the spine that read, "The rose in Chapter 21 looks a lot like the Corolla from the flower shop in the west of the city."
Chen Qizhen's songs were playing in the car, and the windshield wipers swung rhythmically from side to side. Su Rui suddenly said, "Last week in the break room, I overheard you on the phone saying you liked to climb Beigaofeng on sunny days?" Zhong Hua's hand holding the seatbelt paused—he had indeed mentioned it to his mother on the phone; it was a place he and Ah Yu often went to during their university years, and in the pavilion at the top of the mountain, they had once drawn crooked smiley faces on the pillars with markers.
“If the weather is good next weekend,” Su Rui said, turning the steering wheel as if she were talking about tomorrow’s weather, “I know a small road where you can see all the rooftops of the city.”
Zhong Hua's answer caught in his throat. His phone vibrated in his pocket; it was a notification to pick up a package from the parcel locker. He remembered the international package he'd received yesterday. When he opened it, two postcards fell out: one was of the rose window of Notre Dame Cathedral, with Ah Yu's flamboyant handwriting—"Wanqing said the glass here looks a lot like the graduation poster you designed back then"; the other was a picture of the Seine sunset, with only Lin Wanqing's small handwriting on the back: "He always grumbles at dusk that you hate waiting for people the most."
When they went upstairs after picking up the package, the elevator stopped on the 12th floor. Su Rui walked in carrying a folder, and her eyes lit up when she saw the postcard in his hand: "You've been to Paris? I spent half a year there the year before last. The croissants at the bakery in the Marais district were baked to a perfect crisp." Zhong Hua hummed in agreement, his fingertips tracing the creases on the edge of the postcard—it was the ticket he had canceled at the airport back then, which Ah Yu had now recreated with her camera.
II. Echoes in the Hospital Corridor
Zhong Hua's encounter with Lin Wanqing at the hospital was purely accidental.
On the third day of his mother's hospitalization, he went to the nurses' station to get his medication and saw Lin Wanqing, wearing a white coat, talking to the doctor. She was thinner than she had been three years ago, and the sleeves of her white coat were rolled up to her forearms, revealing the familiar silver bracelet on her wrist—the one the three of them had pooled their money to buy back in college. Zhong Hua's bracelet was now lying in the deepest part of the drawer, oxidized and blackened.
"How is Auntie?" Lin Wanqing's voice was soft. The smell of disinfectant in the corridor was suddenly mixed with a faint scent of lily of the valley—the perfume Ah Yu used to always wear. Zhong Hua said she was fine, then paused and asked, "You..."
“Ah Yu is at the coffee shop downstairs,” Lin Wanqing smiled, her eyes sparkling with light. “He said he was afraid of bothering you if he came up, and also afraid you wouldn’t be able to handle it.” As she turned to leave, she suddenly turned back: “Zhong Hua, do you remember our graduation trip? By Qinghai Lake, you said that the real choice is never about choosing A or B, but about whether you dare to admit what you want.”
That afternoon, while Zhong Hua was taking care of his mother in the hospital room, she suddenly said, "The girl who brought the soup last week had very bright eyes." He knew his mother was referring to Su Rui—she had come to deliver some documents yesterday and brought a bowl of pork rib soup with her. He had been squatting by the bedside listening to his mother tell him embarrassing stories from his childhood, and his eyes had curved into crescent moons as he laughed.
“But the photo album in your drawer,” his mother gently patted his hand, “always flips to that page with the three of them together.” Zhong Hua’s heart clenched. In that album, there was a photo with its edges curled from being handled: he was standing in the middle, Ah Yu had her arm around his neck, Lin Wanqing was holding a camera and smiling with her head tilted to the side, and the snow-capped mountains in the background were dazzlingly white.
3. Unopened windbreaker
Su Rui indeed chose a secluded mountain path.
The stone steps were covered in moss, and sunlight filtered through the leaves, dappling her hair like scattered gold. “Look,” she pointed to the city skyline in the distance, “doesn’t it look like overturned Lego bricks?” Zhong Hua remembered how, back in college, Ah Yu would always build city models with Lego bricks on the rooftop, while he and Lin Wanqing would sit beside her, unpacking snacks and watching the sunset paint Ah Yu’s profile orange-red.
On the way down the mountain, Su Rui bought two mung bean ice creams at a convenience store. Just as she tore open the wrapper, Zhong Hua suddenly heard someone call his name from behind. Turning around, he saw a boy in a school uniform running over with a camera: "Uncle, can you take a picture of us?" The three children were huddled in front of the convenience store's glass door, grinning and showing their gap teeth, just like they had been back then.
“You’re really good at taking candid photos.” Su Rui looked at the photos on his phone and suddenly said, “My dad always says that good photos take time for the right light, just like good relationships take time for the right opportunity.” Zhong Hua’s fingers tightened around his phone—A Yu had said something similar back then. When he was hesitating about whether to apply for an exchange program in Paris, A Yu handed him a camera: “The lens doesn’t lie. What you see in the viewfinder that you most want to capture is the answer.”
While tidying his wardrobe that evening, Zhong Hua found a dust bag. The moment he unzipped it, amidst the smell of mothballs, a yellowed receipt rolled out—a receipt for a windbreaker bought three years ago, dated the day before his scheduled flight to Paris. The navy blue windbreaker still had its tags on, and the cuffs were embroidered with three initials—the first letters of his name, Ah Yu's, and Lin Wanqing's.
My phone lit up then, and Su Rui sent me a photo: the sunset over Beigaofeng, captioned "Today's light is perfect for archiving." Immediately following was a message from Lin Wanqing, containing only one picture: Ah Yu squatting by the Seine, holding a drawing board with three little figures drawing on it, their hands clasped together under a snow-capped mountain.
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