Zhong Hua didn't say anything, but slowed his pace and walked alongside Ah Yu. The mountain path was uneven, and he reached out to help Ah Yu several times, but then quietly withdrew his hand. Finally, when Ah Yu almost tripped over a stone, he gently tugged at the corner of Ah Yu's clothes.
The train station was at the other end of the town, requiring a climb over a mountain ridge. Halfway up the mountain, Ah Yu suddenly stopped and pulled her camera from her backpack.
"What?" Zhong Hua asked.
"I'll take your picture." Ah Yu raised her camera, the lens aimed at Zhong Hua's profile. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, falling on his face, the shadow cast by his eyelashes like a small fan, and the corners of his mouth, which had been tense just moments before, had subtly curved into a slight smile.
"Stop filming, we're in a hurry." Zhong Hua reached out to block the camera, but Ah Yu grabbed his wrist.
Ah Yu pressed the shutter button, and hearing the camera make a soft "click" sound, she suddenly said, "I found the pen."
Zhong Hua's wrist stiffened for a moment.
"In the cracks in the rocks by Qinghai Lake," Ah Yu said, looking into his eyes, enunciating each word clearly, "I went back to look for it later and saw you squatting in the water, picking it up."
Actually, he discovered it early the next morning. That day, Zhong Hua said he was going to photograph the sunrise and told him and Lin Wanqing to pack their things first. He stood by the window watching Zhong Hua's back and realized that he wasn't heading towards the viewing platform, but towards the lake. When he caught up with him, he saw Zhong Hua kneeling in the shallows, holding this pen in his hand, his trouser legs completely soaked, and his lips white from the cold.
Zhong Hua's Adam's apple bobbed, and the hidden meaning in his eyes finally surfaced, tinged with embarrassment at being exposed, yet also with a hint of relief. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but was interrupted by Ah Yu.
"I also know," Ah Yu's fingertips traced the scar on his hand, "that you had a fever yesterday not because you got caught in the rain, but because you stayed in the mountains for half the night to photograph fireflies."
Zhong Hua's eyelashes trembled, like butterfly wings fluttering in the wind. He looked down at Ah Yu's hands, his voice as soft as a sigh: "You said you wanted to photograph the fireflies in the mountains."
Last winter, while organizing photos in the studio, Ah Yu flipped through a magazine and pointed to a picture of fireflies, saying, "I wish I could take some pictures like that." At the time, Zhong Hua was working on a report on his computer and didn't even look up, saying, "What's so interesting about that?" But Ah Yu later found several pages of notes in his notebook about photographing fireflies, with even the best time to shoot clearly marked.
A mountain breeze rustled through the trees, carrying the fresh scent of grass and trees, softening the silence between the two. Ah Yu withdrew her hand, turned, and walked towards the mountaintop, her steps light as if she were walking on the wind.
"Let's go, or we'll miss the train."
Zhong Hua stood there, watching his retreating figure, his hand pressing the pen in his pocket again. Sunlight filtered through the leaves and fell on his face. The unspoken words he had just uttered finally melted into his heart—in fact, the day he found the pen, he had discovered a small note inside the cap that read "A Bright Future," but on the back of the note, Ah Yu had drawn a tiny camera in pencil, the lens pointed directly at the two characters "Zhong Hua."
He quickly caught up with Ah Yu and looked at the camera charm hanging on his backpack—it was a small camera sewn from blue cloth, made by Lin Wanqing for them back in college. Ah Yu's corner was worn out, but he still kept it hanging there.
"When we get back," Zhong Hua suddenly said, a hint of barely perceptible excitement in his voice, "I'll fix your pen."
Ah Yu turned to look at him, her eyes sparkling with laughter: "Okay."
The faint sound of a train whistle drifted from afar, mingling with the mountain wind like a gentle song. Looking into Ah Yu's eyes, Zhong Hua suddenly felt that after such a long journey, he was finally returning to that place filled with the aroma of coffee and the sound of camera shutters. The fountain pen in his pocket felt warm against his chest, like carrying a long-hidden spring.
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