Chapter 39 Some things should come to an end
On the day of heavy snow, the weather in southern Beijing, which had been cloudy for nearly a week, finally cleared up. The clouds dispersed, and the drooping leaves of the plants outside the window straightened up. The water droplets rolling down the tips of the leaves reflected fine light in the sunlight.
I'm glad I switched shifts with my colleague today so I can rest at home.
When he went downstairs in the morning, Gao Xing discovered that Shen Xingjian was leaning over the dining table, writing something intently. In front of him was a slightly old stainless steel jar with some weathering marks on its surface.
She took a few steps closer and saw clearly that he was holding a piece of plain letter paper in his hand. The tip of his pen was moving slightly, as if he was writing a letter.
"What are you doing?" she asked curiously.
Hearing her voice, Shen Xingjian raised his head and curled his lips slightly, "Nothing, just some things should come to an end."
Gao Xing picked up another piece of yellowed letter in front of him. The ink on it had faded, but the slightly crooked handwriting was still legible. It read:
"Shen Xingjian, hello! I am you from ten years ago."
"You should be eighteen now, an adult, right? Are you still as handsome as me? Do many girls like you? But don't be proud. You have to remember that our dream is to become the best racing driver in the world! Don't let love hold you back!"
He even wrote the word "爱" (love) incorrectly, and randomly added a few strokes to the word "受" (shou).
"Today I buried the space-time glue (×) in the yard. Mom said she'd wait for me—no, wait for you to see it. You'll be deeply moved because the most important thing in life is experience. I didn't want to write an essay because I hate it, but Dad promised to buy me a Transformer, so I had to (×) do it. Do you still want to write an essay? Probably not, right? I heard that you don't have to study Chinese in college. Is that true?"
"The last time I went to Grandpa's office, I accidentally fed all his goldfish to death. I don't dare tell him, so why don't you tell him for me? He shouldn't be mad after eight years, right? If he's still mad, you can buy him two more for me. You should have plenty of pocket money now, right? Oh, I'm so jealous of you!"
"I put an Ultraman in the box. Even though it's not new, it's still a gift from me. You have to be happy every day, because if you're unhappy, I'm unhappy too. You can't just take care of yourself. Men, you have to have some sense of responsibility, okay?"
"I think I'm almost done here. I really can't write anymore. Bye!"
After reading this, my joy can’t help but feel a little heavy.
He never expected that the letter that he thought was a task when he was a child, the ordinary daily life in the letter was now something he could only dream of.
He never became a racing driver after all, the people who loved him left him, he lost his legs and was trapped in this house, and even his life was on the countdown.
Her heart seemed to be pulled down by something heavy, and waves of fine pain came over her, and even breathing was accompanied by a slight pain.
She didn't know how to start or how to comfort. It seemed that all words seemed so light in the face of such pain.
Unexpectedly, Shen Xingjian was surprisingly relaxed. He finally understood what his mother said: the most important thing in life is not the result, but the experience.
After the time-space overlap, he pinned his hopes on a miracle, hoping to return to the time before everything began. But without these experiences, is he still himself? Who is the person who has been changed?
Isn’t it your experiences that make you who you are?
Shen Xingjian smiled, showed the reply letter he had written, handed it to her generously and said, "Great writer, take a look, has my writing improved?"
I was happy to hear him teasing me, and subconsciously wanted to teach him a lesson, but then I thought better of it, as I had already told him last time that I wouldn't hit him.
She took it and looked at his newly written reply:
“Hello, Shen Xingjian, I am you twelve years later.”
"Why am I writing back to you now? Because when I was eighteen, something really bad happened to me. I won't go into details about what it was, as I'm sure you already know it by now. This incident almost destroyed all my beliefs and made me feel that there was no hope for my life anymore."
"But life is so unpredictable. I actually encountered a miracle like the overlap of time and space, which is hard to find anywhere in the world, and it happened in my own home! Unexpected, right? If this were in a science fiction movie, wouldn't I be the perfect male lead? I should grow mechanical legs, awaken my superpowers, fight ten people alone, and save the world!"
I was happy to read the fantasy in his letter, which I found both childish and funny. Then I read on and found the next sentence: "But unfortunately, there is nothing. A girl suddenly appeared and tried to snatch my house from me, claiming that my house is hers and even beat me up!"
She couldn't help but stop, unable to bear it any longer, "Don't spread rumors, when did I hit you?"
Shen Xingjian pointed to his nose bridge, “Didn’t you hit me?”
"Is that a thing?"
"It's just artistic processing." He touched his nose.
I'm glad I didn't bother with him and continued watching.
"...Anyway, I didn't become a hero who saved the world. I became a failed adult—mean, angry, self-deprecating, sensitive, and annoying. No girls like me anymore, and I've become enemies with my friends. And worst of all, I'm going to die. Isn't that horrible?"
"To be honest, I really envy you. I envy your readily available happiness and carefree life. But then I think, aren't you me? Isn't your happiness my happiness? It turns out I've already experienced all of this."
"Mom, Dad, and Grandpa are gone, but I will remember your instructions and be happy every day until they disappear from this world."
At the end of the letter, Shen Xingjian drew a smiley face. It looked like the face he sometimes made when he wanted to be beaten, but it was ugly.
After reading it, I felt happy and wanted to cry and laugh at the same time: "What a good writing style, but a lot of grammatical errors."
"Then at least there are no typos, right?" He was still very proud.
Gao Xing didn't want to make the atmosphere miserable, so he snorted and complained, "With such poor Chinese skills, are there any girls who like you?"
"Don't underestimate me. A few years ago, the girls chasing me could line up from Mingjing Lake to France!" Shen Xingjian pointed at himself with his thumb complacently.
"Yeah, bragging doesn't cost money." Gao Xing said with a "tsk".
Seeing her contemptuous attitude, Shen Xingjian was quite unconvinced, "What are you laughing at? You don't think I'm lying, do you?"
Gao Xing spread his hands: "I'm not laughing."
Shen Xingjian imitated her: “Then what do you mean by ‘cut’?”
Gao Xing: "You also care about the noise I make?"
Shen Xingjian: “…”
He said he wasn't laughing, but it was obvious that he was laughing at him!
But none of this matters anymore. It's good that she's willing to laugh, and she looks good when she laughs.
After laughing and joking, Shen Xingjian took out a box and gave it to her.
"What is this?" Gao Xing asked.
The box was not heavy, and the contents were still shaking slightly as it was handed over. Gao Xing took it and was about to open it, but was stopped by Shen Xingjian: "Let's take a look later."
Gao Xing saw that the box was still locked, and she became suspicious: "For me? No key?"
"I'll give you the key later," he said.
He kept saying that later on, and Gao Xing had a bad feeling in her heart. She simply took off the black hairpin on her head, straightened the wire, and pried open the simple lock.
Shen Xingjian didn’t expect that she had this skill, and he was so anxious that he wanted to reach out to stop her, but it was too late, Gao Xing had already opened the box and saw what was inside.
As soon as I opened it, what caught my eye was a framed black and white sketch of a bust. The silver frame lay in the box, and the surrounding area was covered with everlasting flowers!
Shen Xingjian was about to explain, but his happy face suddenly turned cold, and he scolded him: "Shen Xingjian, are you sick? You are not dead yet, why are you drawing a portrait for yourself? You really want to die, right?"
Shen Xingjian was confused and thought: Huh? Portrait? What portrait?
Being caught off guard and accused of being negative and suicidal, Shen Xingjian was confused, panicked and at a loss. He quickly took the box back from Gao Xing's hand and saw that the photo was placed upside down!
He knew that Gao Xing and he didn't belong to the same time and space, destined to never have a photo together. So, he decided to preserve the memory of their encounter in that overlapping time and space through painting. The painting in the box had two sides: Gao Xing and Shen Xingjian. To show his appreciation, he even had it specially framed. Unexpectedly, the addition of flowers made it look like a posthumous portrait!
He quickly dismantled the frame, pulled out the sketch inside, turned it over and over to show her, and explained, "It's really not a portrait!"
Gao Xing glanced at the sketch that suddenly became normal after the messy decorations were removed. Just as he was about to calm down, he saw an envelope in the box.
When I took it out and looked at it, I saw two words written on the cover: "Will".
Shen Xingjian: “…”
He really has no other ideas.
His original plan was that if nothing could be changed, he would at least prepare a way out for Gao Xing. He hoped that she would forget this heavy experience and embrace a new life, but he was also secretly afraid that she would truly forget him completely, so he drew that "photo".
He imagined that after his death, when he happily read the will and discovered that he had left all his property to her, she would be moved to tears and look at the "photo" he had drawn with his own hands, missing him for a moment. But who could have imagined that, by some strange coincidence, the "photo" would be mistaken for a "portrait", and the will would become the final nail in the coffin for his negative suicide attempt.
"I..." He opened his mouth, "I just thought, what if..."
"There's no such thing as a chance of death." Gao Xing returned the box to him and said firmly, "You won't die."
"Give me your phone!" she said, reaching out to him.
Although Shen Xingjian didn’t know what she wanted to do, he still handed it over obediently.
Gao Xing then fiddled with his phone for a while before snapping a picture of his face. Then, she opened her own phone, refreshed it, searched, and after a moment, generated a picture to show him.
"This is what we call a group photo." Gao Xing raised his mobile phone.
On the phone screen, he and Gao Xing actually appeared in the same picture. Shen Xingjian was completely stunned, unable to imagine how she did it? Even if it was photoshopped, it couldn't be that fast, right?
"This...how is this possible?" He couldn't believe it.
Gao Xing hummed, "You didn't expect that, did you? There are still many magical things in the world ten years later. If you want to know, come and see for yourself."
After she finished speaking, she handed the phone back to him, her expression becoming serious. "You said that since the overlap of time and space has already occurred, we should make good use of it. Time and space have their own rules, and we can also find its flaws and change the course of fate."
Her eyes were blazing, her voice firm: "As long as you don't give up, who says everything is possible?"
In Shen Xingjian’s mobile phone, Gao Xing uploaded a photo of him to the Weibo account he had just registered. It was the one Gao Xing had just taken.
Everything in different time and space cannot transcend time and space, but can be transmitted through time.
In other words, even if he leaves this house, he can still leave a mark on the future?
Shen Xingjian suddenly knew how to turn the tables.
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