Chapter Forty-Six
Three days after the college entrance examination ended, a torrential rain fell in the southern part of the city.
Tan Yuze sat in the archway of the old moat, with seven or eight empty beer cans rolling around his feet, and rainwater sticking his bangs together in strands.
The phone screen was already wet from the rain, and the lock screen was stuck on the two words "Xu Li"—47 missed calls, 127 dialed. He stared at the string of numbers and suddenly laughed out loud: 127, exactly the number of days since she left.
Now it feels like retribution. That night, Xu Li left only one sentence on the internet: "I'm leaving. I'm sorry, this time it's for real."
Attached below is a screenshot of a flight ticket; the final destination is Beijing, then a transfer to London. Tan Yuze initially didn't believe it, frantically calling and sending voice messages to her until WeChat notified him that "the other party has enabled friend verification."
He finally realized that he had been left behind once again.
Xu Li had no appetite and felt dazed all day. Remembering that she had gone to see a traditional Chinese medicine doctor before, she went to see a traditional Chinese medicine doctor again.
She said, "I don't want to clean, I don't want to eat, I don't want to do anything, and I don't feel any love."
"Young lady, let me take your pulse again on your other hand." She then placed her other hand on it.
The traditional Chinese medicine doctor asked her, "Do you have a boyfriend?"
Xu Li then looked up at the TCM doctor and said, "I had a relationship with him before, but we broke up."
"When you are madly in love with someone for a period of time, repeatedly challenging your bottom line, wanting to give up but unable to let go, then this person you are in love with may not be your true love, but rather an emotional hurdle you have to overcome."
"Your pulse is very weak; it breaks off as I touch it. Something must have hurt you before, damaging your heart meridian and dissipating your energy. It's a miracle you're still alive."
"Once you've overcome the hurdle of love, you're sure to find your perfect match!"
She finally understood the saying, "Youthful spirit is a non-renewable resource."
She was thinking that it had only been three months since their relationship started, and she had already spent so long trying to forget it, and she still hadn't moved on.
The next day, he threw the volunteer confirmation form into the trash can, ignoring everyone's advice.
His classmates invited him to a graduation banquet, but he turned off his phone; when Lao Cao called, he simply pulled out his SIM card. During the day, he wandered aimlessly along the riverbank; at night, back in his dark home, he would sit on the living room floor without turning on the lights, listening to the clock on the wall ticking away—a sound like a dull knife sawing through his ribs one by one.
He started doing a lot of dangerous things. He would go to internet cafes all night, use alternate accounts to curse people in games until they were banned; at three in the morning, he would climb to the top of an abandoned water tower, his feet dangling in mid-air, imagining whether jumping down would be colder than the river water.
He even poured out the remaining half-bottle of sleeping pills at home and counted 41 pills—the same as the score he got on the last big question in the college entrance exam math section.
But every time he got to the last step, the image of Xu Li tiptoeing and kissing him under the magnolia tree would flash through his mind. That image was like a rope, pulling him back from the edge of the cliff time and time again, yet also choking him until he couldn't breathe.
In early July, Xu Li's mother, father, and brother Xu Sheng all flew to London.
On his WeChat Moments, Xu Sheng posted a group photo: in front of Big Ben, Xu Li was wearing a black baseball cap and had no expression on her face.
She's lost weight again; at 168cm tall, she looks like skin and bones. How has she managed all these years?
Tan Yuze opened the photo, zoomed in until the pixels blurred together, then raised his hand and smashed the phone against the wall. The moment the screen shattered, he heard something inside his chest break along with it.
He began to truly give up on himself.
He stopped cutting his hair, only ordered the cheapest takeout, and ate until he vomited before going back to sleep. One day he woke up and found a few ants floating in a beer can. He stared at them struggling and suddenly realized that they were him.
He took a compass and traced lines on the inside of his left arm. The first stroke went astray, and blood beaded out, but he smiled: it turned out the pain was much less than the longing. That night, another downpour began.
He rode his bicycle to the high school's science building—the small classroom where they had once studied together. The door was unlocked, and on the blackboard was the message he had written to her before the college entrance exam: "May your writing flow like a flower."
He opened the lectern drawer, found a stub of chalk, and carefully wrote beside it: "Xu Li, I can't go on."
After writing the last period, he broke the chalk in two, sat down at the first desk, and aimed the engraved compass at his wrist. Just as the metal tip was about to fall, the classroom lights snapped on.
Xu Sheng stood at the door, soaking wet, carrying an airline-checked suitcase covered with baggage tags from the transit airport.
“Tan Yuze,” Xu Sheng said, panting as if he had just finished a marathon, “Xu Li asked me to pass on a message—if you dare to die, she will never forgive you for the rest of her life.”
Tan Yuze looked up, his eyes vacant: "What makes her so special?"
Xu Sheng threw the box on the ground, and it burst open, revealing a thick stack of envelopes—each one marked "ToTan," and all stamped with London postmarks.
"The night she left, she wrote 127 letters. She didn't dare send them, afraid you'd go crazy if you saw them. But she was also afraid you wouldn't read any of them, so she asked me—"
Xu Sheng's voice choked as he raised his hand to wipe the rain and tears from his face.
“She told me to tell you that the more you act like this, the less she will dare to come back.” Tan Yuze’s compass clattered to the ground.
He crouched down and picked up the nearest letter. There was a line of small print on the back of the envelope:
If I don't return on the 128th day, please go see the sea for me.
After that day, Tan Yuze still suffered from insomnia every night, but he stopped going to the river. He arranged the 127 letters Xu Sheng brought by date, opened one each day, read it, and carefully glued it back together. He changed his college application—to Psychology at Nancheng Normal University.
On the day the acceptance letter arrived, he placed the envelope on top of the first letter from London, then went to the barbershop and got his hair cut shorter, still parted in a 3/7 style.
It was late August, and the summer heat had not yet dissipated.
He carried an old schoolbag and took an overnight train to Xiamen. At the seaside in Zengcuo'an, he opened his 127th letter. Xu Li's handwriting was slightly blurred by the sea mist:
[Tan Yuze, do you know? The rain in London lasted longer than in the South City, but I didn't cry once. I was afraid that if I cried, I would really never see you again. If you are still trapped in the fog when you read this letter, please live on for me—see the sea for me, graduate for me, take a picture of me under the magnolia tree. Then, one day when I'm better, I will come back and finish the story.]
Tan Yuze folded the letter into a small boat and put it into the waves. The waves pushed and swayed it, carrying the paper boat far away.
He suddenly shouted towards the horizon, "Xu Li—I'm waiting for you—" His voice was torn apart by the wind and quickly drowned out by the louder sound of the tide.
That night, he sent Xu Sheng a photo: sunset, beach, and a crooked circle made of seashells.
The caption was just a few words: "[Day 128.]"
After sunset on the 128th day, Tan Yuze set that photo as his WeChat cover photo and then returned to Nancheng Normal University.
He didn't live on campus, but instead rented a 100-square-meter room near the north gate of the school.
Why not buy a house? Because Tan Yuze wouldn't stay here for long. Back in his study, he arranged the 127 letters from London into a "letter wall" in order.
After the lights were turned off at night, the dim yellow streetlights shone through, making the postmarks on the envelopes look like a row of dark red moons. His freshman year schedule was packed, but he filled all his free time with three things:
Attending classes, working part-time, and translating an English version of "Post-Traumatic Growth" on the fifth floor of the library.
After completing each chapter of the translation, he would send the Word document to an email address that would never receive a reply.
That was the last contact information Xu Li left him before she left. Although it had been deactivated for many years, it remained at the top of his contact list.
In November, the temperature in the southern part of the city finally dropped.
Tan Yuze received a WeChat voice message from Xu Sheng.
The background noise was loud, like being in a hospital corridor.
After graduating from university, Xu Li entered the entertainment industry due to her outstanding appearance. She did not continue to university, but she worked hard and quickly became a popular female celebrity.
“Tan Yuze, Xu Li will be back in Shanghai for a while, landing in Pudong first. She told me not to tell you, but I think... you should be there.”
The voice message lasted only eight seconds, but it was like a match that ignited him from the deepest darkness of the long night. That night, he skipped his night shift for the first time.
Back in the house, he pulled a cardboard box from under the bed—neatly stacked inside all the cash he had saved, an ID card, a passport, and an old cell phone that had been smashed and then taped back together.
He plugged in his cracked phone to charge, and the screen lit up. The wallpaper was still the photo of them together under the magnolia tree from that year. In the photo, Xu Li was standing on tiptoe, and he was looking down at her. The two of them were laughing like two overlapping rivers.
Shanghai Pudong Airport, Terminal 2, International Arrivals.
Tan Yuze did not come.
As the plane landed in Pudong, the familiar leaden-gray clouds were visible outside the window. Xu Li pressed her forehead against the cool window and watched the indicator lights on the tarmac light up one by one, like stars scattered by someone.
She suddenly remembered the day she left nine years ago, when Tan Yuze stood outside the security checkpoint waving at her, the hem of his trench coat billowing in the wind like a leaf that refused to fall. The baggage carousel was bustling with noise, and she stared blankly at the spinning black conveyor belt.
Actually, there were three missed calls on her phone, with the contact name "Old Tan Sauerkraut". The last message was from two hours ago: "Reported that you have landed safely." She hovered her thumb over the screen and finally swiped away the notification bar.
Xu Li knew that during breaks in the meeting he would habitually touch that ring, just like he used to twirl her hair when he was nervous.
As the taxi crossed the Nanpu Bridge, rain suddenly pounded against the windshield. The driver turned on the wipers, leaving arc-shaped streaks of water on the plastic blades.
Xu Li saw himself from three years ago, sitting on the back of Tan Yuze's bicycle, the two of them sharing a school uniform jacket as they sped across the bridge. Back then, he always said Shanghai was too small, that he could bump into his ex-girlfriend after just three turns. Now he realized that the city was actually big enough to hide all the people he dared not see.
As she handed the room key to the hotel receptionist, she heard a familiar laugh behind her. Turning around, she only saw a gust of rain swirling in through the revolving door, causing a figure in a dark gray trench coat to stoop slightly in the wind.
The person's phone screen was lit up, the lock screen showing the fireworks at Disneyland in 2018—their only photo together. Xu Li suddenly understood that what truly makes people sad is not the long-awaited reunion, but standing in the same rain, yet tacitly pretending not to see the tide in the other person's eyes.
The rain intensified, like someone tearing countless old photographs to shreds from the sky, the fragments clattering against the glass curtain wall. Xu Li tucked her room key into her trench coat pocket and turned to walk into the rain.
She wasn't using an umbrella; rainwater streamed down her bangs, its coolness seeping into her collar like a belated farewell. She retraced her steps, crossed the taxi stand, and walked along the outer edge of the terminal.
The tall lamppost cast a long shadow of hers, which was then crushed in the puddles. When she reached Gate 3, she suddenly stopped—the figure in the dark gray trench coat was standing in the smoking area, his back to her, a speck of orange-red between his fingers flickering in the rain.
There was a "No Smoking" sign in front of him, but no one reminded him. Xu Li stood five steps away, the rain making her eyelashes look heavy.
She saw him look down and turn on his phone; the light from the lock screen illuminated his face, highlighting the faint dark circles under his eyes. His thumb hovered over the dial button, hesitant to press it. The screen dimmed and brightened, brightened and dimmed again, like their repeatedly extinguished and rekindled expectations over the years.
"Lu Yi," she called, her voice fading into the rain, so soft it was almost inaudible. The figure froze for a moment, the cigarette butt falling into the puddle with a soft "plop."
He slowly turned around; the shoulders of his trench coat were soaked, and rainwater dripped from the cuffs. He opened his mouth, but first raised his hand to wipe his face—it was unclear whether it was rainwater or something else.
"It really is you, Xiao Li. I was a little unsure if it was you just now," his voice was hoarse, like sandpaper scraping against glass. Xu Li took a step forward, stepping into the same puddle, rainwater splashing on the tips of his leather shoes.
“It’s me, it really is me.” They looked at each other through the rain, two steps apart. Lu Yi’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and he suddenly reached out, but instead of hugging her, he lifted the hood of her trench coat and put it over her head.
His movement was too hasty, and the brim of his hat bumped against her forehead, like some kind of clumsy compensation. "Shanghai still loves to rain," he said softly, his finger lingering on the brim of her hat for a second before quickly withdrawing it.
"You...are you coming back to stay for a few days?"
"have no idea."
Xu Li looked at him through the rain curtain and noticed that as he spoke, his right hand was unconsciously rubbing his left ring finger—it was empty there, with only a faint ring mark on Lu Yi's finger.
"I might leave once the rain stops." Lu Yi smiled, fine lines appearing at the corners of his eyes, like crumpled old letters. "The rain in Pudong always stops later than in Puxi."
He paused, his voice suddenly becoming so soft it was as if he were talking to himself, "Little Li, you're a top celebrity now, aren't you afraid the paparazzi will post this online again?"
Xu Li looked up and saw that the tips of her shoes were almost touching his, with only a puddle of shimmering rainwater separating them, reflecting their distorted images.
She suddenly reached out and touched his soaked cuff with her fingertips: "Your coat is wet."
"Mmm," he responded, but didn't move. He just looked down at her fingers, the rain washing her knuckles white. "Are you... still cold?"
These words were like a dull knife, cutting open all the details that had been deliberately forgotten over the years. Xu Li recalled the years when they were at their best, when he stood in the rain and stuffed his last coat into her suitcase, saying, "Shanghai winters are cold, don't be stubborn."
The coat was folded in her hotel room's closet, the cuff still bearing the crooked button Tan Yuze had sewed years ago. "I'm scared," she whispered, her fingers clutching his cuff, rain seeping into her palm through the fabric.
"So...would you like to buy me a hot drink?" Lu Yi's eyelashes fluttered. He looked up, his gaze passing over her shoulder, towards the brightly lit terminal in the distance, as if confirming an answer.
Then, she answered his question, "I'm not afraid." Just as she finished speaking, her agent, Nan You, came over. "Xu Li, do you want to check if you're alright? You're not planning to hold the press conference tomorrow afternoon, are you?"
"Okay, okay, I'm coming right away, you go ahead." Xu Li dismissed the agent.
"Looks like our Xiao Li is quite busy! Will your press conference be broadcast live?" Lu Yi asked.
"Yes, it's at every press conference."
“Oh, then I’ll come support you! Do you want to?” Lu Yi said, nudging Xu Li who was standing next to him.
"Get lost! Okay, I'm leaving."
“Let’s go,” he said, his voice softer than the sound of rain.
He watched as Xu Li and her agent walked into the rain.
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