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Late at night, the desk lamp cast a warm glow on the phone screen. Lin Weixi curled up in the corner of the sofa, her fingertips hovering above the WeChat icon, hesitant. Outside the window, the drizzle tapped on the glass, like countless tiny urgings.
She finally clicked on the starry sky profile picture. The background of her Moments was still the familiar aurora borealis, but the post was frozen three months ago—a photo of a corner of the Princeton Library, piled with thick books, with the simple caption "Preparing for Exams."
Scrolling down, she found more forwarded research articles, with the occasional snapshot of daily life in the lab. She zoomed in on a night photo, searching for a figure in the window reflection, but only saw a blurry outline. It turned out he had long since stopped sharing the small details of his life.
The browsing history showed "visible only to me." This discovery made her heart clench slightly, as if she had accidentally glimpsed a secret she shouldn't have. Her fingertips unconsciously stroked the screen, lingering for a long time on the like icon, and finally just took a screenshot and saved it.
Returning to the chat, the last message was a link to a paper he'd sent six months earlier. She'd replied with a thank you, and the conversation ended with a polite period. Scrolling back, there were holiday greetings, article sharing, occasional work updates... every conversation was neatly arranged, like archived material.
As the sound of rain deepened, she opened the note editor. "Chen Wang" flickered beneath the cursor. She remembered the note she'd secretly saved in high school: "Number 7," because of his playing number. In college, it was changed to "A University Physics," and after graduation, it became his full name. Each name marked a time.
Eventually, she cleared the notes, letting the system display his original WeChat name, "StarHunter." This cheesy nickname, which Zhou Xu had chosen for him back then, now seemed like a faded reminder of his youth.
Before logging off, she glanced at his signature. "In the search for cosmic dust." She remembered what he'd said that night in Greenland: "We and stardust are of the same origin."
At two in the morning, the rain stopped. She turned off her phone, and darkness swallowed up the last light. When the charging reminder sounded, she remembered that he had recommended this model, saying that the battery life was good and suitable for outdoor photography.
Morning light filtered through the gaps in the curtains, drawing golden lines across the floor. She opened her phone's photo album and dragged last night's screenshots into an encrypted folder named "Z." This folder also contained: screenshots of graduation photos, signature pages for documents, and even a blurry image of his silhouette from a video conference.
Before leaving, she updated her Moments background. The new photo was a shot of sycamore branches in the morning light, taken yesterday, with the caption: "A new day."
When she pulled down to refresh, she was particularly concerned that the starry sky avatar in the screen was still silent. But now she was no longer waiting for it to light up with a red dot.
The elevator mirror reflected her calm face. Her phone vibrated in her pocket. The editor-in-chief had sent her a new assignment: an interview with the Antarctic expedition team. She replied, "Got it," with a sun emoji.
As the taxi crossed the river bridge, she opened the window. The morning breeze blew in, blowing away the dust on the screen. Some farewells require no ceremony, like the morning dew, which evaporates quietly as the sun rises.
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