The rainy season.

Only from afternoon to evening did the weather improve for a while.

After parting with Su Ge, Lin Shilan went to Tan Jin’s house to find him.

Not long after she entered, the rain began falling again.

The people inside the house didn’t notice the pattering rain sounds because Lin Shilan and Tan Jin had gotten into an argument.

…

—Pearl milk tea, buy three pearl milk teas.

Tan Jin was silently repeating this to himself when suddenly his vision blurred.

One second, he was in the living room hanging up the phone, happily preparing to go out.

The next second, he was standing in his own room with Lin Shilan standing before him.

“How could I not call you? Look at your phone—the afternoon call log. I disturbed you and made you lose your game, but that’s because you broke your promise first. I thought you’d encountered some tricky situation and couldn’t leave the house. If I’d known you were at home playing games, I wouldn’t have come.”

She crossed her arms, her gaze ice-cold, fiercely retaliating against him.

—Yes, retaliating.

Tan Jin felt his mouth go dry. He had obviously said something to her earlier that made Lin Shilan this angry, but he couldn’t remember it at all.

Unable to figure out the current situation, he looked bewilderedly at the computer screen behind him.

The game was running. His frequently played game character had died, and the urgent background music prompting revival played intensely.

An ominous guess emerged in his mind. Tan Jin glanced at the time on the desk.

[20:41]

It had gotten dark.

When he received Su Ge’s call, it was only three or four in the afternoon.

From then until after Lin Shilan entered, Tan Jin had no memory of anything that had happened.

—Over the past few hours, he had lost control of his body.

Tan Jin’s heart sank bit by bit.

“Don’t you plan to say something?” Lin Shilan had been left aside for a long time. He just stared at the computer, facing her with the back of his head.

“Little Lan…”

His lips moved. His expression was bland, his words pale: “I don’t know what to say.”

“Oh.”

Lin Shilan’s eyes immediately reddened.

He called her “Little Lan.” She didn’t know how these two words wounded her, but her heart tightened and she suddenly felt extremely uncomfortable.

Just now, she had kindly shown concern for him, only to be met with Tan Jin’s obvious impatience. Hearing him say “you made me lose my game” didn’t make her feel as aggrieved as hearing “Little Lan.”

This nickname pulled Lin Shilan out of her hostile state. She lost the energy to argue.

Awkwardly turning around, she left his house before her tears could fall.

In their relationship, Lin Shilan appeared to be the stronger party.

Tan Jin had liked her first.

He was always being bullied by her, he always loved circling around her, clinging to her like a sticky candy. However, Lin Shilan’s feelings for Tan Jin had quietly caught up. She cared about him.

Her heart had become soft because of him, so she could be easily hurt by him.

She cared about him. So a cold look from Tan Jin, a harsh word, was enough to break Lin Shilan’s heart and keep her tossing and turning sleeplessly.

Lying in bed, tossing and turning, not knowing how much time had passed.

Lin Shilan’s eyelids drooped down, finally feeling a bit drowsy…

Black rainwater seeped through the window.

The water flow surged violently, quietly lifting the small bed.

Lin Shilan opened her eyes from the small bed—she was actually drifting alone in an ink-black ocean.

Wave after wave of seawater struck, causing the small bed to shake violently.

Afraid of being shaken off into the water, Lin Shilan gripped the bed’s side board tightly.

Strange things continued to happen. The bed board in her hands kept rising. From being lower than the bed’s height, it rapidly rose above her head. To keep holding it, Lin Shilan had to stand up.

However, the bed boards around her kept growing taller. Now they were as tall as a cage, boxing her in squarely.

Even standing on tiptoe, Lin Shilan couldn’t touch the top of the bed boards.

At some unknown moment, the shaking sensation disappeared. Lin Shilan turned around…

She was in an elevator.

Behind her was a familiar figure.

“Tan Jin!” Lin Shilan walked toward him with delight.

He was carrying a bag of oranges.

Lin Shilan remembered—this was the day they went to the hospital to see Su Ge. In Tan Jin’s bag were sugar oranges he had specially bought extra for her.

Recalling the sweetness in the elevator, Lin Shilan took his hand and deliberately asked: “Are today’s oranges sweet? Should I peel one for you?”

The plastic bag wasn’t held securely and fell to the ground, with oranges rolling out, making “gurgling” sounds.

“How careless, why did they fall!” Lin Shilan bent down, planning to pick them up.

Looking closely…

What was on the ground were not sugar oranges.

Those oranges obviously couldn’t be eaten—they were all made of fuzzy material.

“Wool felt oranges?” She recognized them and shuddered in fright.

A hand with red nail polish reached in front of Lin Shilan and took away the fuzzy little orange she had picked up.

“This is mine.”

The young woman’s face was both familiar and strange. Compared to the person she knew well, the young woman’s eyes had less warmth and more frivolous glamour.

Her pupils were light-colored, like a cat’s. Her lips were coated with shiny red lip gloss.

She casually chewed gum, her school uniform buttons fastened very low.

Lin Shilan remembered this face—this was the one who stole her supplies and got her killed.

“Ding.”

The elevator arrived and the doors opened.

Without waiting for her reaction, the young woman walked out.

Lin Shilan patted her chest, looking around in lingering fear, searching for Tan Jin.

No Tan Jin.

Even the oranges on the ground were gone.

—Had he just left the elevator with the young woman?

Really not wanting to face that young woman, but she had to find Tan Jin back—she couldn’t let him be harmed by a bad person. After some mental preparation, Lin Shilan steeled herself and walked out of the elevator.

Outside the elevator was the school auditorium.

Two people stood in the distance. They were very close, looking extremely intimate.

Already foreseeing what was about to happen, Lin Shilan ran toward them at top speed, but still couldn’t prevent that scene from occurring…

“Tan Jin, this is for you—a little orange charm I made.”

Twirling the corner of her school uniform with her fingers, the young woman said coquettishly: “Don’t like Lin Shilan anymore. Like me instead.”

“Huh?” Tan Jin was stunned.

The young woman glanced at Lin Shilan provocatively.

Her fingertips slowly caressed the boy’s arm, her affected tone like silk spun by a spider demon: “When I grow up, I’ll be smarter and prettier than Lin Shilan.”

“That sounds good.”

He laughed softly and pulled the young woman toward himself: “In the future, I won’t like her anymore. I’ll like you.”

Lovers finally united. A perfect couple embraced and laughed, loving and affectionate, intimately entwined.

Lin Shilan was transparent, an insignificant backdrop.

She collapsed to the ground, like a five-year-old whose candy had been stolen, crying loudly without restraint.

“No, don’t like someone else.”

“You said you liked me. You can’t change.”

The tears she had held back in reality all came pouring out in the dream.

The bizarre nightmare was interrupted by a clap of thunder on the horizon.

Lin Shilan woke with a start. The dream just now had been too real—she momentarily couldn’t tell where she was. While dreaming, her teeth had bitten her lip hard, leaving deep marks. There was a taste of blood in her mouth, and her head felt foggy.

Thunder struck with a rumbling boom, feeling like the sky was about to collapse.

Lin Shilan trembled and burrowed into her blanket, covering her head with the quilt. She was too frightened. Frantically fumbling for her phone, she found Tan Jin’s number and dialed.

After just one ring, the phone was answered.

Tan Jin said “hello” several times. Lin Shilan’s words stuck in her throat—she couldn’t speak.

He didn’t hang up. She pressed the phone to her ear, listening to his breathing.

Inhale, then exhale.

Her warm face pressed against the cold glass.

In the pitch-black world, she held a glass jar in both hands.

Inside the jar was her beloved, along with shallow, regular tides.

She breathed in rhythm with his breathing.

After a long while, the heart suspended in midair returned to earth and settled. Lin Shilan finally felt the reality of being back in the real world.

“There’s thunder outside, I’m scared. I had a bad dream…”

“It’s nothing, I just wanted to hear your voice.”

Hearing the heavy nasal tone in her speech, he asked in an extremely gentle voice: “What did you dream? Do you want to tell me about it?”

Lin Shilan hesitated: “Never mind, it was just a dream.”

“If you say a nightmare out loud, it won’t come true.”

This statement from Tan Jin struck right at her heart.

With the idea of dispelling the nightmare, Lin Shilan recounted her dream to him in full detail.

Her dream was a more malicious deformed version of actual events from the third spacetime.

Lin Shilan had never revealed to Tan Jin that she very much cared that the Tan Jin of another spacetime had chosen someone else.

At the time, when he tried hard to explain to her that “the Tan Jin who agreed to that confession wasn’t me,” she had even teased him: “You kept rejecting her. Who knows—maybe you two were quite compatible.”

She never revealed it, but had always minded. Combined with the argument with Tan Jin before bed, Lin Shilan’s mind wandered, bringing her anxiety into her dream.

Tan Jin was at Lin Shilan’s front door.

To prevent her from being frightened again the next time thunder struck, when Lin Shilan began telling her dream, Tan Jin had gone out and started walking to her house.

Stopping at her door, Tan Jin, having listened to her finish describing the nightmare, didn’t offer her comfort.

He fell into a long silence.

Just as Lin Shilan thought he had fallen asleep and was about to hang up, Tan Jin spoke.

“Lin Shilan, I want to take back the vow I made.”

Her head buzzed. Her heart felt as if it had been bombed, leaving behind scorched earth.

—Take back the vow.

This wasn’t a “light” statement that could be said “casually.”

Words couldn’t be spoken carelessly, especially when they both knew deeply how tremendous the power behind a single statement or vow could be.

They were connected by each other’s vows, which allowed them to miraculously reunite in the rainy season.

—What did he mean by taking back the vow?

“Are you joking?” Lin Shilan laughed awkwardly.

“Is it because I bothered you while you were gaming today and you’re angry with me? Or because it’s late at night and I woke you up, so you’re angry with me? Don’t be like this. If you’re unhappy, I can apologize to you. This kind of joke isn’t funny at all.”

Even though she tried hard to paint over the situation, she couldn’t hide the trembling in her voice.

But he said: “I’m not joking.”

Tan Jin remained rational and cold, his voice flat.

“Earlier when the rain stopped, my consciousness separated from this body, which is why I didn’t keep our appointment. I can feel that my consciousness is gradually disappearing.”

“If the vow isn’t undone, you’ll remain trapped in the rainy season forever.”

“But in every rainy season you reach in the future, I won’t be there.”

“You might encounter a Tan Jin who doesn’t love you and loves someone else, like in your nightmare. If that happens, what will you do?”

Lin Shilan’s tears fell pitter-patter, like a broken faucet.

Tan Jin and she were separated by a door.

The future still had a long road ahead. His most beloved would go to even more distant places.

Unfortunately, his vow wasn’t an umbrella that could shield her from the endless rain.

This was the last rainy season.

With the limit of his life, he could only accompany her this far.