That summer after graduating from their senior year, Lin Tao was busier than she had been in any summer before. Under the special attention of Lawyer Liang Wei, she had an endless stream of case files to review every day at the firm, and an endless pile of case analyses to write.

From sunrise to sunset, early mornings to late nights — she spun like a top that could never stop.

A summer day’s weather is always unpredictable. What had been blazing sunshine earlier would suddenly shift by evening. The air turned heavy and stifling, dark clouds gathered along the horizon, and before long, a violent storm had rolled in.

When Lin Tao came out of the firm, the rain had not yet eased. The torrential downpour fell from the sky with the wind, driven in sheets, and the continuous dark clouds left the whole sky and earth dim and murky. She stood in the lobby for a moment. Then thunder suddenly boomed outside, followed by an even fiercer rush of rain.

Lin Tao took her phone from her bag and glanced at the time — it had only just gone half past six. She thought about it and simply turned back to the elevator, intending to go back upstairs and read a few more case files.

Liang Wei’s firm was on the twentieth floor. The elevator had risen to the tenth floor when Lin Tao received a call from Jiang Yan.

“Off work?”

The elevator stopped. Someone else stepped in. Lin Tao moved a step back. “Yes — it’s just raining, so I’m still at the firm.”

Jiang Yan laughed. “Come on down then. I’m waiting for you in the underground parking garage, Level B1.”

Lin Tao gave a startled “oh?” and with quick reflexes pressed her hand against the elevator doors just as they were closing, apologizing to the person standing beside her. “I’m sorry.”

Once she stepped out of the elevator, Lin Tao bent down to rub her knee, which she had accidentally bumped, then spoke back into the phone. “When did you get back?”

That semester’s summer, Jiang Yan had gone with Professor Ji Nan to study at a research institute, staying in the city where the university was located rather than returning to Xi City. He was even busier than Lin Tao most of the time, and his replies often didn’t come until the early hours of the morning.

“Got back this afternoon.” The underground parking garage was enclosed and the air was stuffy. Jiang Yan rolled his car window shut and laughed softly. “Came specially to pick you up.”

The corners of Lin Tao’s mouth curved upward. “I’ll be right down.”

“Alright.”

……

The storm had come in fierce, and floodwater had accumulated everywhere. Before picking Lin Tao up, Jiang Yan had heard on the radio that traffic on the elevated roads was severely backed up. After collecting her, rather than going straight to the Lin family home, they went back together to his place above the internet café.

The internet café in summer was always lively.

The two of them got caught in the rain getting out of the car. After going inside, they didn’t stop to greet any of the friends in the café and went straight up to the room on the third floor.

Jiang Yan rummaged through the wardrobe for clean clothes and a towel and handed them to Lin Tao. “Go take a bath first. I’ll go downstairs and make some ginger soup.”

“No need.” Lin Tao toweled at her wet hair. “A hot shower will do. Besides, I don’t like ginger soup.”

Hearing this, Jiang Yan said nothing further. “Go on then.”

Once Lin Tao went into the bathroom, Jiang Yan picked up some clothes and went to the room next door, took a quick shower in a few minutes, then came out with his phone and went downstairs.

Lin Tao took a little longer to finish. By the time she came out — half an hour later — Jiang Yan was already back and sitting on the sofa with his laptop resting on his knees, as usual.

Lin Tao walked over, toweling her hair, and caught sight of the small bowl on the table out of the corner of her eye. Her eyelid twitched. Half laughing, half exasperated, she said, “How are you so fast — you’ve already made ginger soup.”

Jiang Yan looked up at the sound. Once she had settled down beside him, he naturally picked up the dry towel nearby and began to wipe her hair for her. “Drink it first. Blow-dry your hair after.”

“Can I skip it?” Lin Tao tried to negotiate. “If I don’t drink ginger soup and I don’t turn on the air conditioning, then I won’t catch a cold, right?”

Jiang Yan looked at her, perfectly earnest. “If the air conditioning is off, I’ll be hot.”

“……”

When you’re living under someone else’s roof, you can’t afford to be too proud.

By the time Lin Tao had pinched her nose shut and drained the bowl of ginger soup, Jiang Yan had somehow produced a fruit candy from somewhere, unwrapped it, and placed it in her mouth.

Lin Tao picked up the towel and draped it over her shoulders, the droplets at her hair tips all soaked away. She rolled the candy around with her tongue and asked quietly, “Why did you suddenly come back?”

“Took a few days’ leave.” Jiang Yan bent down and took the hair dryer from the drawer, tested the temperature, and then began to blow-dry her hair. “Professor Ji Nan needs to go with the senior researchers from the institute to Syria for an on-site study at their base.”

Lin Tao yawned. “Professor Ji really is kept busy.”

Because Professor Lu Xian was her own course instructor, Lin Tao heard Lu Xian mention Professor Ji Nan’s work frequently. He was occupied from morning to night, and at his busiest had gone an entire year without returning to Jing’an City.

The warm air from the hair dryer filled the space around them. Lin Tao leaned back against the sofa, and drowsiness slowly began to take hold.

When the dryer went quiet, Jiang Yan spoke again. “If nothing raises any issues after the survey, a few of us senior brothers and I will be going over as well.”

“Hmm?” Lin Tao’s eyelids flicked open, and most of the drowsiness fell away at once. “Going where — Syria?”

Jiang Yan nodded. “The Chinese Academy of Sciences has established a new project over there. They need technical personnel to go and provide support. Professor Ji Nan plans to take us along.”

Lin Tao carefully turned over what he had said and asked the key question. “So how long would you be gone?”

“If it’s confirmed.” Jiang Yan raised his eyes and looked at her. “Within the span of half a year, there would be no returning to China.”

“……”

Lin Tao said nothing. She absorbed this sudden piece of unwelcome news in silence, and Jiang Yan sat quietly beside her.

A long while passed. Lin Tao sighed, with just a hint of a whine. “Does that mean there are half a year’s worth of days when I won’t get to see you?”

Jiang Yan held her fingers and said nothing, eyes downcast.

Lin Tao grumbled on for a while, then finally reached up and grabbed him by the neck, pursing her lips and saying, “If I strangle you to death right now, would that mean you wouldn’t have to go?”

“……” Jiang Yan, afraid she might fall off the sofa, kept one hand braced behind her back.

Lin Tao fussed for a while, then seemed to decide there wasn’t much point in it, and calmed down.

They were both adults now. Each of them had their own thinking about life and the future.

Just as in the past, there had been times when she was traveling with Lu Xian and couldn’t be with him for long stretches — couldn’t even manage more than a handful of calls, and when she was busy enough, contacting him didn’t even cross her mind.

“Alright, let’s not talk about this anymore.” Lin Tao bent down to put on her shoes, consoling herself out loud. “It’s only half a year, anyway. And we still have our phones, don’t we — I’ll be fine.”

Jiang Yan caught her by the wrist and said quietly, “There won’t be phones. It’s a classified project. During the half-year period, all contact with outside parties is prohibited.”

Lin Tao’s back stiffened. She turned around, disbelief written across her face. “Are you saying that if you go to Syria, we’ll essentially have cut off all contact with each other?”

He pressed his lips together. “Yes.”

“……”

After a beat of silence, Lin Tao puffed out her cheeks, bent forward, and grabbed him by the neck again, saying with great conviction, “I think I really am better off strangling you.”

“……”

After the bout of dramatics, Lin Tao rubbed her temples and let out a long sigh. “I never imagined that at my young age, I’d already have to start living like a widow with a husband far away.”

At those words, Jiang Yan pulled her into his arms and murmured close to her ear, “Do you know what kind of person can actually use that expression?”

Lin Tao gave the corner of her mouth a twist. “Someone like me.”

“Married women,” Jiang Yan said, smiling.

“……”

But no matter what, the matter of Jiang Yan going to Syria seemed to be set in stone, and Lin Tao gradually accepted this reality as she waited alongside Jiang Yan for news from Professor Ji Nan.

Half a month later.

Jiang Yan and several senior brothers from the laboratory received an email from Professor Ji Nan asking them to set out for Syria as soon as possible.

The night before their departure, Jiang Yan was packing his luggage in his dormitory room. He had his phone open with a video call running beside him, and Lin Tao’s voice drifted out from it from time to time.

At one point she reminded him not to forget to pack some common medicines. At another she asked him to check his documents.

The farewell was at hand, yet Lin Tao had come to terms with the fact that she wouldn’t see him for half a year, and found that it didn’t weigh on her as heavily as she had imagined. Besides, once the semester started, she would be accompanying Professor Lu Xian to remote regions to provide legal aid.

Perhaps being busier, in a more complicated way, could fill the space left by her longing for him.

Not long after Jiang Yan set off for Syria, Lin Tao received a message from Professor Lu Xian, hoping she could return to school soon to prepare for what lay ahead.

Two days before Lin Tao planned to go back, it happened to be Lin Qichen’s first birthday. She went in person to a temple in Xi City and prayed for a protective amulet on behalf of her little brother, whose life had been full of hardship.

After obtaining the amulet, Lin Tao was led by a young monk to the main hall to make her wishes.

She looked up at the benevolent countenance of the Buddha within the hall, then knelt devoutly on the prayer mat, her back straight. With great sincerity, she bowed her head to the ground three times.

May the Buddha protect him.

May the one I think of most return home safely.

—

Not long after the start of her first year of graduate school, Lin Tao went with Professor Lu Xian’s team to provide legal aid in some of the more remote areas of the country.

Sometimes, in mountain regions with poor access and weak signal, the team would lose all connection with the outside world. Even the messages Lin Tao sent to Fang Yisong to let him know she was safe were sent whenever the opportunity arose — if she was lucky, they’d go through the same day; if not, they sometimes wouldn’t send at all.

As for Jiang Yan — it wasn’t that Lin Tao didn’t think of him. At night, when resting, she would often send him messages too, even though she knew those messages couldn’t be sent, or that even if they were, he had no way to receive them.

It was as if doing so had become a kind of comfort to her.

After more than a month in the mountain regions, Lin Tao and the team prepared to head to an even more remote and isolated area where ethnic minority communities lived.

During a layover at the airport, Lin Tao called Fang Yisong and asked about things at home and about Lin Qichen. At the end of the call, before hanging up, Lin Tao could hear Lin Qichen’s babbling sounds in the background and laughed, telling Fang Yisong that by the time she came home next, the little one would probably be able to call her “sister.”

But before Lin Tao made it back, trouble came to the family.

During one of Lin Qichen’s routine check-ups, Fang Yisong discovered that a nurse had written his blood type down incorrectly as Type B. After a series of tests, however, Lin Qichen’s blood type was confirmed to be B — not the Type O she had always believed it to be.

But both Fang Yisong and Lin Yongcheng were Type A. Two people with Type A blood cannot produce a child with Type B blood.

Amid shock and confusion, Fang Yisong quickly collected herself. She quietly reached out to a friend who worked in a hospital laboratory and had a paternity test conducted between Lin Qichen and herself and her husband.

The results were unexpected.

Lin Qichen was their child — but he was only Lin Yongcheng’s child. He shared no blood relationship with Fang Yisong whatsoever.

In other words, Lin Qichen was actually a child Lin Yongcheng had fathered with another woman outside the marriage.

For Fang Yisong, this revelation was nothing short of a thunderbolt from a clear sky. She, who was ordinarily so composed, lost control of her emotions for the very first time, smashing everything in the house that had anything to do with Lin Qichen. Photographs, toys, the baby’s crib — all of it. In that moment, every single thing was, to a woman who had always been proud, a form of torment.

The household staff quickly notified Lin Yongcheng.

The paternity test was incontrovertible evidence. Faced with his wife’s questioning, Lin Yongcheng had no way to conceal it any longer, and confessed to everything.

—

It had happened this way: after the agency had confirmed the relevant details of surrogate candidates for them, Lin Yongcheng unexpectedly came across one of those candidates — a woman named Ye Jing — at a social event.

At the time, Ye Jing was an intern at a company and had come to this upper-class gathering with her employer. Without any knowledge of what was being arranged, she was offered up to Lin Yongcheng like a gift by those around her.

Yet it was well known that Lin Yongcheng and his wife Fang Yisong were devoted to each other, and he had always been averse to such dealings. Unfortunately, even the most vigilant can be caught unawares. He was careless for once, fell into someone else’s trap, and spent one night in indiscretion.

Afterward, Lin Yongcheng had considered using money to settle the matter. But no one could have anticipated that Ye Jing became pregnant.

Over the years, Lin Yongcheng had gone to great lengths hoping for a son. But Fang Yisong had developed complications from giving birth to Lin Tao and was unable to have another child. The surrogacy arrangements they had pursued also failed, one after another — either because of conditions related to Fang Yisong, or because embryos developed poorly after conception.

Faced with this unexpected child, Lin Yongcheng deliberated at length and couldn’t make up his mind. In the end, he decided to have a check done at the four-month mark: if it was a boy, he would keep the child.

The results came back — Ye Jing was carrying a boy. Lin Yongcheng was overjoyed and went to great lengths to conceal the whole affair.

Fang Yisong had been kept in the dark from beginning to end. It was only today that the truth finally came to light.

By the time Lin Tao learned of the matter and rushed back from out of town, Fang Yisong and Lin Yongcheng had already divided their assets and were beginning the divorce process.

Fang Yisong’s nature was proud and exacting. She could not tolerate even a grain of impurity, let alone any blemish on her marriage.

In the space of just a few months, a once-harmonious family had suddenly shattered and fallen apart.

When Lin Tao saw Fang Yisong at the hospital, she looked as though she had been drained of every bit of energy. The light that used to fill her eyes was gone, and in the span of a few months, she seemed to have aged more than a decade.

When a person is submerged in grief that deep, no words of comfort can reach them.

Lin Tao was afraid that Fang Yisong wouldn’t be able to survive this ordeal. She stayed by her side day and night without leaving — yet accidents always come without warning.

The day came when Fang Yisong and Lin Yongcheng went to the civil affairs bureau to finalize the divorce. Fang Yisong had rallied somewhat in spirit that morning and woke early to have breakfast with Lin Tao. In the end, she wouldn’t let Lin Tao come with her, saying she didn’t want her to see the scene of her parents separating, and insisted on driving herself to the civil affairs bureau.

Lin Tao thought about it and still couldn’t put her mind at ease. She quietly followed after her.

The divorce process was swift. Fang Yisong didn’t listen to a word of Lin Yongcheng’s attempts to hold her back, and the moment the divorce certificate was in hand, she walked out of the civil affairs bureau and drove all the way to the riverside.

Lin Tao’s taxi pulled up at the roadside not far away. The driver had followed the whole way there and, looking at the scene before them, seemed to understand something. He turned back and spoke to Lin Tao. “Young lady, who is that person to you?”

Lin Tao kept her gaze lowered, her voice heavy with exhaustion. “My mother.”

The driver gave a mournful sigh but said nothing more, turning his eyes back to the figure standing by the river.

Not more than a few minutes passed before the driver called out in alarm. “Young lady, something doesn’t look right with your mother!”

At the same moment, Lin Tao noticed Fang Yisong moving toward the railing. In the instant the driver spoke, she wrenched the car door open and flung herself out.

The cold winter wind came rushing at her face — cutting and sharp. Lin Tao called out toward that frail silhouette ahead. “Mom!”

Fang Yisong froze mid-step, and before she had made any further move, she was already locked tightly in Lin Tao’s arms. Into her ear came Lin Tao’s exhausted, helpless crying. “Mom — what are you doing, what are you trying to do……”

Fang Yisong came back to herself from a daze, and her whole body crumpled to the ground. All her pride and composure finally broke, and she began to sob without restraint — a wrenching, anguished sound filled with the weight of every grievance she had suffered.

Lin Tao wept with her, her heart colder than even the winter wind. “Mom, don’t leave me. You’re all I have left. All I have.”

The driver who had come rushing over stood nearby and did not step forward.

After they returned from the riverside, Fang Yisong fell gravely ill. She was in a daze all day, not a single moment of clarity. Lin Tao stayed planted at her bedside without leaving.

Lin Tao spent that year’s New Year’s Eve in the hospital.

Fang Yisong was not well in spirit and slept on and on without waking. Lin Tao went alone to the hospital canteen and ate a bowl of dumplings, then bought a few red envelopes at the convenience store, tucked a hundred-yuan note into each one, and left them beneath Fang Yisong’s pillow.

Not far from the hospital was one of the most bustling streets in the city center. Many young people were there waiting to ring in the New Year together at midnight.

At midnight precisely, the bells of the tall buildings chimed.

Lin Tao stood at the window and watched the brilliant, radiant fireworks burst against the dark sky — and she missed one particular person with an ache she could not name.