Ye Yuncheng made his way slowly up the winding mountain path.

Pebbles of varying sizes were scattered across the uneven yellow-dirt road, and wild grasses of unknown varieties grew thick along the edges. The slope rose and dipped unevenly; there were no guardrails on the side, and it looked rather treacherous.

Ye Yuncheng tilted his head up for a glance, then bent at the waist and, with strides that were less than agile, attempted to step over a long diagonal mound of earth, cutting across a shortcut.

The feng shui of this mountain was considered auspicious, and many local ancestors had been buried here. But because of its remote location, it had always remained desolate.

A few years back, the mountain was put out to tender for development, and the government invested considerable funds in support. Oil-camellia trees were planted across the entire hillside, arranged in terraced layers ascending upward.

That first batch of small saplings had now grown lush enough to bear fruit. In another two years or so, they were expected to reach peak harvest.

This road, too, had been built at that time to allow vehicle access, winding its way around the mountain from the base in several loops.

A few farmers came down the path toward him, carrying hoes on their shoulders. When they saw Ye Yuncheng, they gave him a wave, stealing curious glances at his prosthetic limb as they passed. After going by, they stopped and looked back for another moment.

The blazing sunlight came from behind, falling on his back. His shirt was soaked through with sweat, clinging to his skin in a damp, uncomfortable grip.

That sensation — both unpleasant and familiar — made him drift back in a haze to the memory of leaning against Ye Yaoling’s back.

That girl, only five years older than him, used to carry him to and from school like this. Through muddy roads, past the noisy school grounds, along the paths between home and school.

In summer, Ye Yaoling’s back was always damp — a mixture of sweat and silent heartache.

She would turn her head and smile at Ye Yuncheng, saying: “Little brother, don’t be afraid. Things will get better.”

That was probably the best comfort she could think of. For him, and for herself — only that one somewhat bewildered line.

Ye Yuncheng’s footsteps came to a stop. His eyes grew warm with the heat of unshed tears.

He never got to see things get better — never even got to see himself get better. And then Ye Yaoling was gone.

Ye Yuncheng reached out and plucked a wild berry from the nearby brush.

Orange-colored, small, with a spiky surface. When Ye Yaoling used to carry him to school, she would pick two of these for him whenever they passed by this kind of plant.

In the mouth, there was only a tiny bit of juice — sour and astringent. The more you chewed, the more your mouth puckered. If you bit through the innermost pit, the coarse fragments would release a bitter taste.

It was like the taste of life — not very pleasant at all.

From the time he became disabled, Ye Yaoling had never stood up straight again.

She stopped going out to play, and when she was home she often said nothing. Their parents would scold her and demand that she take him out for walks at set times.

He had been a boy who had just turned ten — not yet old enough to have learned to rein in his own willfulness and selfishness. When he now recalled how he had looked over her shoulder and seen the worn-out shoes on her feet, he felt a deep sense of shame.

Ye Yaoling walked such long distances every day, yet she didn’t even have a comfortable pair of shoes. On the day she left, she wore only an old pair of cloth shoes bought from a secondhand market.

When she brought those shoes home, she told Ye Yuncheng happily that they fit well.

The shoes had been given to her by Fang Yiming.

Ye Yuncheng covered his face. The road stretching ahead to the mountain summit felt endlessly long — no matter how far he walked until he was exhausted, it was still nowhere in sight, as distant as the gap between himself and Ye Yaoling.

He could not blame Ye Yaoling for loving that man, because the truly absurd ones had been them — her own family.

Fang Yiming had at least given her warmth. Her family had given her nothing.

People in rural areas tend to marry young. Even before reaching the legal age for marriage, one would still be subject to much gossip.

They pointed at Ye Yaoling and said: their family was poor, and there was a disabled younger brother — too heavy a burden. She wouldn’t be able to marry into a good family in the future.

Ye Yaoling hated it.

She disliked this place, disliked the people here. She disliked her own circumstances, and disliked her own powerlessness even more. She only despised how narrow the world was — she couldn’t escape it.

On that day, Ye Yaoling lay with her chin resting on the edge of his bed, a happiness on her face that had been absent for a long time, saying that Fang Yiming was the person who treated her the best.

He never spoke to her about worldly matters, never brought up the pressures of reality. He would praise her for being beautiful, clever, adorable — all the things she hadn’t received in a very long time.

And even more so, because Fang Yiming wasn’t from around here. He was only passing through.

Ye Yaoling smiled brightly, her eyes radiant with light.

Ye Yuncheng stammered: “From now on, I’ll tell Mom and Dad to treat you better too.”

Ye Yaoling smiled but said nothing.

That kind of smile — the young Ye Yuncheng at the time couldn’t understand it. He thought she was happy, and eagerly climbed up to comb her hair for her.

After some time, Ye Yaoling cut her long hair short.

She stood before Ye Yuncheng’s bed in an unfamiliar new appearance, touched his head, then took his hand, and then, unable to help herself, held him and wept bitterly.

She said that Ye Yuncheng was the person she worried about most, and also the one she felt most guilty toward. But Ye Yuncheng had parents — he could live on even without her. And yet this place made her feel so pained.

She was leaving. She would not come back.

Summer was just as scorching as ever.

In the year Ye Yaoling left, Ye Yuncheng finally learned to use crutches independently.

He dug out an old wooden crutch from the corner that he rarely used, and stubbornly walked along the road leading out of the village for over four hours. By the time the skin on his chest and arms had been rubbed raw and bleeding, he still hadn’t caught up to her. In the end, his parents, who had come searching for him in tears, brought him back home.

From a certain day onward, he no longer had a sister. It was only after a long time that he truly came to realize this.

Thinking about it now, words like “I’m your family” or “I’m the one who truly cares about you” — they sound ridiculous, don’t they?

Love should never be understated, should never be concealed, should never carry conditions or contexts, should never be subordinated to anyone else, or made to yield unconditionally in someone else’s shadow.

Otherwise, when you finally speak such words, they only wound.

Why couldn’t she be the person someone loved most? Her feelings had long been hollowed out until nothing remained.

His parents went from cursing, to regret, to grief — it took less than a year in total. After that, overwhelmed by the blow and worn down by physical hardship, they passed away in sorrow.

In their final moments, the name they called was Ye Yaoling’s. Their worry was that after they were gone, no one would look after Ye Yuncheng.

Ye Yuncheng finally reached the gravestone.

The burial plot had already been tidied up by Fang Zhuo once, and it was noticeably cleaner. But with the revival of spring and summer, the surrounding weeds had begun to run wild again.

Ye Yuncheng sat down on the ground, catching his breath in rough gasps, easing the pain in his residual limb that had been worn down by the mountain path.

With his back against the stone marker, he kneaded the muscles in his leg, and in a haze, he remembered the day Ye Yaoling came back.

By then, their parents had already passed away, and he had not yet reached adulthood. Because of various upheavals in his life, he had fallen far behind in his studies and was wavering between dropping out and continuing his education.

Television programs were celebrating the arrival of the new millennium — lanterns and banners everywhere, everyone proclaiming that they were the new cross-century generation, as if it were something extraordinary.

The images flashing across the screen showed places he had never been, with a prosperity he didn’t dare to imagine.

The world’s grand celebration had nothing to do with him.

Ye Yuncheng had assumed that Ye Yaoling, having gone off to seek a new life, must be living in some big bustling city like the ones on the screen.

When she appeared again, she was still beautiful, composed, and graceful — but things had not been going well for her. Her face was haggard, her frame thin, and only the smile pressed out from the corners of her lips made her look somewhat more spirited.

She accompanied Ye Yuncheng to sweep the graves, stayed by his side to talk, and helped him tidy the rooms together.

It rained those few days. Ye Yuncheng’s phantom limb pain was particularly bad at night — he broke out in cold sweats, his eyes barely able to open. And yet he was filled with joy, feeling that he had a family again.

Ye Yuncheng turned, and lowering his gaze to the engraved characters on the stone, he smiled and said: “Sis, I’ve come to see you.”

During those few days, when Ye Yaoling learned that their parents had died and that Ye Yuncheng had been living alone, she was filled with guilt.

She found it strange — why had she spent her whole life doing things she would regret? After all that struggle and all that time, she had only just begun to understand how to live.

Ye Yuncheng comforted her, telling her he was doing very well.

Ye Yaoling urged him to keep studying: “I went out and traveled around, and I discovered that education can change a great many things. Not just for the sake of earning money — more than that, it gives you a kind of confidence, a kind of backbone. For people like us, education is the most useful thing we have.”

Ye Yuncheng, his mind full of joy, agreed to everything.

Later, when Ye Yaoling died of illness, he could no longer recall those words. He only felt that his life was a failure, and in a state of reckless self-abandon, he chose to drop out.

“But I did study, Sis,” Ye Yuncheng said carefully. “Even after dropping out, I kept reading on my own. I didn’t fall too far behind. Now I’m learning video editing, learning to code… Can you imagine? I have hundreds of thousands of followers now. I can take care of myself.”

He turned around and smiled: “You wouldn’t have guessed, would you? The internet is very well-developed now, and the government is doing a great deal. On public platforms there are all kinds of free university courses — you can listen and watch however you like, no payment required. Of course there are paid ones too, only I haven’t studied deeply enough to need those yet.”

In this country, acquiring knowledge was inexpensive — and yet knowledge itself was a very costly thing.

If Ye Yaoling could have lived to see today, she would surely have been fighting with fierce determination.

Her youth would never have an end; she could have kept running forever.

As Ye Yuncheng spoke, his voice grew quieter, blending into low, muffled choking and hoarseness.

He thought of how early Ye Yaoling had died — largely because there was no money to treat her illness.

Poverty had followed her always, no matter how hard she worked, she could never shake it loose.

She wanted to stay with Fang Zhuo a little longer, but every day in the hospital was burning through money. By the time she finally came to find Ye Yuncheng, she was already on the verge of holding on no longer.

At dusk, Ye Yaoling had sat on the threshold at the front of the house, her thoughts very clear. She told Ye Yuncheng about Fang Zhuo’s situation, and calmly entrusted him with these words: “If you ever have the time, go and look in on her. If she makes the same mistake I did, remember to tell her — a woman should never think of using marriage to escape from life. I only understand now: there are many things that, no matter how hard you grit your teeth and endure, you cannot get through. You’ve only abandoned yourself in the process.”

Ye Yuncheng’s throat worked as he swallowed hard, straining to hold back the emotions surging up within him. But every time he came to this place, regret, sorrow, and longing — all those feelings too heavy to bear — would always come rising up and intertwining.

“I don’t know how to tell you about all the changes these past years… but in short, Zhuozhuo is doing very well. She was accepted into University A. She’s just like you — truly remarkable. She did what neither of us managed to do.”

“She’s resilient, independent, and hardworking. Far more clear-headed than you or I were back then. She isn’t afraid of being abandoned by anyone. Your worries, your final words of advice — she hasn’t needed any of them.”

Ye Yuncheng straightened the flowers beside him and placed them neatly in front of the gravestone. He bent his right knee, and with some unsteadiness, stood up — standing tall on that quiet hillside, amid the sweaty heat of summer.

“I can walk on my own now, Sis.”

“Rest easy on your way.”