The water level in Yan County continued to rise.

In this area, only their home still had people living in it.

The sandbags at the door couldn’t stop the water flowing into the house. Lin Shilan and Tan Jin still had no evacuation plans. They guarded this precarious building, forced to move from downstairs to upstairs.

Before bed, she held his hand and looked at the submerged first floor.

Neither of them spoke, but both understood—this was their last night.

Night was the hardest to endure.

Without light, the room was stuffy and damp.

The howling wild wind destroyed the glass, rainwater pouring into the house. Thunder cracked open above their heads. Tan Jin covered Lin Shilan’s ears, holding her in his arms.

With his not-so-melodious singing voice, he hummed a lullaby whose lyrics he couldn’t quite remember.

The roof of the residential building was peeled away layer by layer by the wind, the world rapidly falling apart. In Tan Jin’s singing, Lin Shilan closed her eyes. The lullaby was an ark, carrying her toward sweet dreams.

She didn’t know how long she slept.

When Lin Shilan was woken by Tan Jin, it was still dark.

He had her climb onto his back.

After being carried up, Lin Shilan realized Tan Jin’s feet were standing in water.

The water had already flooded to the second floor of their home, about to reach his knees. Lin Shilan told Tan Jin to put her down. He refused, carrying her all the way to another large room with a balcony.

Without her feet touching the ground, he steadily transferred her onto a large stool.

She wondered: when did this stool get here?

Before she could ask, Tan Jin first stuffed a candle into her hand.

The lighter went “click click” twice, sparking.

A warm little flame jumped up, illuminating the young man’s eyes.

Stars twinkled finely in his eyes as he quietly lit the candle in her hand.

The orange-yellow light spread outward from Lin Shilan’s palm. That light instantly filled the pitch-black room, also illuminating the colorful brilliance painted all over the four walls.

Just past midnight, it was now July 1st.

Tan Jin’s smile was radiant: “Lin Shilan, happy birthday.”

Four years ago, borrowing his brother’s name, he gave her a string of blue beads. Not daring to look at her directly, he spoke evasively and ran away after giving the gift.

Four years later on the same day, he finally had enough courage to stand before her.

This time, Tan Jin gave her a room full of suns.

Grinning suns, shy suns, dancing suns, bearded suns, dog-walking suns, suns wearing boxing gloves punching away lightning… Among them were flat little suns and round plump big suns; they were different colors with different expressions. His drawings occupied every corner of the room.

Lin Shilan wanted to cry and laugh at the same time.

In this moment, despite the raging flood outside the window, she was happily in the midst of a gorgeous birthday party.

Here was a complete set of dining table, chairs, and tableware. On the tabletop were drinks, flower bouquets, snack platters, and a chocolate pie cake with her name written on it.

The little party was decorated so beautifully. Lin Shilan quietly wiped away tears from the corners of her eyes: “I should have dressed up prettier to come here.”

Tan Jin busily lit more candles, disagreeing with her words: “You right now are the most beautiful.”

—Yes.

Today’s Lin Shilan was the most beautiful.

For several days, the fatigue of dealing with the flood was swept away.

Her joyful tears were more precious than pearls. Tonight’s outfit was also the most appropriate—she wore the most comfortable “Tianjin” pajamas, and they matched with his as a couple’s set.

In the warm candlelight, they interlaced their fingers.

Before she could taste a bite of the food Tan Jin prepared…

Suddenly, a thunderous sound came from directly above the room.

The roof was completely blown off by the wind.

After the steel plates broke, they crashed heavily toward their balcony.

His expression unchanged, he pushed the small cake to her side.

“Time to make a wish.”

Lin Shilan thought for a moment and smiled: “I don’t have any wishes.”

The building shook violently.

Rain poured into the room, extinguishing most of the candles.

Lin Shilan had no wishes. She felt no regret—there was nothing else she wanted.

The massive rain falling on her body was just painless droplets of water. She wasn’t afraid of the approaching death.

But the person who loved her didn’t want her to die.

Tan Jin became a traitor once again.

“There’s no time,” with drooping puppy-dog eyes and the lightest possible tone, he said to her: “It’s time to break the oath.”

Fire burned in Lin Shilan’s eyes: “Don’t you remember how angry I was last time you brought this up?”

“These years my consciousness was in the bracelet, watching you experience the rainy season, watching you suffer. I know better than anyone how hard you’ve tried to live your life well. Lin Shilan, go see a better, more distant future.”

Tan Jin told her earnestly: “After breaking the oath, you can finally go home and bid farewell to all the rainy seasons.”

He said casually: “My consciousness will go back with you. Maybe it will be stored in some object, some place, keeping you company.”

“Unto death without change—you said that.”

Lin Shilan raised her head, her face full of stubbornness: “I’m not going anywhere.”

Cupping her face, wiping away her tears, he said.

“You also made an oath to me, remember?”

Lin Shilan looked into Tan Jin’s eyes.

Stars filled his eyes. With one blink, all the stars in the sky shattered.

Her thoughts were pulled into another world. Her pupils contracted, her consciousness gradually sinking down.

The wind and clouds changed color, the sky’s weather uncertain.

The flood receded, then rose again.

The clock was turned back to the starting point of the story.

After the explosion, black smoke billowed from the petrochemical plant.

Endless turbid water flowed right at their feet.

The air smelled of burning flesh, the clothes on her body wet and cold.

A narrow equipment platform.

She was on the upper level, Tan Jin on the lower level.

Stretching her arm toward his direction with all her might, Lin Shilan’s voice was hoarse, almost begging.

“Don’t leave me alone, I can’t survive.”

Tan Jin underwater was severely injured. His face was pale as paper, yet his eyes were like they’d been washed with water—clear and bright.

“I won’t leave you alone. I’ll stay with you.”

“Lin Shilan, no matter what happens, I swear I will always stay with you.”

Handing her a false candy, he left her with hope for life.

“You swear too—no matter what happens, forget me and live well.”

The chaotic pitch-black world was split by silver-white lightning.

Countless silver-white threads connected heaven and earth, past and future, here and elsewhere… The oaths made to each other were branded into their souls; the firm faith in protecting the oath tangled their fates into an intricate cocoon.

Forever and ever, endlessly entangled;

Whether in life or death, true hearts unchanging.

Lin Shilan’s mouth was moving. She heard her own voice saying.

—”I swear, no matter what happens, I will forget you and live well.”

Saying it while crying.

What she had just remembered was rapidly forgotten again.

Returning to the scene where the oath was made, he wanted her to keep the promise while he himself wanted to break it.

Unwilling to let Tan Jin go, Lin Shilan stubbornly grasped the silver thread on her wrist. The long silver thread connected to the water below at the other end, tied to his life.

A soft sound rang in her ears.

Like a bubble bursting, also like a sigh.

That was the disappearance of an oath, the extinction of a soul.

At the other end of the silver thread, the weight that had entangled her for four rainy seasons was gone.

Lin Shilan’s expression changed from grief to dullness.

Her mind emptied.

She couldn’t remember anything anymore.

Looking down from the equipment platform, the water rose higher and higher. In the water floated what might be clothes or human corpses.

For a full ten days, Lin Shilan waited alone for rescue.

She quietly hugged her knees, staring blankly at the lifeless water.

She saw in the water—report cards full of A’s, a puppy killed by a car, broken glasses, a bowl of spoiled chicken soup, a big mouth with yellowed teeth reeking of alcohol. They became so big, like patrolling monsters, walking back and forth on the water’s surface beneath her feet.

Lin Shilan’s eyes were numb and hollow.

Unconsciously, she touched her wrist—there was nothing there.

Originally, there should have been a bracelet there. Instantly, she became restless and began searching everywhere. Lin Shilan searched all over her body, tore apart the railings of the equipment platform…

Suddenly, her movements stopped.

She lowered her head. Lin Shilan discovered that on the back of her left hand, the hand that originally wore the bracelet, there was a vague sun.

A little sun with a smiling face.

Before this rainy season, Lin Shilan’s life was like a leaf in a flood.

Not knowing where she came from or where she was going, she struggled floating and sinking, pushed by the current in any direction.

But in this rainy season, Lin Shilan had seen what love looked like.

She had loved someone and been loved.

She now had the courage to grasp her own life.

Lin Shilan jumped off the equipment platform.

The monsters in the water surged toward her with bared teeth. Lin Shilan’s gaze searched everywhere, her sharp eyes spotting a familiar gray-blue bracelet.

It lay on the level below the equipment platform.

She dove down and grabbed it.

The second her fingertips touched the bracelet, it transformed into a pair of large hands.

Tan Jin’s hands lifted Lin Shilan, bringing her back to the surface.

The equipment platform from her memories was long gone.

They had returned.

This was her birthday party. The food had been washed away, tables and chairs floating in the water. After the candlelight was extinguished, their world returned to dimness.

The two of them soaked in water, struggling to hold onto a door panel.

Lin Shilan rested her exhausted head on Tan Jin’s shoulder.

“Liar.”

“Living on and forgetting you are two oaths. You can’t use one oath to exchange for two.”

She was angry at him.

She was still blaming him.

Lin Shilan said to him very fiercely: “I don’t want to forget you.”

Tan Jin smiled at her: “Then promise me you’ll live well.”

In the distance, floodwater broke through the dam, pouring into the town.

Roads collapsed, buildings crashed down with a roar. The small town was instantly reduced to a vast ocean.

Their story was about to end.

Half-jokingly, Tan Jin asked her a childish question.

“Lin Shilan, will you tell others that you loved me?”

She said resolutely: “I won’t tell.”

“Oh.” He nodded.

“Then in that case, no one will know you loved me.”

The flood destroyed the house, heaven and earth shook and trembled.

Using all her strength, Lin Shilan gripped Tan Jin’s hand tightly.

“I’m telling you, it’s not over yet. Do you hear me?”

The overwhelming flood came crashing down.

Wherever the water flowed, mud and sand fell together, unstoppable. Everything great and small, lost and deeply loved and reluctant to part with, all collapsed into dust.

The enormous flood swallowed them.

She didn’t wait for his answer.