In the summer of 2019, Jiang Rang, who was frantically busy with a new project, received an email from home.

The sender was Liang Yiran.

Liang Yiran was his good friend from high school, and also the only person who had maintained frequent contact with him since he went abroad.

Besides the usual greetings, the email also contained a wedding invitation.

The bride, Meng Xinglan, was Liang Yiran’s childhood friend and another of Jiang Rang’s high school friends. The wedding was set for June 6th.

Along with the invitation came a photo.

It was a group photo taken in the year they graduated from senior year. There were six people in the photo: him, Liang Yiran, Meng Xinglan, Shen Yu, Chen Yi.

And—

That person he had hidden in his heart for many years, constantly remembered yet unable to possess—

In late summer of 2008, No. 8 High School welcomed the new school year. The campus, empty for over a month, was once again filled with a large influx of unfamiliar yet vibrant faces.

Several boys stood in the third-floor corridor of a teaching building on the south side.

The plane trees in front of the building towered into the clouds, their branches extending far, blocking out the sky and sun. The wind carried the full breath of summer.

A boy’s arm hung on the railing, his entire upper body leaning out, head down, eyes slightly squinted as he watched the running figures below.

Beside him were scattered sounds of conversation.

The boys’ topics always revolved around the big three: shoes, games, basketball. Jiang Rang found it boring and raised his hand to scratch his ears a couple times, then suddenly straightened up, gripping the railing and shaking it twice.

He sighed with some boredom and turned to enter the classroom.

In the new semester, Jiang Rang and his previous friends were assigned to different classes. The only one assigned to the same class hadn’t shown up today to register for some unknown reason.

Finally enduring until class started, the classroom finally quieted down. Jiang Rang withdrew the foot he had propped on his stool and turned his head to look out the window.

When Zhou Hai brought Ruan Mian over, he was the first to notice.

The girl wore a regulation ponytail. Her skin was very fair.

Zhou Hai had taught Jiang Rang’s class in sophomore year. Jiang Rang was quite familiar with him, and joking around was common. He whistled playfully, his gaze inadvertently sweeping over the girl standing to the side.

She was a new transfer student this semester, named Ruan Mian.

Ruan as in the sable fur traded for wine.

Mian as in sleep.

At that time, Jiang Rang didn’t know that this name would become a lifelong regret for him. Teenage him only noticed the girl’s silence and embarrassment and took the lead in applauding to break the awkward situation.

It was an unintentional act, but unfortunately, some people took it to heart because of it.

Perhaps because the new semester was too boring, or because there were no very familiar friends in the class, Jiang Rang was full of curiosity about this new classmate.

Especially after the placement exam results came out.

Jiang Rang was impressed by her unexpectedly good results and made a special detour to praise her. But Ruan Mian seemed accustomed to it and even self-deprecatingly said that if she took the full exam next time, he wouldn’t think so anymore.

At the time, Jiang Rang didn’t understand what that statement meant, until after the first monthly exam of the semester ended and Ruan Mian exposed her shortcomings in other subjects. Only then did he react.

By that time, he and Ruan Mian, thanks to Meng Xinglan being in the same class, had already become friends—not particularly close, but a step closer than ordinary classmates.

Occasionally they could even sit together to eat.

The long-term interaction didn’t make Jiang Rang realize his unusual feelings for Ruan Mian. He thought he was just curious, which was why he paid extra attention to her. It was out of friendship that he proposed the idea of helping her with tutoring during winter break.

Even though his math grades, while not as good as hers, were still far ahead of others and didn’t require much effort at all.

All of this was nothing but self-deception.

But unfortunately, the boy’s flutter of the heart came one step too late. This one step seemed infinitesimal, yet was also a chasm, making it so he could never step across it again.

The fact that Ruan Mian liked Chen Yi was just like how he liked her—thinking it was deeply hidden, yet it would always be known by those who shouldn’t know.

While those who should know learned of it at an inappropriate time.

Fate was always full of such errors and coincidences.

Ruan Mian’s distancing was within expectations. Jiang Rang was helpless and could only watch as he was pushed step by step out of her world.

In their senior year, Jiang Rang and Ruan Mian barely interacted anymore. For the occasional group activities, he would decline whenever possible.

On the night of the farewell dinner, Jiang Rang saw Ruan Mian looking at Chen Yi with eyes full of regret and sadness. At that moment, he had an impulse to tell Chen Yi about her affection.

He wanted to compete fairly with Chen Yi.

But where was the fair competition?

From the beginning, Ruan Mian had never given him a chance. Chen Yi was always her winner. In this competition, he didn’t even possess the right to participate.

After graduation, Chen Yi went abroad to study, Ruan Mian returned to No. 6 High School to repeat the year, Shen Yu went to military academy, and he, Liang Yiran, and Meng Xinglan came to City S.

The six of them went their separate ways and never saw each other again.

Until the winter of their senior year of college, he and Meng Xinglan went to Q University as school representatives to participate in a competition. The night before departure, Jiang Rang ran lap after lap around the sports field.

In the winter night, the cold wind was bleak, just like his inner heart—scorching hot on the surface, but already riddled with holes inside.

The meeting was inevitable. This time, Jiang Rang no longer beat around the bush. On the surface, it seemed like he wanted to demand an explanation from her, but in reality, it was just to give himself a reason to completely give up hope.

Ruan Mian told him that even before going to No. 8 High School, she had already met Chen Yi first.

She said that meeting someone and falling for someone seemed more like everyone’s destiny. With good luck, you get what you wish for; with bad luck, it’s what’s called a tribulation.

He was lucky to have met her.

But in the end, he still fell short. It was only a meeting—

Jiang Rang ultimately decided to return home to attend Liang Yiran and Meng Xinglan’s wedding, never expecting that this time would truly be farewell.

He learned from Liang Yiran’s mouth about Chen Yi and Ruan Mian’s reunion.

It turned out that from beginning to end, he was the only one with bad luck. Perhaps that was better—between him and her, there should always be one person who gets what they wish for.

If possible, he hoped that person was her.

On the day of the wedding, Jiang Rang saw Ruan Mian. She was still the same as before, her smile very beautiful. But only when she looked at him, her gaze was always filled with an indescribable complexity.

He tried his best to appear magnanimous, forcibly suppressing sadness and bitterness to say those words, just as she had once urged him to let go and look forward.

That night, Jiang Rang drank glass after glass under the pretext of helping Liang Yiran block drinks, yet his mind remained clear throughout, just like that hole in his heart.

The sadness and regret were all clear.

He saw Chen Yi’s figure leaving the wedding venue, so he chose to pretend to be drunk after the wedding ended and return to his room, waiting for Chen Yi to come and inquire, waiting to pick a fight with him under some pretext, even to come to blows.

But Chen Yi stopped in his tracks.

Jiang Rang lay on the bed, eyes open, looking at the night scene outside the window. After a long while, he only heard the sound of Chen Yi walking away. He closed his eyes and sighed.

Chen Yi still left him with his final dignity.

Some words shouldn’t be learned from him, and shouldn’t be laid bare between them as brothers. Even though over these years, Jiang Rang had deliberately distanced himself from Chen Yi because he couldn’t get over the hurdle in his heart.

But in Chen Yi’s completely unaware heart, Jiang Rang was forever the same Jiang Rang as before.

He was an indispensable part of the memories from his verdant youth.

That night was especially long for Jiang Rang. He didn’t stay long at the hotel but went downstairs and walked along the road for a long time, not stopping until dawn broke.

Jiang Rang stood on an unfamiliar street corner, watching the rising sun, and pulled out his phone to delete all the various things related to Ruan Mian that he had saved over the years.

It ended here.

His affection from age sixteen until now.

In the end, it closed with regret.