After Lin Weixia had made things clear with Jiang Heng, he never bothered her again, and the two of them settled back into a collegial dynamic.

Not long after starting at Puyang, Lin Weixia was sent on a work trip to Shanghai City. She was accompanied by two more senior colleagues who were thoughtful toward her throughout, and the trip went smoothly enough.

After arriving in Shanghai, they met with their partner organization, then sat through a long, dry conference focused primarily on supporting data and clinical trials for treating patients with psychological depression using electroacupuncture.

After the meeting, their hosts took them to a star-rated restaurant by the Hujiang River for dinner. The evening was reasonably pleasant. When the day’s work was done and they returned to the hotel, Lin Weixia washed up and collapsed onto the bed in exhaustion.

After the long journey and a full day of meetings, she was truly spent. Her heavy eyelids fell shut, and before long she had sunk into a deep sleep — her phone screen lighting up several times on the nightstand, showing missed calls from Ban Sheng.

She didn’t answer any of them.

The next morning at eight, Lin Weixia woke and was standing at the bathroom sink brushing her teeth when her colleague called from the other room: “Weixia, your phone’s ringing.”

“Coming.”

Lin Weixia spat out the toothpaste, rinsed her mouth quickly with water, and walked out, setting down the glass.

She picked up the phone from the pillow — it was her aunt calling. Lin Weixia answered, and the next second, her aunt’s bright voice was pouring through the earpiece: “I’ve been calling you forever! Why are you only picking up now?”

“I was brushing my teeth, Aunt,” Lin Weixia said.

“Oh. Anyway — it’s your birthday today, did you know? I sent you a red envelope. Remember to collect it after you get off work and go out for a nice meal with your colleagues,” her aunt said in a booming voice.

Today was her birthday. April 25th. Lin Weixia had been keeping track of it all week, and now that it had arrived she’d completely forgotten in the middle of all the busyness.

She held the phone up and opened WeChat — her aunt had indeed sent a red envelope. The corner of her mouth curved into a faint smile:

“Thank you, Aunt.”

It was kind of her aunt to have remembered.

Lin Weixia sat on the edge of the bed for a while, chatting with her aunt about everyday things, then hung up. Her colleague Rui-jie was patting powder onto her face and said with a smile: “Oh, it’s your birthday today! Happy birthday.”

“Thank you,” Lin Weixia said, then thought of something and turned to her: “Rui-jie, do you have plans later? After work, why don’t I treat you to dinner? I saw a restaurant down by the docks with good reviews.”

Rui-jie capped her compact, smiling — two gentle lines fanning from the corners of her eyes: “Wonderful, I get to benefit from your birthday. Thank you for having me.”

That morning, the team visited and surveyed psychiatric hospitals one after another. By the time they finished walking, the backs of Lin Weixia’s heels had rubbed into small, thin blisters.

During a break midway through, a few colleagues went up to the building’s roof to smoke.

Red lips around a slim white cigarette, Lin Weixia struck the lighter with practiced ease, lit it, then passed the lighter to the colleague beside her. Wisps of smoke wound around her, lending her an even more cool and distant air.

Lin Weixia found a stone to sit on, cigarette in her left hand, her other hand lifting her phone to dial Ban Sheng’s number.

The call rang for quite a while before it connected. Ban Sheng sounded like he’d been up all night — his voice carrying a thin edge of roughness: “Hello.”

“It’s me,” Lin Weixia said instinctively.

Ban Sheng gave a loose, quiet laugh. His throat shifted as he asked:

“What are you doing?”

Her long, pale fingers held the cigarette, the tobacco burning quietly. For some reason, Lin Weixia felt a faint pang of guilt. She pressed the lit end against the stone and extinguished it — a hiss, the spark silently going out — then answered:

“Resting.”

“You haven’t called me at all today,” Lin Weixia said, in a tone of mild complaint.

Ban Sheng laughed softly, his low voice threading through the crackle of the connection:

“Check for yourself — how many missed calls were on your phone yesterday?”

Every one of them — unanswered.

That brought a flush of embarrassment. Today was her birthday, and she wasn’t sure whether Ban Sheng remembered. She decided to bring it up:

“Let me tell you, today is—”

Someone seemed to call his name on the other end. Ban Sheng answered them absently, then said, unhurried:

“Something’s come up. Talk later.”

Before she could finish saying my birthday, the line went to a steady tone. The weight in her chest rose quietly.

She had only called because she wanted Ban Sheng to say happy birthday. He seemed to have forgotten. And even when she’d tried to prompt him, the call had been cut short.

A colleague came to call her back down. She came to herself, took a tissue from her bag, picked up the cigarette stub from the ground, and crumpled it into a ball as she went downstairs, dropping it into a bin.

After a full day’s work, Lin Weixia pulled up a mini-app on her phone and found the dockside restaurant, and took a number. The night sky settled over Shanghai. The city’s glitter and noise flashed in every neon light, and the evening air was considerably cooler than the day.

Lin Weixia and Rui-jie came out of the counseling center, and Rui-jie was just about to hail a taxi when her phone began chiming with notifications. She opened them, turned to Lin Weixia with an apologetic expression:

“Xiao Xia, I’m so sorry — my husband was on a work trip in the next city and he finished up early. He’s on the high-speed train over now and I need to go meet him. Happy birthday!”

Lin Weixia lifted the corner of her mouth. “No worries at all. Safe travels, Rui-jie.”

Once she was alone, Lin Weixia stood in the middle of the street with no idea where to go. She cancelled the restaurant number she’d just taken and put her phone away. The road was busy with traffic, and a constant stream of people walked past.

A strange loneliness settled on her, inexplicable — probably because it was her birthday.

She wandered idly along Fu’an Street and spotted an ice cream dessert shop. Lin Weixia went right in and bought a box of lemon-flavored ice cream. For good measure, she also grabbed the most frost-bitten popsicle from the back of the freezer shelf.

He wasn’t here to stop her. She could eat as much as she wanted.

Lin Weixia walked along with her box of ice cream, eating as she crossed the road. She came down beside the river and spotted a young couple walking toward her from the other direction — the boy had taken the cap off his head and pressed it down over the girl’s eyes. He kept pushing it lower on purpose until she couldn’t see, and she chased after him, laughing and hitting him.

Lin Weixia found that the ice cream in her mouth had lost all flavor.

She suddenly missed Ban Sheng terribly.

If only he were here.

But Lin Weixia didn’t feel like calling him first right now. He hadn’t even remembered her birthday.

She walked on, quietly deflated, and eventually found herself at the most bustling intersection in Shanghai — the Jingbai Plaza.

She happened to be standing at the center of the crossroads. On the mall above, a massive LED screen was playing a nature documentary about butterflies — vivid and beautiful, as if the creatures might flutter out from the screen itself.

Having nothing else to do, Lin Weixia simply stopped and watched the LED screen attentively. People filed past behind her.

Then — snap — the LED screen went black. This, perversely, caught the attention of a few passersby who stopped and looked up.

In less than thirty seconds, the screen lit up again.

What appeared was a vast, empty auditorium. Darkness everywhere — no audience at all.

Snap — a single spotlight hit the stage. The camera began pulling slowly closer: a tall, straight-backed young man appeared, hunched slightly, cradling a guitar. The clean ridges of his spine were clearly visible.

Her heart clenched sharply.

Ban Sheng was dressed all in black, sitting on the open steps of the stage, one foot casually propped on the step below, the other long leg hanging off to the side. He wore a black cap, only half his profile visible — the sharp, fluid line of his face — languid and unhurried.

He wasn’t looking at the camera. He was practically side-on to it — entirely in keeping with who he was. Cool. Arrogant. Indifferent to anyone watching.

Ban Sheng held a guitar pick in his teeth, his clean jawline angled downward. That cool, angular throat. He reached up and turned a page of sheet music in front of him.

He still wasn’t looking at the camera. He raised a hand, plucked a string, and spoke unhurriedly:

“A song for a girl I love. Swallowtail Butterfly. Today is her birthday.”

His long, clearly-knuckled fingers moved across the guitar, drawing out a light, bright sound — which then slowly deepened and lowered, like a confession arriving from the dark.

Ban Sheng’s throat moved. His voice was unhurried, full of a quiet, irresistible pull — a low, soft hum winding into song:

When I fall from high above, The world is an upside-down place. And still I kneel at your feet.

When the night swallows my eyes, I am lost at the bottom of an endless sea. Let me be your faithful prisoner.

Give me the mercy of your kiss. Give me the careless sweetness of your scent. Give me the murmuring of your daydreams.

The ice cream in Lin Weixia’s hand slipped into its paper box with a soft sound and melted into a pool. His voice was pulling at her breath — and then, in the next instant, her own humming voice appeared inside the song. Her heart leapt violently.

Lalalalalala~~~ I have a hidden star.

That was a melody Lin Weixia had been humming to herself at home — a few offhand English notes she’d sung to no one in particular. Ban Sheng had recorded it and woven it into his song.

Her heart was hammering. Lin Weixia stared at the young man on the enormous screen, and her chest felt as if a thousand white doves were beating their wings and fighting to get out.

Ban Sheng kept playing, his voice deep with feeling:

When the swallowtail butterfly falls into my palm, You reconstructed my death of yesterday.

I give you my breath. I give you my will. I give you my freedom.

My heart is thus. Only this one Xia.

More and more people had gathered to watch. Some marveled at what a heartfelt birthday gift this was; others were amazed that someone this handsome could also sing this well.

“He must have written this himself — I’ve never heard it before. It’s so beautiful. If I were his girlfriend I’d die happy!” someone in the crowd exclaimed.

“I’m genuinely crying and I don’t even know why.”

“Something clearly happened between them, but that boy sings so movingly.”

When the last note fell and the sound faded, Ban Sheng was still turned to the side. Then, after a long moment, he finally deigned to turn and look at the camera — and after a pause, his low, quiet voice reached out like a hand:

“Lin Weixia. Thank you for loving me.”

“Happy birthday, Xia.”

And the girl he spoke of stood on the street holding a half-melted box of ice cream — surrounded by the crowd, nose reddening, her amber eyes going wet with a warmth she hadn’t expected. Surprised and moved in equal measure.

He had written her a song.

The phone in her pocket buzzed. Lin Weixia took it out and answered:

“Hello.”

The man’s breath on the other end of the line pulled at something in her chest: “Do you like it? Your birthday present.”

“I love it. I wish you were here,” Lin Weixia said, sniffling slightly.

If she’d known, she never would have come on this trip.

“Turn around,” Ban Sheng said from the other end.

Lin Weixia spun around. In the distance, Ban Sheng stood in that effortless, reckless way of his — a head taller than the crowd. He wore his cap. His nose was a straight, strong line. The tattoo on his collarbone was visible. One hand held his phone to his ear; the other held a cherry blossom cake.

He was always conspicuously, strikingly handsome — passersby kept glancing at him — but his eyes were only for her.

He had been standing behind her for a long time.

People and cars flowed past, and the neon lights caught the moment and held it still.

Lin Weixia ran toward him with her box of ice cream, came to a stop in front of him, and wiped her nose in mild embarrassment. She asked, quietly:

“How long ago did you write this song?”

“Three months ago,” Ban Sheng said.

“When you called at noon today, where were you?” Lin Weixia continued.

“The airport,” Ban Sheng said with a quiet laugh, reaching out to pinch her nose. He glanced at the ice cream in her hand, and his expression went flat. “Eating that again?”

“I know, I know — I’m sorry,” Lin Weixia said immediately, surrendering.

In the end, Ban Sheng took Lin Weixia to the riverbank. The two of them sat on the beach. In the distance, fireworks began to bloom — brilliant and many-colored, as if the sky too were celebrating Lin Weixia’s birthday.

Ban Sheng reached into his pocket and produced a lighter. They cupped their hands together, shielding the flame from the riverbank wind. Three candles burned with a quiet hiss of sparks. Lin Weixia pressed her palms together and made three wishes with great care.

After the wishes were made, Lin Weixia pulled out the candles and picked a cherry from the cream cake, putting it in her mouth — it was sweet and sour. She picked up another and popped it into Ban Sheng’s.

She tucked the candles and streamers into a plastic bag, then looked up thoughtfully and said: “I’ve been dreaming about Shengao lately — so many things are coming back to me.”

“Ah Sheng — I’ve actually had a question I’ve been wanting to ask you.”

“Go ahead,” Ban Sheng said, taking the plastic bag from her hand, his tone easy.

“Why me?” Lin Weixia looked at him steadily.

In their second year of high school, Lin Weixia had transferred to Shengao First High, and from the very first meeting, Ban Sheng — who carried a sense of danger like something concealed — had set his sights on her. Like a hunter who had spotted his quarry, he had moved carefully and deliberately, closing in on her, until he had claimed a place at the center of her world that could not be displaced.

After all the storms they had weathered since, the two of them had remained entangled until this very moment.

Lin Weixia believed in love at first sight. But from the very first moment Ban Sheng laid eyes on her, the emotion in his gaze had been too intense — too much like an overwhelming sense of fate.

Not the kind of look one would have upon meeting someone for the first time.

Ban Sheng had a cigarette idly between his lips, his head bowed as he thumbed the lighter to shield the flame. He heard the question and paused, then let out a quiet laugh:

“Sounds like you really have forgotten.”

“Forgotten what?” Lin Weixia looked at him blankly.

When Ban Sheng was ten, in the wake of a brutal murder case, he had been lying in the hospital recovering. The day his mother was taken to the funeral home, he had pulled out his IV and slipped away — but he was too late. Song Zhili’s body had already been brought out of the morgue.

The morgue was cold and eerie, but Ban Sheng felt not the slightest fear. He came out and wandered aimlessly near the hospital, his mind a chaos — and more than anything, a helplessness that had nowhere to go. He ended up sitting on the flowerbed in the plaza in front of the inpatient building, crying.

Did he truly have no mother anymore?

Ban Sheng sat there, his long lashes lowered, both hands resting on his knees, fists clenched so tightly they had gone bloodless. Tears fell without a sound, landing on the ground below, where they were swallowed up and evaporated.

His chest heaved violently. Ban Sheng reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue ballpoint pen, then extended his left hand, eyes fixed on the vein moving beneath the skin of his wrist. He wanted to know what it would feel like to push the pen into it — whether it would relieve some of the pain. He considered this for a moment, raised his hand to press it down—

A cold voice came from beside him: “What are you doing?”

Ban Sheng assumed it was an adult and quickly hid the pen in the flower bed. He looked up — it was a girl around his age.

She had a small red butterfly birthmark on her cheek, just below the outer corner of her eye. She wore a blue fine-checked dress, and the shape of her pale calves was lovely. Her canvas shoes were frayed at the edges. She was clearly still a young girl, but she moved and held herself with a maturity beyond her years.

She walked over without a word and sat down beside him.

Ban Sheng had been carrying so much pressure for too long — the pitying looks from the hospital nurses, his father never once appearing in the ward, silently accusing him; the occasional overheard whispers from other patients saying that he was the one who had gotten his mother killed.

Every one of these things was like an invisible rope, winding tighter and tighter around his throat, leaving no room to breathe.

He supposed he needed someone to listen desperately enough.

Ban Sheng began to talk. Some things he held back; others he didn’t. When he was done, the air went quiet, and the girl still hadn’t spoken.

Ban Sheng’s gaze was lowered. Then, suddenly, the girl turned his face toward her and pointed at the blazing red sun burning across the way. Her voice lost the coolness it had carried before:

“It’s not your fault. It was only an accident. The sun is fair and kind — it just sometimes forgets to shine on us.”

The sun sometimes forgot to shine on good people.

“But the sun is always there,” the girl said, squinting up at the horizon, “and if you wait — it will come.”

After fifteen minutes, it did come — the sun drifted slowly over, and warm, radiant light poured down over both of them, wrapping endlessly around Ban Sheng’s unsettled, aching heart, like his mother’s embrace.

Ban Sheng’s face had been expressionless — but now, without warning, great tears spilled from his eyes, and his voice broke as he sobbed: “I… I miss my mom so much.”

The girl’s expression went helpless for a moment, but she still reached out and wrapped her arms around him. Her movements were stiff as she patted his shoulder, and her voice softened: “Don’t cry. Here — I’ll give you my favorite dried plum candies.”

“My mom used to tell me that some people’s lives are like dried plum candy — first sour, then sweet. Get through it, and things will get better.”

“Don’t cry. The sun will always be there.”

With those words, the girl walked away. The sunlight fell on her — bright, warm, beautiful. Those final words stayed behind in the blazing summer of that ten-year-old afternoon.

“What’s your name?”

“That’s a secret.”

“Can I come find you someday?”

“If fate allows.”

The distant fireworks had stopped. This was the first time Ban Sheng had ever told this story to anyone. He had never told another soul. When people asked why he liked that particular brand of dried plum candy — sour and old-fashioned — he simply said he liked them.

Some sweetness you taste once by chance, and you want to remember it for the rest of your life.

Lin Weixia blinked after hearing it, her lips parting slightly. This really did sound like something she would do.

She had always been the kind of person who looked cold on the outside but couldn’t stop herself from meddling in other people’s affairs. Now that Ban Sheng had said it, she had the faintest impression — she seemed to recall meeting a small boy once, long ago. To think it had been him.

“Do you know how long I looked for you?” Ban Sheng said, his eyes fixing steadily on her.

Nanjiang was a vast city. Ban Sheng had searched for Lin Weixia for a long time and never found her — until the transfer in their second year of high school, when he saw her in an instant and knew her. Only her.

He had caught hold of his light.

“Oh, so you’ve been in love with me since you were ten,” Lin Weixia said, her attention going sideways, teasing him.

“I was ten years old then,” Ban Sheng said flatly, trying to deny it — but the tips of his ears went red without his permission.

Ban Sheng answered her original question, looking at her as he spoke:

“You were the one who chose me.”

You were the hope that found me at my most desperate.