(A relic left by a martyr who sacrificed himself at Longhua)

I have always wanted to write you a letter, but I did not know how to put pen to paper without giving anything away.

Perhaps I should write it in invisible ink, or encode it as a passage of Morse code, but all these methods only try to prevent it from being deciphered in case it is discovered. What I truly want to say to you is not a secret at all—it could be written on the clouds, or written on water, where anyone in the world could see it, and yet it would still be meant only for you. Just as with everything I have ever said in this life, captured by your eyes, your ears, like Braille or Esperanto, its raised marks, its imitation of natural language, that faint prickling or syntax, remembered by your fingertips.

I never once imagined that we would be parted. And yet every single second could be the moment of our eternal separation. If we could watch each other part ways, that alone would already be a fortune.

You will probably never read this letter. I may no longer be here, already far away from you, in some place I do not know.

I do not know where I should wait for you so that you might find me. But you will know, won’t you?

We never expected to be reunited in another world. The only thing we ever loved was the place where we once were together, and even if no one remembers us in the future, this is still the only place we are willing to give everything for.

I love listening to you tell stories about plants—those double-petaled flowers, whose stamens and pistils, degenerated and mutated, become all the more resplendent, while the single-petaled flowers are far more fertile.

Sometime, go to Longhua again. In March or April, when the peach blossoms bloom, climb the Pagoda of Requiting Kindness, and look at Longhua for me again, look at Shanghai. And look too at that peach orchard east of the pagoda, at those red, white, and red-and-white blossoms.

The things we have seen, and the things we haven’t. Listening to you tell everything—our past, this world’s future.

Sometimes, I seem to see myself in the depths of night. I see myself gazing at you, in this world, anywhere at all, forever gazing at you, gazing at the beautiful, enchanting stars in the night sky.