Cheng Yanqing was coming back a day early, so Cheng Wanyue’s stay at Qing Hang’s place was shortened by one day.

This week, Qing Hang couldn’t rest because of work, causing his fever to subside during the day but return at night. The first evening, he hadn’t told Cheng Wanyue in advance and simply waited for her at her workplace, clearly sick but not caring at all. On the second day, she told him not to come, but he came anyway. The third and fourth days were the same.

On the final day, they both had the day off, and Qing Hang’s fever had subsided.

He played the “money for affection” game quite expertly—half an hour of hand-holding in exchange for a meal.

In the evening, they went to the supermarket together. On the way back, someone handing out flyers gave Cheng Wanyue an advertisement. It was college students doing a promotional activity. She took it and casually stuffed it into the bag Qing Hang was carrying.

After dinner, it was still early. Qing Hang had already showered but was suddenly called to a meeting at the hospital. Bored alone at home, Cheng Wanyue started looking at nail art pictures on her phone. It wasn’t that she had no friends or no entertainment; people were always asking her out. If she wanted, she could go play anytime.

As she was looking, she began trimming her nails, but accidentally cut her ring finger and made it bleed.

The box of cigarettes was still in the coffee table drawer. Cheng Wanyue searched through it but couldn’t find a bandage. She remembered seeing one somewhere but couldn’t recall where, so she wrapped her finger in a tissue and sent Qing Hang a WeChat message.

Qing Hang was attending a lecture hosted by the hospital. The auditorium was large and almost full. He was sitting near the back with his phone on silent mode. He didn’t have any random apps downloaded on his phone, so he rarely got spam notifications. When his screen lit up, he saw it was a WeChat message and clicked to check.

Y: Can you slack off during your meeting?

Lune: I can right now.

Y: I’m injured!

She sent him a photo.

Actually, it was just a small cut, but she had wrapped it up like a little light bulb.

A colleague glanced over casually, thinking Qing Hang was looking at funny news.

Lune: There are bandages in the left drawer of my desk in the bedroom. Look there first, and if you can’t find them, let me know.

With Qing Hang’s hint, Cheng Wanyue remembered seeing them when she was looking for fever medication.

Cheng Wanyue put on her slippers and got up from the sofa to go to the bedroom. When she opened the left drawer, the first thing she saw was that wooden box. The bandages were underneath the medicine box. Her finger had already stopped bleeding. She took a bandage, opened it, and stuck it on.

How long she stood at the desk was how long her gaze lingered on the wooden box.

In the past, Qing Hang was the most mysterious person at school. Back then, Cheng Wanyue also always felt that he seemed to have many secrets. However, after digging deeper, she realized they weren’t secrets but shackles he was afraid to remember yet couldn’t shake off.

Heaven had given him an intelligent mind, handsome features and height, maturity and understanding far beyond his peers, unbreakable willpower, and a strong inner core—but had also taken much away.

The box wasn’t locked, just fastened with a metal clasp.

Should she look?

Cheng Wanyue hesitated.

During her adolescence, she had written a few diary entries. Cheng Yanqing not only read them secretly but also read them aloud in front of the family.

Just a quick look, and if it was something very private, she wouldn’t look further… With this thought, Cheng Wanyue pulled out the chair, sat down, and carefully took out the box and placed it on the desk.

The box was old; the metal clasp had rusted. Opening it wasn’t easy.

He probably hadn’t opened it for a long time.

Cheng Wanyue closed her eyes first. After opening the lid, she slowly opened one eye into a narrow slit to peek inside. There were only three items.

An old flip phone.

A matching charger.

A photograph.

Cheng Wanyue saw herself in the photo.

The photo had been torn apart, then glued back together, torn again, and glued back once more. There were many tear marks, and transparent tape covered the entire photo, as if it had been laminated.

Qing Hang had been admitted to university early and didn’t graduate with her, so he didn’t have a graduation photo. Cheng Wanyue couldn’t remember exactly when this photo was taken. The image quality wasn’t high, but judging from the books on the desk, she could barely make out that it was in their sophomore classroom in high school.

There were many people in the photo, but they were all blurry.

Only she and Qing Hang were clear.

She was watching a show; he was watching her.

That day was New Year’s Day. They had held a New Year’s party in the classroom. The homeroom teacher had brought their camera to school and taken many photos and videos of the students, later uploading them all to a QQ album for everyone to download and save.

This must have been one of those photos.

Cheng Wanyue had countless photos from childhood to adulthood. When she was little, her parents took pictures of her; when she grew up, she took them herself. In her room at her home in Baicheng, there was a wall covered with hundreds of group photos. The people standing beside her changed from those in the liberal arts class to those in the science class, both boys and girls, as well as teachers and the principal, but never Qing Hang.

The scenes captured in photographs would stay frozen in that moment forever. Even if one couldn’t remember what was said or done at the time, looking at the photos of their youthful selves like this touched the heart, stirring up emotions that couldn’t be suppressed.

Cheng Wanyue charged the old phone and waited a long time for it to turn on.

The phone was slow to respond, and the battery became hot. Her palms grew sweaty. There was nothing in the photo album. She accidentally pressed the text messages.

There were only messages from two people.

One number had no name attached—it was from a crematorium worker who had sent Qing Hang a message asking him to collect the ashes.

The other was her. Qing Hang had saved her number with the name she had forcibly entered back then: Beautiful Cheng.

The first text message Cheng Wanyue saw was dated January 2014, a few days earlier than the one from the crematorium worker. But according to the lunar calendar, before the New Year, it was still winter 2013.

[Cheng Wanyue, contact me, just once.]

Due to insufficient credit or some other reason, this message hadn’t been sent.

Cheng Wanyue continued looking. All their previous text messages were still there.

“His life wasn’t good either,” she said, her throat choked, her voice as soft as a murmur.

The sound of the door opening came from outside. Cheng Wanyue suddenly came to her senses and hurriedly turned off the phone and put it back in its place. She moved too quickly and got her hand caught in the drawer, also knocking over the pen holder on the desk.

Qing Hang knocked and pushed the door open to find her crouching on the floor picking things up.

“I’ll get them,” he said, walking in, making a rare joke. “It would be troublesome if your finger gets injured a second time.”

Cheng Wanyue kept her head down without speaking.

She stood up to put the pens back. Qing Hang was still crouching and looked up to see moisture at the corners of her eyes. “Why are you crying? Does it still hurt?”

“I was feeling snackish and wanted to get something to eat, then I got my hand caught again.”

Qing Hang had bought several bags of snacks each time he went grocery shopping this week.

“The desk is old, and the drawer doesn’t close well. I forgot to tell you,” Qing Hang looked at her hand, examining each finger. There was no obvious injury. “The snacks aren’t here; they’re in the kitchen.”

Cheng Wanyue crouched down and knelt on the floor. “Let me check if there are any more pens under the desk… Hey, what’s this?”

She reached under the table with one hand and pulled something out.

A red mesh bag was tied with a red drawstring. Inside was also a piece of red cloth with the characters “Peace and Good Fortune” written on it.

It was clean and had just fallen.

“Isn’t this a safety charm from Chicken Crowing Temple in Nanjing?” Cheng Wanyue not only had safety charms from all over the country, but her family also got them for her when traveling abroad. “Did someone get this for you? Qing Hang, who got this for you?”

Qing Hang avoided her gaze. “It wasn’t someone else who got it for me.”

“Then did you get it for yourself or someone else?” Cheng Wanyue followed behind Qing Hang, taking two quick steps to get in front of him and grab his hand. “When did you go to Nanjing?”

Qing Hang avoided answering. She persisted in asking, and they continued their back-and-forth into the kitchen.

She asked again.

Qing Hang’s face showed little emotion. “I’m not telling you.”

“I’m angry and want to go home right now,” Cheng Wanyue said, taking a step back. She was about to storm out when Qing Hang grabbed her wrist and pulled her back.

He held her so tightly she couldn’t shake free.

Cheng Wanyue used all her strength to pry his fingers open, working up a sweat.

Qing Hang spoke softly, “I went in 2019.”

That year, her entire family had spent the Spring Festival in Nanjing.

“Why did you go?”

“I attended an academic conference with my advisor.”

“Just for the conference?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Say it again.”

Qing Hang sighed helplessly. “I also went to Cheng Yuzhou’s home to give New Year greetings to Uncle Cheng and Aunt Yang.”

Cheng Wanyue remembered this incident. She was the only one who didn’t see Qing Hang that Spring Festival. “Why did you leave before I got back?”

“Weren’t you on a date?”

“Who said I was on a date?”

“Uncle Cheng did.”

That day, Qing Hang had stayed at the Cheng family home for a long time. Given his personality, he wouldn’t have stayed for dinner on a family holiday like the Spring Festival.

What he was waiting for, or rather whom he was hoping to see, along with his nervousness when knocking on the door, gradually faded away as the minutes ticked by.

Just before he left, Cheng Guo’an mentioned: Yueyue went on a date.

His advisor wasn’t returning to Beijing for another two days. The next day, he went to Chicken Crowing Temple with some friends. Shortly after entering, they got separated in the crowd. He heard people around him saying that the temple was very effective for praying for relationships and safety. He couldn’t possibly pray for a relationship for Cheng Wanyue; she didn’t need that.

Falling in love with her wasn’t difficult; not loving her was the hard part.

Back then, when Cheng Wanyue easily broke up with Qing Hang, nobody knew.

Similarly, no one knew that Qing Hang had prayed for Cheng Wanyue’s safety in Nanjing.

“I didn’t go on a date. How could my dad say such a thing? I think that day I went… Ah, I can’t remember, but it wasn’t a date.” Cheng Wanyue had no reason to feel guilty about something she hadn’t done. “Qing Hang, haven’t you always wanted to know what I was doing during those years before I repeated my studies? Don’t ask others. You’ll know when I want to tell you.”

She changed topics so quickly, talking about two things at once, that Qing Hang misunderstood her to mean she had been dating during those years. It seemed like something she would do.

He turned away. “I don’t want to know.”

Cheng Wanyue asked, “Really?”

He said, “At least not today.”

“Don’t regret it then,” Cheng Wanyue rummaged through the snacks on the shelf. The bags were full of things she liked to eat.

Qing Hang was boiling water. Listening to the rustling sounds behind him, he suddenly felt his tone had been harsh. Whenever she was unhappy, he would instinctively reflect on what he had done wrong and then apologize.

“I…”

“Qing Hang!” Cheng Wanyue interrupted him. She turned around slowly, holding a plastic wrapper in her hand. “No wonder you didn’t say anything when I mentioned buying condoms. You had already bought them.”

Qing Hang stared at what she was holding, stunned for several seconds.

He explained helplessly, “I didn’t buy them… they were forced on me by those people handing out advertisements. This afternoon, on our way back from the supermarket, those college students were still doing promotions near the intersection. I told you not to take them, but you insisted.”

His after-work hours had been filled by her, so he’d forgotten to clean up.

Cheng Wanyue went to check today’s bag. Sure enough, there was another one stuck to the back of the advertisement.

Now there were two.

“I’m a bit angry,” she took a deep breath. “Do these things expire?”

Qing Hang looked away. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t know either, but if we don’t use them, they’ll certainly go to waste. Since they’ve been given to us,” Cheng Wanyue stood on tiptoe and wrapped her arms around his neck, “let’s try one first to see if the size fits.”