The line of seal-script-like text was distinctive enough that Cheng Chang photographed it and sent it to several friends in history and archaeology. None of them could identify it.

Cheng Chang had already eaten dinner earlier, so he opened a food delivery app and asked the old monk and He Yuenan, “What do you two want to eat? I’ll order.”

“No need, no need,” the old monk said. “I just went to register at the temple and saw a really popular spicy crayfish place down the mountain. We already agreed—we’re going there.”

He Yuenan, a little annoyed with him, said, “Who agreed with you?”

The temple owner had looked surprised. “Aren’t you a monk? Why are you eating crayfish? Don’t you keep a vegetarian diet?”

The old monk had already shed his robes by then, dressed in a loud floral shirt that might as well have had “food and desire are basic human nature” printed across it. “These days we believe in a scientific approach to Buddhism. Being born human, you’ve got to respect your place at the top of the food chain.”

The owner laughed. “Fair enough. I’ll come along, I could use a bite myself. I know the crayfish place owner—going together, we can get a discount.”

The old monk was delighted and hurried He Yuenan along.

He Yuenan, a bit uneasy, asked Cheng Chang, “Maybe we should just stay here and keep you company instead.” Then, to the old monk, “Eating like this every single day—Buddha’s watching, you know. He’s got to have opinions.”

Cheng Chang said with a smile, “Wine and meat pass through the gut, but the Buddha stays in the heart. It’s fine, go eat. I’ll make a few calls and then turn in.”

He really had been going to bed early lately.

That was typical for people with depressive tendencies—difficulty falling asleep, less sleep overall, trouble reaching deep sleep, and a night riddled with nightmares that left them waking up in fragments, meaning they needed more rest than the average person. Some depressed patients simply gave up and let themselves drift along in a haze, but Cheng Chang still had self-control, and when discipline was called for, he was extremely disciplined about it.

A few more people replied to Cheng Chang on WeChat, all saying they couldn’t identify which dynasty the seal-script-like text in the benevolent Chen’s diary came from. One of them sent a voice message: “Senior brother, do you know any archaeology professors? If not, once the holiday’s over I could ask my advisor.”

Cheng Chang recalled that morning’s senior classmate at Zhejiang University mentioning that Duan Mingcheng had a hometown friend from Nanjing University’s archaeology department—one of the top archaeology programs in the country. He replied, “Thanks, let me ask around first,” and pulled up Duan Mingcheng’s number.

Before Cheng Chang could dial, Duan Mingcheng called him first.

“You checked yourself out and went to Anhui?”

Cheng Chang said, “Yeah.”

“You really…”

Others didn’t know the results of Cheng Chang’s psychiatric evaluation, but Duan Mingcheng did. He’d been out of town for a conference these past couple of days, not in Hangzhou, and had only just found out from a call with Liao Zhuo that Cheng Chang had been discharged.

But Cheng Chang had told him earlier about his plan to go to Xuancheng, so there wasn’t much room for him to object.

“Fine. When are you coming back?”

“Surgery’s on the ninth. Going back tomorrow.”

It was already the seventh. Checking in a day early for another round of tests meant he really did need to be back in Hangzhou tomorrow.

“Liao Zhuo just called me,” Duan Mingcheng said. “Her uncle’s case is basically wrapped up—just waiting on sentencing now. The police station might want to talk to you again to confirm some details. She felt too embarrassed to call you herself, so she asked me to pass it along.”

Liao Zhuo felt deeply guilty over what had happened to Cheng Chang—if it weren’t for her lingering feelings and her open and covert attempts to hold onto him, he wouldn’t have crossed paths with those criminals in the first place.

Cheng Chang made a sound of acknowledgment, letting him know he understood.

“You remember that little girl from Hope Elementary School you saved?”

“Xixi?”

“Right, Lu Xi. While you were unconscious, she stayed by your bedside at the hospital for a few days. Later her mother came back from Guangzhou and took her back to Huangshan. The local police station there heard about what you did, and once they heard you’d woken up, they sent representatives to visit you in Hangzhou—should be arriving tomorrow, I think. Lu Xi and her mom are coming too, and I heard they’re bringing gifts.”

Hearing this, Cheng Chang laughed. “That big a deal? A whole delegation coming to pay respects?”

Duan Mingcheng laughed too. “Of course. Risking your life to save others—that makes you a hero in the eyes of the people.”

Cheng Chang didn’t banter back this time. “Don’t you have a hometown friend from Nanjing University’s archaeology department?”

“Yeah, a senior alumna. Do you need her for something? She should already know who you are.”

“She knows me?” Cheng Chang was momentarily surprised.

Duan Mingcheng didn’t elaborate much, just said, “She did an exchange program at Fudan while she was studying, and saw you around campus a few times back then.”

Cheng Chang’s good looks were famous far and wide—during his university years, anyone remotely connected to him, three years up or three years down, knew who he was. He was simply the one person unbothered by it.

“I’ve got a line of seal-script text here. I’d like to ask your senior alumna to have her professor take a look, or if she can recognize it herself, that works too.”

“Sure, send it to me, I’ll get in touch with her right now,” Duan Mingcheng said.

In under twenty minutes, Cheng Chang’s phone buzzed—a friend request from the archaeology senior alumna. He accepted, and she quickly sent a voice message. “I looked at this text. It resembles seal script, but not exactly. Seal script is the simplified, unified writing system that came about after Qin unified the six states, built on the foundation of large seal script. What you’ve got here is even more simplified than large seal script—it looks like it also derives from Zhouwen, bronze inscriptions, oracle bone script, and stone drum script, but it seems to belong to a different lineage altogether.”

Cheng Chang didn’t quite follow.

She quickly explained further. “Put it this way—imagine a possibility where, after the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, it wasn’t Qin that unified the six states, but Chu. And suppose this great Chu also had its own version of Li Si, someone tasked with unifying the writing system based on large seal script. Same task, different people in charge—naturally, different results, right? This ‘seal script’ of yours looks like a form of writing that branched off from some parallel timeline like that.”

Cheng Chang typed back: Hard to decipher?

“Deciphering it isn’t hard in principle—the fundamentals of ancient scripts are all similar, you just compare it against Zhouwen and bronze inscriptions. It’s just time-consuming. My specialty isn’t ancient scripts, so I might not be much help, but I know a professor who focuses exactly on that. Hang on, let me look into it.”

She was very warm and helpful, and before long sent another voice message. “Alright, I’ve left Professor Li a message about your situation and forwarded your WeChat contact card to him too. It’s past nine now, he’s probably asleep. He should see the message first thing tomorrow morning and should add you. If you don’t hear anything, let me know and I’ll figure out something else.”

Cheng Chang thanked her. “Sorry for the trouble.”

The small mountain town settled into quiet early. By nine, the whole area outside was already still. Cheng Chang switched off the light and lay down. He lived on the ground floor, and a streetlamp outside stayed lit all night, casting a thin, scattered shadow on the wall—like an ink-wash painting of layered mountains and mist, depicting some other time and place.

People often fall into a common mistake: when facing something they can’t get past, they force themselves to forget it—someone heartbroken forbidding themselves from remembering, someone who’s failed refusing to face the outcome—believing that’s the way through. But it isn’t. Doing that only reinforces the psychological suggestion. Better to face the knot in your heart head-on.

So Cheng Chang never once stopped himself from thinking of Yun Xi.

He looked at the interwoven light and shadow on the wall, wondering what his girl was doing right now.

Would that silly girl be out looking for him again.

He was no longer in her world. Where would she even end up, over the course of her whole life, before she could finally stop?

It ached, thinking of it. He’d vanished so abruptly, he hadn’t even had the chance to tell her not to keep looking for him.

Early the next morning, Professor Li from Nanjing University replied to Cheng Chang. He said he had to fly to Singapore for an academic conference and asked Cheng Chang to send over a photo of the seal-script text so he could take a first look.

Cheng Chang thought it over and didn’t send the photo—he only asked for Professor Li’s flight number.

Not long after, Professor Li replied that he was actually in Hangzhou, with an eleven-thirty flight that morning departing from Xiaoshan Airport.

It was six o’clock at that moment—early, but the old monk and He Yuenan were already up. Cheng Chang replied to Professor Li: “I’ll come meet you at the airport.” After breakfast, he returned the benevolent Chen’s diary, said goodbye to the small inn’s owner, and headed toward Xiaoshan, Hangzhou.

The drive from Xuancheng to Xiaoshan took at least two-plus hours at best, but Cheng Chang wasn’t in a hurry. He bought himself an international flight ticket, and once at the airport, checked in directly and headed to the departure lounge to meet Professor Li.

Professor Li looked somewhat startled when he saw Cheng Chang. “What are you doing here? You bought a ticket just for this?”

Cheng Chang gave no clear answer. In truth, he could have simply sent the photo directly. But the man was, after all, a highly respected figure in the field, and out of respect for a mentor whose help he was seeking, it seemed only right to come see him in person—especially since the senior alumna had already mentioned that while the script wasn’t especially hard to decipher, it would take considerable time and effort.

With some time left before boarding, Cheng Chang invited Professor Li to a café, and only then handed over the photo of the seal-script text. He kept the full story behind it vague, saying only, “This line of seal script was found in the diary of an elder in my family. It matters a great deal to me, so I was hoping you could help decipher it.”

Professor Li put on his reading glasses and studied it for a while before speaking. “I can see it now—this elder of yours had deep expertise in ancient scripts.”

Cheng Chang asked, “Can you read it?”

Professor Li said, “This won’t come easily anytime soon.” He glanced at Cheng Chang. “Do you have any sense of the general subject matter?”

Cheng Chang nodded. “Another world. Time and space. Dusk. Cause and effect. Good and evil. Reincarnation. And—” he paused, “—life, death, and one’s deepest love.”

Professor Li nodded, unsurprised by the clues Cheng Chang had given. Over his career he’d encountered a great many ancient scripts and countless strange tales—among them, karma of good and evil, love and hatred cycling through reincarnation, were probably eternal themes.

Professor Li said, “Alright, I’ll try to decipher it when I get a chance. Probably one or two days. I’ll send it to you the moment I have it.”

Cheng Chang was momentarily taken aback—Professor Li still had his own work to do; saying he’d decipher it in one or two days likely meant he was going to pour all his rest time into it.

Cheng Chang stood and gave a slight bow. “Thank you so much, truly.”

Professor Li rose as well, patted his arm, and said with a smile, “You bought a plane ticket specifically to see me over this—it’s clear this matters a great deal to you. I’m happy to help someone in urgent need.”