“xxxx year x month x day

I’m starting to regret keeping this little bird. All it knows is to fly around everywhere.”

Yu Jiaze had been having some headaches lately.

Ever since he gave Wu Man resources, she had started flying everywhere. She had just gone to Shanghai and then went to Chongqing. Finally, after returning from Chongqing, before she could settle down for two days, she received another cosmetics brand shoot, with the location in LA.

She was abnormally excited. The evening she learned the news, she came running to find him, saying: “I’m going abroad tomorrow!”

He was vaguely displeased inside and gave a cold snort: “So what?”

You came to tell me you’re leaving for several days? Does this little bird have a problem?

“This is my first time going abroad…” She was somewhat embarrassed but couldn’t suppress her excitement. “Xiao Zhou told me you often go to LA. I wanted to ask if you know any fun places? Or any good restaurants? I have one day of free time!”

Yu Jiaze found it both funny and exasperating. Glancing at her eager appearance, he thought to himself what kind of provincial little bird had he raised—going abroad once was something worth preparing for in advance?

He shook his head coldly: “No. When I go there, it’s all meetings. I eat working meals and don’t have time to visit other places.”

Wu Man was at a loss for words and looked at him with what seemed like a sympathetic gaze, making a vein on his forehead jump.

Who was pitying whom? This little provincial bird who hadn’t seen the world.

Just a few days later, by coincidence, he also needed to make a business trip to LA.

But because the meetings were scheduled particularly full, he had no mind to look for Wu Man. Although the two of them were under the same sky in a foreign country, they had no time to meet.

Until July Fourth, America’s Independence Day, when everything was closed and he was forced to take a day off but couldn’t return home—the next day would continue with unfinished meetings.

On that idle morning, he woke especially early because the hotel bed was too soft and he wasn’t used to sleeping on it. Outside the window was particularly noisy. Even on a high floor, he could hear the clamor from the street.

He got up and went to the balcony to look. He could vaguely see both sides of the street packed with dense crowds, leaving a path clear in the middle. From the end of the street, a procession could be faintly seen, beating drums and blowing trumpets with great fanfare. The people at the very front waved American flags, the red, white, and blue soft fabric swaying in the wind.

He observed from above for a while. Seeing the procession growing larger and larger, he dismissed his desire to go back to sleep.

While making himself a cup of coffee, he suddenly thought of Wu Man.

That chattering little provincial bird—he wondered if she had broadened her horizons these past few days. If she saw this scene, she would probably make a big fuss like Grandma Liu entering the Grand View Garden, thinking she’d seen something incredible.

Thinking of this, the corners of his mouth lifted slightly without him even realizing it.

He took a sip of coffee and sent Wu Man a text message.

“Where are you?”

It took a long time for her to reply.

“LA!”

“…” Yu Jiaze rubbed his temples with a headache. “Nonsense. I’m asking where in LA!”

Wu Man mentioned a location without understanding. He Googled it and discovered it wasn’t in the city center but in the far suburbs.

“Why did you go there?”

“There’s shooting today too.”

Only then did he realize that Wu Man’s production team was entirely Chinese—they didn’t care whether it was Independence Day or not. Every second burned money, and that was what mattered.

After hesitating, looking at the long distance, he dismissed the idea of visiting the set.

But what should he do?

He stood on the huge, empty balcony. The LA sea breeze drifted from the beach all the way to the city center, passed through his heart, and floated toward the unknown void.

The phone’s vibration interrupted his daze. He glanced at the caller ID, and a wave of irritation immediately rushed to the top of his head.

—The old man.

He let the phone vibrate. The other party was more stubborn than him, seemingly persisting relentlessly until he answered.

Finally, he surrendered and pressed accept.

“Father.”

“Isn’t it morning in America? Why did you take so long to answer!”

“Do I need to remind you that today, July Fourth, is America’s Independence Day, so I’m resting? Since it’s not working hours, can’t I sleep in a bit?”

A mocking laugh came from the other end of the phone: “Of course I know you’re off today, which is exactly why I’m calling!” He paused. “You have nothing to do today anyway. Go inspect a few schools on-site and report back to me with specific details. I’ll send you the list shortly.”

“You want to invest in schools?”

“Of course not. Chenyang will be entering high school soon, but his grades are really too poor. Keeping him in the country and spending a fortune to get him into a key high school would just be a waste. Better to send him abroad early. After all, he’ll study abroad eventually anyway. It’s good to adapt to the language environment early.”

“…So you’re having me look at schools for him?”

“Just take a quick look and give me a general idea. Next time I’ll go see them myself.” He finally added: “Chenyang just isn’t as excellent as you. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so much trouble.”

After Father Yu gave his instructions in a few words, he arbitrarily hung up the phone.

Yu Jiaze listened to the busy tone from the other end. He didn’t know if it was because the oxygen was thin at high altitude, but it was particularly hard to breathe. He took a deep breath, even his nose trembling slightly.

More and more people gathered on the street, filled with cheers. In contrast was Yu Jiaze standing alone on the balcony.

He stood divisively upstairs, incompatible with both the world downstairs and the world on the other end of the phone.

Father Yu subsequently sent over a long list of names, truly calculating precisely to fill his entire day.

Among them, the address of one school seemed somewhat familiar—it was near the far suburbs location Wu Man had sent earlier.

So he scheduled this school as the last one. By the time he finished, it was already dusk, and he conveniently detoured to Wu Man’s filming location.

Upon reaching the location, what met his eyes was an open tarmac piled with various filming equipment and numerous staff members. Among them, he saw Zhao Boyu but didn’t see Wu Man.

Zhao Boyu was also startled to see Yu Jiaze and hurried over to greet him: “President Yu, why didn’t you say you were suddenly coming?”

“What, do I need to report in advance?”

Zhao Boyu wiped his sweat: “That’s not what I meant…”

He searched through the crowd: “Where is she?”

“Uh…”

Zhao Boyu pointed with his hand. Yu Jiaze followed the direction of Zhao Boyu’s finger and looked up at the sky.

“…?”

“We’re shooting aerial footage right now. She went up with the helicopter. They’ve almost finished circling around and will be back soon. Please wait just a bit longer!”

Before long, a small black dot indeed gradually approached, revealing the shape of a helicopter. Wu Man sat inside. At the distance just before landing, she pressed against the window and, seeming to see him, waved in surprise.

A violent wind scattered from around the helicopter. It landed on the tarmac, and Wu Man came down, jogging to Yu Jiaze and widening her eyes.

“Are you here on business?”

“What if I said I came specifically to see you?”

Yu Jiaze reached out to smooth her hair that had been messed up by the wind, like grooming a bird’s feathers.

Wu Man was fooled by him. Seeming moved, after a long while she forced out: “Then the flight was too expensive. It’s not economical.”

What should he do—he wanted to laugh again.

Why could this little provincial bird be so silly?

The film crew was already getting ready to fly up for a second time. There were some more shots to make up, and they were preparing to call Wu Man over. Seeing that if they flew again Yu Jiaze would have to wait most of the day, Zhao Boyu thought this wouldn’t do!

His mind turned, and with great perception he consulted with the film crew, then came over to Yu Jiaze: “President Yu, are you interested in riding along? I just checked—the helicopter is big enough. One more person going up is no problem! The scenery up there is great.”

Yu Jiaze had originally planned to turn and leave. Riding a helicopter to admire scenery—this kind of pretentious elegance had never been his hobby. But catching Wu Man’s expectant expression as she looked at him, his footsteps unconsciously slowed.

He put his hands in his pockets and reluctantly agreed.

The group boarded the helicopter again. He and Wu Man sat together in the back row, while the cameraman sat across from them to conveniently film Wu Man.

Before the camera turned on, Wu Man took out a black cloth and tied it over her eyes.

Yu Jiaze was quite surprised. This was the first time he’d seen her in such a styling.

The helicopter took off. Wu Man’s expression changed dramatically with the cameraman’s “action,” and although she’d already covered her eyes so there seemed to be no visible change, the subtle upturn of her lips and slight modification of her facial contours were enough to make her entire aura completely different.

Yu Jiaze propped his face with his hand and shifted his gaze from outside the window to her with interest.

Without a doubt, the little bird before him was far more worth watching than the boring scenery outside.

The helicopter flew west, chasing the setting sun, as if about to crash into that half-fried egg.

The brilliant golden light grew increasingly dazzling as they approached. The entire aircraft was nearly swallowed by the light. Yu Jiaze found it quite unbearable and squinted, hiding in the triangular shadow created by the window frame and the light rays, only then feeling a bit more comfortable.

But Wu Man straightened up and faced the sun directly.

How could a person look directly at the sun? In this flash of lightning, he again discovered something incredible about Wu Man.

It was because she was blindfolded that she dared to face the sun directly. He marveled at her overestimation of herself and her newborn calf fearlessness—the ignorant are fearless. But the sun’s intense light wouldn’t give gentle exceptions because of this fearlessness. This was recklessness.

After removing the cloth, her eyes would definitely hurt.

Yu Jiaze thought with cold certainty.

Sure enough, after the sun had completely set and filming ended, when Wu Man removed the black cloth, she hissed, and her eyes involuntarily secreted physiological tears.

He didn’t take out the handkerchief from his pocket, letting her cry as he asked: “Why work so hard?”

She answered matter-of-factly: “This is my career.”

Career? Yu Jiaze was very dismissive of these two words coming from her mouth. This kind of work selling one’s appearance had nothing worthy of being called a career in his eyes. Wasn’t their function just to please people? How was that different from goods displayed on store counters?

You might as well please only me rather than pleasing so many people. This thought flashed through his mind as if it were perfectly natural.

But he also found her earnest expression when saying this sentence had a kind of self-satisfied cuteness. He flicked her forehead with his finger: “An ambitious little crow.”

She didn’t detect the indifference in his words and took it seriously, continuing: “Why be an actor without ambition? I’m not afraid of being laughed at—my dream is to win a Best Actress award or something.”

By the end, she was a bit embarrassed again, and her voice grew softer.

By now, the sun had completely disappeared. Between heaven and earth were layers upon layers of twilight blue. The helicopter turned around, preparing to return.

Below their aircraft was a vast wilderness. A group of young Americans had driven convertibles here to celebrate the holiday, their cars loaded with large barrels of fireworks, beer, and colored lights.

They set up stalls for barbecue, Bluetooth playing hip-hop. The crowd rhythmically brushed oil on the grilling meat to the beat. Before long, thick smoke rose everywhere, and a firework shot up among them, standing out from the crowd as it rushed into the sky.

“Crack—pop—”

Someone ignited the night curtain that had just descended. The night curtain, feeling the burn, rolled up half its body. A thousand trees, ten thousand trees burst into silver flowers.

The several people in the helicopter were startled by the huge commotion. The pilot was even distracted enough to look twice more, nearly causing an air traffic accident—the cause being a collision with fireworks.

It sounded like quite a romantic accident, completely impossible to blame anyone for.

Unfortunately, one person didn’t think so.

Yu Jiaze furrowed his brow, looking coldly at the distance with disdain for the nuisance.

To see more closely, Wu Man leaned over to his side, pressed against the window, and asked curiously: “Why would people suddenly set off fireworks here?”

“To celebrate Independence Day.”

“Independence Day… so it only happens today!” Wu Man leaned forward even more, her whole body nearly falling into his embrace. “We’re so close to the fireworks right now.”

“The closer you get, the more you’ll discover it’s a boring thing.”

He poured cold water without any romantic sensibility. Wu Man pursed her lips and picked up the black cloth beside her, making a gesture to cover Yu Jiaze’s eyes.

He leaned back slightly, staring at her with a threatening look: “What are you doing?”

“Since you don’t like it, and I can’t make the fireworks stop, I can only cover your eyes so you won’t see.”

She didn’t retreat. Her slightly cool fingertips covered his sunken eyelids. The fabric softly swept across, and the kaleidoscopic brilliant lights and shadows became a thin sheet of black. It didn’t cover completely—Wu Man’s graceful silhouette could still faintly be seen through it.

He somehow felt it was even more dazzling than the sunlight from before.

He didn’t stop her movements, letting the black cloth cover his eyes. Only after the commotion of the fireworks rising and falling disappeared did he speak methodically: “Hurry up and take it off me.”

Wu Man made a sound of acknowledgment. When she helped him remove it, the corners of her mouth held some strange smile.

“…?”

He immediately felt something was wrong. When she blindfolded him just now, something strange must have happened.

“Confess.”

He hated this feeling of being kept in the dark. His voice immediately dropped eight degrees.

Wu Man quickly raised both hands in surrender: “I really didn’t do anything. I just asked the cameraman to film a short video.”

She signaled for the cameraman to hand over the camera and showed him the video that had just been filmed.

On the screen, a man in a black suit wore a black cloth over his eyes, sitting by the window. There was no light in the cabin. The fireworks, so close yet so far, soared into the air, instantly illuminating the darkness. Red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue—the extremely impactful brightness like waves in the night sky swept toward the man in the darkness, submerging him.

But he was blindfolded, sitting in place completely unaware. The bursting sparks fell from the sky, blocked by him, not one able to come near him.

Yu Jiaze looked at himself in the video, his furrowed brow deepening even more.

“You actually took photos of me secretly?”

Wu Man defended herself guiltily: “It’s rare for you and fireworks to be in the same frame. Just a keepsake.”

Yu Jiaze tossed the camera back to the photographer, saying expressionlessly: “But the person involved doesn’t want to recall it at all. What’s the point of a keepsake?” He said without blinking: “Delete it.”

The cameraman looked at Yu Jiaze, then at Wu Man. Her tone concealed a faint sense of loss as she smiled and said: “Then delete it. I’m sorry, I did something unnecessary.”

In the dimly lit cabin, the atmosphere suddenly grew cold and stagnant.

Wu Man’s fingers stroked the darkened phone screen in her pocket. She didn’t tell Yu Jiaze that there was actually still a photo saved on her phone.

It was a front-facing selfie. She’d stupidly pressed her big face close to the screen lens and made a little peace sign. Behind her was Yu Jiaze, who appeared somewhat docile because he’d been covered with a layer of black cloth.

This was the photo she actually wanted to take. The cameraman was just a decoy.

In that moment, she’d just had an impulse to commemorate their chance encounter in a helicopter with a grand fireworks display in a foreign country. Such unexpected moments were rare in life. This day only came once a year, and they just happened to run into it—she felt it was very meaningful.

There must be such a person, right? Even very boring or even annoying things become lively because of their participation.

The bad part was that for Yu Jiaze, she… didn’t seem to be such an existence.

She’d brought this embarrassment upon herself.

For the second half of the helicopter ride, Wu Man never spoke again. And that photo, as if it had never been taken, was inconspicuously moved into the photo album’s trash bin.

She had always thought Yu Jiaze didn’t know about the existence of this photo.

But she forgot one thing—at the time, she had enabled the automatic cloud backup function for photos. Therefore, before the photo was deleted, it had already been backed up to the cloud.

And before she cleaned up the photo from the cloud, he inadvertently saw it.

In the photo was a somewhat silly-looking little bird and the fireworks frozen in this moment as negatives, therefore eternal.

The memory he’d thought he would never recall again, like those fireworks, exploded thunderously in his mind. Even the smell of gunpowder after they scattered was so clear.

He thought, if the little bird came pitifully to beg him to accompany her to watch again, it wouldn’t be impossible. He would reluctantly consider it.

Except from that day on, she never mentioned it again. So he forgot about it too.

Until many years later, they finally saw Independence Day fireworks together again.

Except those were fireworks dyed in blood, celebrating independence.