It was hard to describe Jin Zhao’s feelings the moment she heard Meng Yanxi’s voice—too complicated.

Like walking alone on a rainy night, lifting her head to see a warm-colored streetlamp, silently illuminating the rain, and illuminating her as well. She could not deny the healing of that instant.

But the streetlamp was too high; she could not reach it. And the rain was so heavy that she was destined not to stay beneath the light for long.

She did not speak.

Her silence made the boy on the other end inexplicably anxious. He showed a rare recklessness, asking impatiently, “I heard you’re going abroad. Where are you going?”

That question instantly pulled Jin Zhao back from her daze, embarrassment quickly spreading through her entire body.

Meng Yanxi perhaps realized he had been abrupt—even though he himself did not know why—and hurriedly explained, “What I mean is, I also go abroad a lot. I travel during winter and summer vacations. Leave me an address, and I’ll come find you.”

After seeing through Jin Wenhui’s true nature, Jin Zhao had not cried again. Yet at this moment, a single sentence from Meng Yanxi—“I’ll come find you”—made a tear fall instantly.

Outside the door, the man collecting scrap finally arrived and spoke with Jin Wenyi. Jin Zhao quickly wiped her face.

Her overly long silence made Meng Yanxi immediately realize that something was wrong.

Meng Shixu always said that although his son was a bastard, he was truly smart—one could say a father knows his son best.

The boy tightened his fingers around the phone. “What happened? Tell me. I will help you, no matter what.”

“Bang!”

The scrap collector tied Jin Zhao’s old exercise books and homework notebooks with rope, pile after pile, and threw them onto the scale outside the door. The heavy books slammed onto the scale’s surface, the dull thud mixed with the hoarse creak of metal.

Jin Zhao blinked rapidly twice, forcing the heat back. “What if I killed someone?”

There was a moment of silence on the phone.

August’s sun was at its most blazing, shining without reservation on the rooftop, not a single patch of shade in sight. The seventeen-year-old boy was just as unreserved: “Then it was self-defense. Someone harmed you, I would help you even more.”

The heat at the corners of her eyes could no longer be held back. Tears rolled silently down her cheeks.

Jin Zhao had not expected that when her father, her family, had all abandoned her—when she was at her most isolated and helpless—there would be someone willing to stand on her side of his own accord. He did not ask the reason, did not ask about right or wrong, did not ask about justice or injustice. Arbitrary and domineering, he told her that it was others who had harmed her.

He asked her, “Who was it?”

She wiped away her tears, her voice calm and resolute. “No one. I was just joking with you. I will never do bad things in my life.”

She paused for a moment. “But, Meng Yanxi…”

Meng Yanxi: “What?”

Jin Zhao: “Thank you.”

Thank you, for standing on my side.

Even if we are not even in the same world, as long as I have this sentence from you, no matter how many storms and hardships I encounter from now on, I will never feel isolated and helpless again.

Meng Yanxi: “But I wasn’t joking with you. I can help—”

“Goodbye, Meng Yanxi.” Jin Zhao interrupted him softly but firmly.

It was already enough.

She did not need his salvation, nor could he save her. Birds and fish walk different paths; each has their own cultivation and road ahead. A passerby in a rainy night might be healed by lamplight, but the light cannot walk the road that follows in one’s place. And lingering beneath the light for too long would only leave one more drenched by the rain, more wretched, and even less capable of facing wind, rain, thunder, and lightning.

“Where are you going? Give me a way to contact you.” Hearing her farewell, the boy asked urgently.

“No need,” Jin Zhao smiled lightly. For the first time, she told a vain lie for herself. “I’m going abroad. Once I leave, we probably won’t meet again.”

“Meng Yanxi, I wish you a lifetime of joy, and that all your wishes come true.”

With all my sincerity and goodwill.

“Stay where you are, don’t move! I’m coming right now!” On the phone, Meng Yanxi’s voice suddenly rose.

The scrap collector worked briskly and finished quickly. Outside came the sound of the man taking the initiative to chat idly with Jin Wenyi: “I remember the owner of this place isn’t you?”

Jin Wenyi smiled faintly and said, “The owner has already moved away.”

“Then are you moving in?”

“No, we’re moving out too.”

With one ear, Jin Zhao listened to Jin Wenyi chatting idly with the man; with the other, she listened to the boy on the phone push open the rooftop fire door and run down the stairs in long strides.

Back in school, she had liked listening to the sound of boys running downstairs—leaping down several steps at a time, flamboyant and unrestrained, the vigor of youth that nothing could hold back.

Not even the dean of discipline.

“Meng Yanxi, where are you running off to during class?”

“Meng Yanxi, I’m talking to you!”

“Come back! You little brat!”

So it was class time now; he should have been listening in Class A.

Jin Zhao looked at the empty house—no one there, dust hanging faintly in the air.

Her fingers tightened around the receiver, her nails paling. Jin Zhao spoke with difficulty: “Meng Yanxi, that dress—I’ll mail it back to you.”

The boy’s hurried footsteps stopped abruptly.

“What did you say?”

Jin Zhao quietly looked out the window at the blazing sun. “I’m rushing to catch a flight, so I can’t return it to you in person. I’ll send it by courier. Sorry.”

The air fell silent; through the receiver came the boy’s slightly uneven breathing after running fast.

When he spoke again, his voice suddenly turned sharp: “Are you planning to never see me again?”

That was nine years ago—the last time Meng Yanxi and Jin Zhao spoke. The beginning had actually been good; unfortunately, the ending could not be called pleasant. It was more like a microcosm of their brief intersection—like a lamp in the rainy night, a seed in the marsh. The stirring was real, the anticipation was real, but too fragile, unlikely to bear fruit.

In the end, the call ended with Meng Yanxi saying, “If it’s you, then mail it.”

Later, after Jin Wenyi returned from selling the scrap, she helped Jin Zhao pack her clothes. Seeing the silk dress adorned with feathers, she asked, “Are you taking this with you?”

Jin Zhao was quiet for a long while, then gently shook her head.

Where could she take it? To the dormitory at No. 1 High School? The dormitory was so small, each person having only a tiny locker. Clothes could barely be spread out—how could it possibly hold such a precious dress? If classmates saw it, would they, like Jin Wenhui, also form improper associations?

A feathered dress could not be worn in the rain. What she needed to do now was to leave this rain as quickly as possible.

Jin Zhao called for a courier and handed the carefully packed box to the deliveryman.

She declared its value, though it seemed like an unnecessary precaution.

“The cost of studying abroad for high school and undergraduate programs is relatively high. I went abroad during my master’s—by the time you reach a PhD, you’re basically a working stiff, and you hardly need to spend your own money.”

Perhaps this was the meaning of growth. Things that had once been too shameful to speak of, unbearably mortifying in her youth, could now be spoken of plainly, without ripples, even joked about.

“And I also need to thank Luo Heng and Cao Bo for recommending No. 1 High School in the neighboring city.”

Outside, the wind had stopped, leaving a gentle breeze and fine rain. Jin Zhao sat beneath the lamp, propping her head with one hand.

Si Tian sat across from her, asking in astonishment, “No. 1 High School in the neighboring city? Luo Heng and Cao Bo even knew you transferred schools? That’s too much! You told them but didn’t tell me or Meng Yanxi!”

Jin Zhao hurriedly said, “No, no, you misunderstood.”

Jin Zhao explained what had happened back then before the final exams, when those two had gone crazy spreading anxiety right behind her seat, saying that if they dropped out of Class A, they would transfer schools—transfer overnight, even having the school picked out already: No. 1 High School in the neighboring city. In the end, neither of them transferred, and the ready-made school ended up benefiting her instead.

Si Tian said, “That’s more like it.”

After those words, the air abruptly fell into silence. Neither of them spoke for a moment. A few seconds later, Si Tian cautiously asked, “You didn’t go abroad—so why didn’t you tell Meng Yanxi? No. 1 High School in the neighboring city isn’t that far. It’s three or four hours by car, even faster by high-speed rail—just over an hour. If you’d told him, then during those years, Meng Yanxi wouldn’t have had to keep running abroad all the time.”

The words “abroad” made Jin Zhao’s eyelashes tremble rapidly.

She looked at Si Tian, wanting to ask something, but not knowing where to begin.

And Si Tian had already understood her gaze, letting out a soft sigh. “We all thought you went abroad. Meng Yanxi might have known a bit more than the rest of us, but he also thought you went abroad. During senior year and then throughout university, whenever he had a break, he’d go abroad. At first it was Europe and America, then Japan and Korea, and later Southeast Asia.”

The osmanthus planted in the mountains bloomed late. Tonight’s fine, nourishing wind and rain carried in the sweet scent of osmanthus from somewhere unknown.

Light and faint, like an illusion. Jin Zhao focused on breathing it in, holding her breath, her heartbeat seeming to miss a beat.

Jin Zhao said softly, “Maybe he just went out to travel.”

“That’s true—he might also have gone to make money,” Si Tian said. “Do you know how Lawyer Luo describes Meng Yanxi?”

“What?”

“Lawyer Luo says Meng Yanxi was born with the fate of a God of Wealth. In this world, anything that has to do with money—there’s no game he can’t win.”

Jin Zhao: “……”

All right, stop talking—it’s easy to breed resentment toward the rich.

Si Tian suddenly changed the subject. “Have you ever thought that Meng Yanxi might like you?”

The air seemed to pause for an instant. The next second, Jin Zhao abruptly lifted her gaze.

“Why would you think that?”

“Isn’t it natural to think so?” Si Tian countered. “For example, today—so many people were teasing the two of you, over and over again, and he didn’t deny it even once.”

Jin Zhao: “Maybe he’s just lazy.”

After all, Meng Yanxi seemed never to care about reputation.

Si Tian nodded in agreement, then said, “Then let’s talk about when he’s not lazy. You remember how attentive he was when explaining problems to you back in school, right? When others asked him, he’d only give the answer, but with you he would take the initiative to mark the key points. And then there’s that going abroad of his—he’s such a lazy person, yet during those years he traveled abroad so frequently. Granted, he might have been traveling for fun, or to make money—but why couldn’t it also be that he wanted to reunite with you?”

Jin Zhao didn’t speak for a long while. The warm-colored floor lamp beside the sofa lit her pupils until they looked gentle like water, softly rippling like water as well.

But perhaps people are born loving to make things difficult for themselves—just like at this moment. Clearly stirred, full of anticipation, yet reason always has to jump out and douse oneself with cold water.

“You also said that was during our student days. It’s been nine years already. Do you know how long nine years is? If I had a child, nine years of compulsory education would already be completed.”

This seemingly reasonable analogy tangled Si Tian up, and she looked at Jin Zhao blankly.

At the same time, a flat, faintly mocking voice came from outside the door: “So Teacher Jin’s child is born without needing to babble, without needing to crawl or toddle, going straight to elementary and middle school—this isn’t just a genius, this is Nezha.”

Jin Zhao’s heart jolted. She turned her head.

At the doorway, Meng Yanxi stood holding a tray in one hand. On the sweet white porcelain plate were freshly made osmanthus cakes, steamed from snow-white glutinous rice, sprinkled with freshly picked golden osmanthus. The sweetness of osmanthus and glutinous rice mingled within the rising white steam.

Meng Yanxi’s jet-black eyes were veiled behind the mist, sparse and cool. “Sorry—the door wasn’t closed.”