Chapter 21

“This is mine.” Xiao Lajiao grabbed the golden time capsule and eagerly pressed the button to open it.

The time capsule popped open, revealing two star-shaped scent bead boxes, a rubber band, a doll, a crayon drawing, a kaleidoscope, and a pencil case. She laughed loudly, “What?! Is this really the most precious thing I thought back then? But... it’s pretty nostalgic. Look at this.” She opened the two scent bead boxes and smelled them, “There’s no scent left. But look at this pink one, it’s only half full. The other half is in this pencil case.” She pulled out the rest of the beads from the pencil case, snapped her fingers, “My memory is really good.”

The second person to open a time capsule was Su Jianian. His pearl-white time capsule contained only a few items: some cartoon character stamps, a few photos, a plastic toy machine, a letter, and a Kongming lock. The toy machine was filled with water, and pressing a button below would push colorful plastic rings up using water pressure to stack them on small sticks. Luo Wei remembered that Xiao Lajiao had given this to him. He was particularly good at playing with it, always managing to stack all the rings in a very short time. He took out the photos one by one to show everyone: In the first photo, Xiao Lajiao was pulling the hair of a rich boy in their class, and the boy was crying, lying on the desk. In the second photo, the four of them sat side by side on the grass. Su Jianian smiled like a well-behaved student, He Yingze was holding a soccer ball, looking cool and not smiling at all, while Luo Wei and Xiao Lajiao were laughing so much that their eyes were squinted, one of them missing a front tooth, with the other one symmetrically matching. In the third photo, Luo Wei was standing between Su Jianian and He Yingze, but her body was clearly leaning toward Su Jianian, her expression awkward...

“There’s also a letter here.” Xiao Lajiao said as she bit into a piece of bread and picked up the yellowed letter, “It says ‘Let my little sister read it out loud’... Brother, should I read it?”

Su Jianian smiled helplessly, “I don’t even remember what I wrote. Since it’s written this way, you can read it.”

Xiao Lajiao took the bread, tore open the letter, and said, “Wow, your handwriting was so beautiful when you were little. Ahem, here I go: ‘To the future me.’“

“Mm.” Su Jianian rested his chin, listening seriously.

“When I grow up, I want to get into the best music academy and become an excellent pianist.”

Luo Wei and Xiao Lajiao clapped, and He Yingze also looked at him with admiration. Xiao Lajiao cleared her throat and continued reading, “‘There’s a girl I like, and she’s about to transfer schools, but I don’t have the courage to confess. When we grow up and open this letter, if she still doesn’t know how I feel, then I want my little sister to say it for me.’“ Hearing this, Luo Wei’s heart started racing. Su Jianian also seemed a little nervous. Xiao Lajiao paused for a moment, then slowly read, “‘I like you, Luo Wei. When I become a pianist, I want to marry you and make you my wife. Every day we live together, I will play your favorite songs for you...’“

Luo Wei wished she could dig a hole and bury herself in the other hemisphere. Su Jiannian held his forehead, his cheeks slightly flushed. “I was too young back then. I didn’t know any better.”

But Xiao Lajiao wasn’t planning to let them off that easily. She nudged Luo Wei a few times. “Big sister, just give in to him!”

Luo Wei wiped off the bread crumbs that Xiao Lajiao had sprayed on her face and gave her a side-eye. “I’m telling you, Lajiao, with all that energy you have, should I send you to run a couple of laps around the park or deliver some packages?” She grabbed her pink time capsule, unaware of the cold glance from He Yingze. But that was only a brief moment—when she looked up again, his expressionless gaze was already directed elsewhere.

When she opened the time capsule, sunlight poured in, and the intense reflection from the contents nearly blinded her. She shielded her eyes and looked down. Inside, there were: a whistle candy box with sequins, a dozen marbles, several stacks of shiny “Three Kingdoms” character throwing cards collected from eating crispy noodles, four rhinestone hair clips, a rhinestone-covered headband, and a golden rubber hand—one of those prank toys you throw to hit someone in the face. The only non-reflective item seemed to be a 100-point test paper and a “North-South-East-West” folded paper. The folded paper contained words like “Thief,” “Fool,” “Good person,” and “Murderer.” It had been so long that she had forgotten how to fold it. However, she remembered the reason for keeping it: back then, she had written the character “笨” (fool) with a grass radical, and Xiaoying had seen it and said, “You’re so dumb you can’t even write the word for dumb. Let me do it for you.” He crossed out her character and wrote a new one beside it. Looking at this folded paper now, she remembered very clearly how much she liked him at that time, even treating the character he wrote as a treasure.

Xiao Lajiao picked up her throwing card as if it were the medicine for a terminally ill patient. “Oh my, Weiwei, you’re crazy! How obsessed are you with shiny things? And this throwing card, there must be a hundred and eight of them, right? It looks like you’ve collected all of them?”

“Almost,” Luo Wei replied.

Actually, there were only a hundred and seven, missing the one from Guo Jia. If they knew she hadn’t even completed the collection after eating crispy noodles until her mouth was dry, Xiao Lajiao would probably laugh herself silly.

“By the way, who’s your favorite character in the Three Kingdoms?” Xiao Lajiao raised her hand like a primary school student. “I’ll go first—my favorite is Zhao Yun.”

Luo Wei smiled mysteriously. “Oh, I’ve asked this question before. Generally, younger boys like Zhao Yun, and older ones like Cao Cao. Looks like Lajiao’s a big boy.”

“Go away, I don’t want to talk to you.” Xiao Lajiao rolled her eyes and threw her arm around Su Jiannian’s shoulder. “Big brother, who do you like?”

Su Jiannian thought for a moment before answering, “Zhuge Liang and Liu Bei.”

“What? I like Zhou Yu! We siblings can never agree.”

“But didn’t you just say you liked Zhao Yun?”

“As long as they’re good-looking, I like them. Especially the handsome Zhou Yu, who’s also proficient in music. But why do you like Zhuge Liang? Do you know Zhou Yu wasn’t actually killed by anger? In fact, the idiom ‘elegance and great ambition’ comes from him. Did you know that Zhou Yu won the Battle of Red Cliffs? Luo Guanzhong made Zhuge Liang seem so great and blackened Zhou Yu.”

“Wow, it’s rare for my simple-minded, athletic sister to research things online. Of course, I know that.”

Xiao Lajiao wasn’t convinced. “Well, you’re smart, you do well in school, so why do you like Zhuge Liang?”

“Historically, Zhuge Liang wasn’t as legendary as in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but his loyalty and tragic heroism are still very apparent. Du Fu admired him a lot and wrote many poems about him.”

“Big brother, you have the same elegant charm as the handsome guys from Wu. You should like Wu more, right? Why the sigh? Never mind, I won’t ask you. Weiwei, who do you like?”

“I like strategists—Guo Jia, Zhou Yu, Chen Gong, Sima Yi, Jia Xu, and so on. But my favorite is Guo Jia.” Luo Wei glanced at Su Jiannian and added, “I also like Zhuge Liang, but he’s too powerful in the novel—he can control fire and change the wind, so I can only like him as a novel character. Guo Jia’s strategies and insights are more practical, so I prefer him.” There was another reason, the crispy noodle cards, but she couldn’t say that out loud.

“You missed the point—Guo Jia’s real advantage is his good looks.” Xiao Lajiao wagged her finger. “What about Xiaoying? Wait, I want to hear what he thinks of Liu Bei.”

“Liu Bei, a kingdom built on crying.”

Upon hearing this answer, Luo Wei couldn’t help but suppress a laugh and glance at Su Jiannian. Though they were just chatting, He Yingze was still sharp enough to openly slap someone in the face like that. Fortunately, Su Jiannian only blinked slightly faster and didn’t react much. If this had happened when he was younger, he’d have turned red with embarrassment. Xiao Lajiao, still oblivious, laughed uncontrollably. “This answer is so cool! I knew guys like you wouldn’t like Liu Bei! Honestly, don’t you like Cao Cao?”

“Cao Cao is the warlord of a chaotic world.”

He didn’t finish the phrase “a capable minister in peaceful times.” If someone else had said it, it might have sounded ambiguous, but Luo Wei guessed that for He Yingze, it was meant as a compliment. She looked at him with shining eyes. “Then what do you think of Guo Jia?”

“Guo Jia was a brilliant strategist. His ‘ten victories and ten defeats’ theory is worth a whole book of The Art of War. It’s a shame he died young.”

Upon hearing this answer, Luo Wei was overjoyed. It wasn’t just because they shared a similar interest in historical figures, but because she admired people who used wisdom and reason to better themselves. Compared to the idealistic and emotional loyal heroes of Shu, the rulers and strategists of Wei were more pragmatic and rational, and perhaps that aligned more closely with her worldview.

After chatting about the Three Kingdoms for a while, Xiao Lajiao brought the topic back to the time capsules. “I bet if these throwing cards weren’t shiny, Weiwei wouldn’t have had the patience to collect them all. By the way, I think from a certain day onwards, Weiwei always made Xiaoying act as a rhinestone merchant. But Xiaoying went all out and became a diamond merchant directly.”

“Diamonds were easy to deal with back then,” He Yingze said dismissively.

Of course, she knew that He Yingze didn’t do diamonds for himself, but his immediate denial still made her feel a bit sad. After all, she had been secretly pleased to find something in common with him... She put down the “East, South, West, North” folded paper and picked up the 100-point test paper, sighing, “This was the only perfect score I ever got in my life, no wonder I had to keep it. Unlike Jia Nian, he didn’t keep a single one—if he had kept his perfect score papers, they would have filled up all our time capsules.”

“You overestimate me,” Su Jia Nian said with a faint smile.

Xiao Lajiao slapped her hands together: “Next is Xiao Ying. He’s been so cool since he was young, I’m really curious what he put in there. It wouldn’t be a badge from some president, would it?”

When the blue time capsule was opened, the three of them leaned over at the same time to take a look. Xiao Lajiao was puzzled: “There’s so little stuff... Xiao Ying, do you like the dart cards too? Or do you just like Guo Jia, like Vivi?”

It was then that Luo Wei noticed there was only one dart card inside—the Guo Jia card she had been missing. She paused for a moment, then looked at the time capsule: there was also a realistic imitation weapon, a remote-controlled car, a conch shell, and a plant specimen sealed in transparent cellophane. The first two were He Yingze’s favorite toys when he was young. The small conch shell was something she had picked up for him on the beach during a fireworks night before they went to school. At the time, he had said it was boring and that he’d throw it away once they got back, but unexpectedly, he had kept it until she left... Then there was the glass-paper specimen, which contained a dried rose. She remembered once, during lunch break before a physical education class, when the roses in the school garden were in bloom. She secretly picked the most beautiful one, tucked it behind his ear, and said Xiao Ying and roses were so beautifully suited. He immediately took the flower off but didn’t throw it away. Now, seeing this dried specimen, she was lost in thought for a long time. But He Yingze remained silent and simply closed the time capsule again.

Xiao Lajiao showed her dissatisfaction with the result. As the final grand reveal, the contents of Xiao Ying’s time capsule were just these, which left them very disappointed, and they demanded He Yingze explain the origins of the items. He Yingze thought for a moment and said, “I don’t remember.”

Luo Wei also fell silent, lost in thought for a long time. She didn’t understand why she cared so much. No matter what he had said or done before, it was all just childhood memories. Whose thoughts or interests stay the same as when they were in elementary school? Besides, he couldn’t even remember them. What mattered now was recognizing the distance between her and He Yingze.

They stayed in the White Bird Park until the evening. Before leaving, Su Jia Nian said he would take Luo Wei home, and Xiao Lajiao kept calling her “big sister” nonstop. Luo Wei repeatedly declined and finally slipped out of the park by herself. The sun was like a golden basin, and the sunset was a sky full of embroidered hues, casting the winding road in golden red. Walking out the back gate of the park, she bought a can of beer and arrived at an amusement park she had often visited when she was younger. At this time, all the children had already gone home to rest, and the seesaw was the only thing still swaying. It had been fifteen years, and the amusement equipment hadn’t been replaced, just repainted. She saw a slide and walked over to it, lightly touching it. When she was little, she had always thought the slide was very high, even a little scary. Every time she slid down, she would scream with her eyes closed. But now, looking at it, she thought it was really a child’s toy; she could step down in two steps. She stood at the bottom of the steps, gazing at the small cage at the top of the slide, and suddenly had an illusion: in front of her, the little children nimbly crawled through the hole, waving their hands at her, calling “Luo Wei, it’s your turn.”

She leaned against the steps and drank some beer, feeling very drowsy. The sun in front of her had turned into a ripe, mature red fruit, waiting for the night to pick it. The scene and memories overlapped. When she was little, seeing the sunset always made her drowsy, and she had fallen asleep here many times. The person who always woke her up by tapping her shoulder was Xiao Ying. He liked to call her like this: “Luo Wei. Wake up.” His tone was always a little stern, but his voice was delicate like a girl’s, and his face was as white and cute as a doll.

She really missed the little Xiao Ying from back then.

After finishing the beer, she didn’t feel drunk, but she began to feel sleepy. Unconsciously, she drifted into a half-sleepy, half-awake state. Her head resting on the railing made it sore, but in her dream, the world was filled with colorful lights...

Later, a pair of arms picked her up, waking her from her dream. These arms could easily lift her, and although they should have been strong, they were very careful, as if afraid of waking her up. She was just dreaming about her childhood, and for a brief moment, she truly felt as if Xiao Ying had carried her home when they were little. But when she groggily opened her eyes, she saw that it was already completely dark, and she was leaning on a man’s back, with her arms around his neck. He carried her, enveloped in his faint, pleasant scent. It wasn’t difficult for him, but he walked slowly. When she fully woke up and noticed who was carrying her, her heart stopped for a second before it started beating wildly.

She couldn’t understand whether her special feelings for him were just a child’s ignorance or a vague affection. She also didn’t understand why she was so determined to find him—was it nostalgia for her childhood, or for the Xiao Ying who made her childhood colorful? Even now, she wasn’t willing to admit that her feelings for him were love.

But she couldn’t deceive herself. When she first saw him fifteen years later, when she first saw his profile, and when their eyes first met, she knew it had begun.

This was the person who would control her emotions, the one who would make it impossible for her to like anyone else.

Deep down, she knew that even though he stood right in front of her, he was already so far away from her. He had clearly explained the impossibility between them. So, there would never be another chance to be this close to him again. She didn’t dare to breathe loudly, only maintaining the previous posture, resting her head against his neck.

Author’s note:

Luo Wei: “...”

Xiao Lajiao: “...”

Su Jia Nian: “...”

He Yingze: “…”

Luo Wei: “Why is everyone silent…?”

Su Jiannian: “Why are you silent?”

Luo Wei: “I’m silent because I truly admire Shanshan’s persistence in correcting Dudu’s actions… In this chapter, Dudu appears again.”

Su Jiannian: “I think everyone is the same as you…”

Little Pepper: “I’m silent because you’re all silent, so I’m silent too.”

Su Jiannian: “I’m just curious—how is it that the intelligence gap between siblings is so wide?”

Luo Wei: “Why is Xiaoying silent?”

Little Pepper: “When no one else is silent, isn’t he silent too…”