[He had the eyes she was most familiar with.]

A foreign country, unfamiliar streets, an unknown night—moments like these always make one acutely aware of their solitude.

Humans are social creatures. Behind each person lies a complete social network, intertwined with countless relationships. Additionally, they occupy certain material resources. Altogether, it seems like an overwhelming amount, almost too complex to fully account for.

But is it really that complicated? A person is just a person. Take Zhou Leqi, walking through the streets of Rome at this moment. She only carried herself and a small handbag containing her phone, wallet, and passport—everything she owned at that time. With just these items, she could theoretically go anywhere in the world.

Clean and unburdened.

Yet freedom sometimes doesn’t merely mean being unattached; its hidden cost is the deprivation of belonging. In this state of extreme freedom, Zhou Leqi felt disoriented—she didn’t know where to go or what to do at this moment.

She walked alone on a beautiful spring night. At ten o’clock, the Eternal City was breathtakingly beautiful. The dim yellow streetlights were unnecessary near the Spanish Steps but lent an especially romantic atmosphere to the unnamed side streets, easily evoking serene associations.

The uneven stones beneath her feet might have come from some glittering era of civilization. The low-rise buildings lining the roads seemed imbued with aesthetic charm. The classic movie scenes filmed here made those walking through them feel a bit dazed, quietly comparing their own circumstances to those of the protagonists.

In truth, she lacked nothing.

But… at this moment, she missed him so much.

Where could he be now? In some city in China? Or perhaps, like her, somewhere abroad? Was it day or night there? This was an important question because she wanted to know if they were sharing the same moonlight at this very moment.

She began to hesitate, unsure whether she should revisit the Chinatown area or take a chance at the Chinese supermarket, hoping to encounter that figure resembling him again. She didn’t expect it to truly be him, but tonight, she missed him so deeply that even the slightest resemblance would soothe her sorrowful heart.

She had already planned it out: if by some stroke of luck she encountered that man, she wouldn’t disturb him. She’d just catch a glimpse of his back. If she didn’t meet him, she’d imagine that the figure she saw a month ago was indeed him. That way, she could pretend they were in the same space, and the small Chinese supermarket would become a tiny connection between them—a comforting thought.

Lost in these musings, she suddenly heard the sound of a bicycle bell. She paid no attention to it, but then a shadow quickly passed by her. An unexpectedly powerful force knocked her down, causing her to fall to the ground. Her shoulder and arm throbbed painfully—her bag had been brutally yanked off her body.

This sudden incident left Zhou Leqi’s mind blank for several seconds. She sat on the ground, stunned, not even noticing her sprained ankle. The sharp pain failed to bring her back to reality.

It wasn’t until more and more people on the street noticed her distress, gathered around her, and cautiously asked questions in a language she didn’t understand that she finally came to her senses, realizing she had been robbed.

Her phone, her wallet, her passport—all were in that bag.

But none of that mattered.

She could buy another phone. Losing her wallet wasn’t a big deal—it contained only two or three hundred euros and some loose change. As long as she reported her bank cards lost, they’d be fine. Her passport might be slightly more troublesome; she’d need to seek help from the embassy, and replacing it might take some time…

None of that was critical.

What mattered was… her pen.

Her pen was still in the bag.

…It was the last remnant of memory he had left her.

She couldn’t lose it.

Suddenly, Zhou Leqi snapped out of her daze!

Her rationality returned in an instant, but the thief on the bicycle had already disappeared around the corner. Now, a crowd surrounded her, everyone pressing close, concerned about whether she was injured.

But she didn’t care about her injuries. Her mind was consumed by one thing: getting up and chasing after him to retrieve her pen. She could abandon her phone, money, passport—all of it—but that pen… she needed to get it back.

…She desperately needed it.

And so, she began to move, struggling to stand up. In reality, her foot wasn’t just sprained—it was dislocated. Soon, a large bruise appeared under the skin of her ankle, the bone already misaligned.

She was truly unlucky, falling in such an unfortunate way.

How painful it must have been. Even among the onlookers, someone couldn’t help but gasp audibly. But she felt nothing, dragging her injured left leg as she wobbled to her feet and tried to chase after the person who had taken her pen.

…And immediately fell again.

This time, it was an even harder fall, nearly breaking her bones. Excruciating pain shot up her left ankle into her brain, her pain receptors suddenly triggered. Cold sweat dripped from her forehead.

The crowd gasped louder, drawing closer. Pairs of unfamiliar hands reached out to her. Rationally, she knew they were trying to help this poor foreigner, but instinctively, she felt as if these hands sought to strip her of everything she possessed.

She could no longer see the robber and knew she had no hope of catching him. By now, he might be rifling through her bag in some shadowy alley, taking her phone and cash. He might rejoice at his haul today, then casually toss her treasured pen into a trash bin or bush before striding away nonchalantly.

Of course, she could report it to the police. Italian authorities might help her recover her phone, money, and passport. But they couldn’t help her find an ordinary black ballpoint pen in this vast city. It would forever disappear into some inconspicuous corner, never to return to her.

…Why did it have to be this way?

She had already lost him. So why… wouldn’t even the smallest memento be left for her?

Sometimes, a person’s collapse happens in an instant.

Months of insomnia hadn’t broken her. Irreconcilable conflicts with Zeng Ruihong hadn’t broken her. Confusion and pessimism about her future hadn’t broken her. Being robbed on the street and fracturing her ankle hadn’t broken her either.

...But losing that pen broke her.

She began to wail uncontrollably.

The gentle spring night suddenly turned cruel, and the dazzling Eternal City now seemed repulsive. The despair and helplessness she had endured years ago returned, once again enveloping her mind and body in an inescapable shroud. The cries of the crowd no longer registered clearly in her ears; the foreign language only deepened her sense of helplessness. For a moment, she didn’t know why she was here or why she was still crying.

Hadn’t you already known?

“Lucky” was nothing more than a cold curse branded into her name.

In truth, you’ve never been a fortunate person.

You’ll keep falling, keep losing, and then keep compromising.

What good is breaking down? What good is crying? Who will show you extra kindness just because they pity you? Who will stop taking from you just because of your tears?

Perhaps there was someone who appeared once...

But he’s long gone now.

Even the last memento he left you has disappeared.

“Mi scusi, mi scusi...”

“Sono un dottore...”

In the noisy yet silent spring night, a faint voice suddenly entered her ears.

That voice was small, speaking in a foreign language she didn’t understand, blending into countless other meaningless sounds—like a drop of water in a river, like a tree in a forest, with no distinguishing features to be clearly recognized.

Yet she heard it.

...Because it sounded so much like his.

Its tone was flat, slightly indifferent, dipping slightly at the end of sentences, without much intonation, but instead sounding very clean.

She knew full well it couldn’t possibly be him. Over these seven years, she had experienced too many similar disappointments. How many times had she heard a voice like his on the streets of Beijing or seen a face resembling his? But in the end, she never found him. Beijing had 21 million people, while Rome had only 3 million. How could she dare hope to find the one person she sought in such slim odds?

She understood. The owner of the voice was most likely an Italian man with a hooked nose, his face entirely different from those of Asians. Yet, despite this, she still chose to lift her head and search for him, seeking indescribable comfort in the faint resemblance.

She found him.

It wasn’t as difficult as she had imagined.

A figure pushed through the crowd, approaching her from a world that felt both real and surreal.

Behind him lay the tender spring night of the Eternal City, bathed in the dim yellow glow of streetlights, built from Renaissance-era bricks and tiles, imbued with the unique dryness and humidity of the Mediterranean climate—a romantic and disorienting scene that felt unfamiliar.

But she wasn’t unfamiliar with him.

He had the eyes she was most familiar with—deep and handsome. They had once gazed at her on the old bus heading to the development zone of City A, accompanied her in the seat by the window in the third row of Class One, Senior Three at No. 1 High School, and chased her under the bright summer sun in Sanya. He had once brought her immense peace and unprecedented turbulence, akin to boundless joy and bottomless sorrow.

He was her long-lost lover, someone she had narrowly missed in the vast expanse of time and space. In reality, he had only left her with a farewell devoid of punctuation marks, occasionally visiting her in dreams ever since.

The kindest and cruelest.

And now, they unexpectedly met on a foreign street, neither having had time to prepare or arrange what would happen next. Her expression grew hazy, and as he looked at her tear-filled eyes, he momentarily lost his ability to speak.

No one could tell whether that moment was real or merely a recurring midnight dream illusion they had each experienced countless times over the years.

It was an answer so profoundly simple.

And yet, a riddle so deeply enigmatic.