The plum rains have begun again in the south.
Lin Jian is crouching in the kindergarten hallway, smoothing the creases from a sheet of drawing paper, when she looks up and meets the eyes she has dreamed of for seven years. Zhou Yan stands outside the glass doors under a black umbrella, raindrops clinging to his suit pants as he looks down at the children's drawings she has put up on the wall.
“Teacher Lin, this is Attorney Zhou, our new legal consultant.” The principal’s voice is like a fine needle, piercing the cicadas’ clamor filling the room.
The torrential rain from seven years ago rushes back into her memory. At thirteen, clutching a love letter, she hid at the mouth of an alley and watched Zhou Yan climb into a taxi with his relatives. The rain soaked the words “I like you” until the paper softened, and at last she crumpled it into a ball of mush.
Later, she heard that his father had gone bankrupt, his mother had fallen gravely ill, and he had moved south. Then she waited seven years, only to see the wedding ring on his left ring finger today. News that he was getting engaged next week to the daughter of a pharmaceutical conglomerate had already spread like wildfire through the parents’ group chat.
“Teacher Lin?” Zhou Yan’s voice is deeper than she remembers. His fingers unconsciously rub at his suit cuff, where a blue stain refuses to wash out, the exact shade of crayon used in the kindergarteners’ drawings.
Water drips from the pothos in the hallway. Lin Jian feels the letter in her pocket, where it has lain for seven years.
This time, should she slip it into his inner suit pocket, or let it rot in the dampness of the plum-rain season once again?
