In the green brick alley of the old city, the wooden door of "Yanji Old Books" always opens later than other stores - Shen Yan guarded the bookshelf left by his grandfather and spent five years grinding the days to the temperature of old book pages. Even the curvature of the calico cat's ink on the book has become an unchanging daily routine in the store. It wasn't until Mo Mo suddenly vomited mucus and curled up in the light spot that he rushed out of the bookstore in a panic, as if he had broken through the shell he had clung to for many years.
Wenshi's pet clinic is hidden at the end of the alley, and the pockets of his white coat always contain cat food for stray animals. He had seen many births, old age, illness and death, but he had never seen a man holding a cat with book dust on his fingertips. Even when he said "I want to check", he was nervous and panicked - as if the weight of the entire bookstore was pressing on this cat.
New dates were slowly added to Mo Mo's vaccine book, and a "pet-friendly" sticker was posted on the glass door of the bookstore. Shen Yan would put Wen Shi's favorite old books on the third floor, and Wen Shi would make Shen Yan ginger tea to cure stomach problems. In the tug-of-war of tearing it apart and keeping it, they slowly understood: the so-called protection is never about holding on to the shell of the past, but someone who is willing to accompany you to turn the blank spaces in the poetry collection into the smoke of the old bookstore, and turn the uneasiness of fear of loss into the stability of "waiting for Mo Mo to wake up together".
This is the story of two people who are afraid of losing, using a cat and a shop to tear down each other's heart walls in the morning light of the old city - old books will turn yellow and the alleys will be renovated, but the ink paw prints on the pages and the shadows of the two people when they wipe the bookshelf side by side will always be the warmest footnote in the old city.
