The rain in late autumn always brought with it a bone-chilling chill. Wu Shi stared at the meandering water marks on the window glass, and unconsciously rubbed the outer shell of his pocket watch with his fingertips. The pocket watch, which had experienced the war in Nanjing, the cold wind in the Harbin ice field, and the smoke in the air-raid shelter in Chongqing, was lying quietly in the palm of my hand. The metal surface was warmed by the body temperature, but it could not withstand the cold and wet seeping in from the window. The newly opened photo was spread out on the desk. The edges of the yellowed photo paper were curled with rough edges. The sunshine of 1949 seemed to still remain on the photo paper, stretching the shadows of the three young people very long.
