Silent Preference, Silent Ending

Autumn is deep in my bones, and ginkgo trees cover the campus. In the office of the science department, Lin Qingqian's peripheral vision was always focused on Gu Jingheng who was diagonally across from him - his light gray shirt was rolled up to his wrist bones, and he was grading papers exactly the same as when he lectured her in the ginkgo forest a few years ago. The class was a tacit understanding engraved in blood. When he explained the difficult points in chemistry, her chalk just completed the logic; when she was stumped by a student, his voice accurately solved the problem. After class, he was extremely restrained. He counted the time to warm up the soy milk and put on her clothes to block the window, but never dared to say a word. She quietly completed his lesson plan and pushed away the lozenges by handing her homework, even hiding her concern. The ginkgo forest is a corner of thoughts. She loves the dew-laden silence in the morning, and he loves the gentleness of the clouds in the evening. There are no more hugging figures under the old trees. There are two ginkgo bookmarks with matching patterns between her lesson plans, one of which hides his traces; his pen holder hangs a hand-carved pendant, and his eyes follow her back as he rubs it. The first snow of winter suddenly fell, and the pendant rolled down to her feet. Leaning over, his fingertips collided, and the warmth broke all restraint. He called out "Qianqian" in a mute voice, and she replied "Teacher Gu" with tears in her eyes. The five words were as profound as she could relate to Qianqian. She walked into the wind and snow, and he stood in front of the window, watching her melt into the whiteness. From then on, they were still tacit partners, but no longer gentle in details. The pendant is hung in the pen holder, and the bookmark is clamped in the lesson plan. They guard the three-foot podium, guarding their silent preference, letting the ginkgo leaves fall and turn yellow, and turn a deep love into a silent ending in a lifetime.