At twenty-four, Zhou Chen thought nothing new would ever happen in his life.
Unemployment, insomnia, medication, follow-up appointments. He had turned his days into a room with the curtains drawn, until one stormy night he stumbled into Wanqing Bookshop at the end of an old street. The owner, Lin Wanqing, was four years older than him. Her ginger tea was awful, and she could never get the accounts straight, but she always left a light on for anyone who refused to take shelter from the rain.
She didn’t pull him out of the darkness. She just sat with him for a while. In time, that little while became a meal, a book he forgot to return, a noisy group of people, and a Zhou Chen who was ready to face life again.
He used to think they had many more years to waste together. It wasn’t until Lin Wanqing began going over, one by one, the little things she had yet to finish that he understood: some people come into your life not to stay with you until the end,
but so that after they’re gone, you’ll still be willing to carry on alone.
