Love Rises on the Wind

"Reporter Jiang, long time no see."

Jiang Huaiqing's high school years were like a layer of white gauze washed thin, every color faded and muted. The seat by the back-row window was her private territory. Her gaze would pass over the piles of exam papers and always land precisely on the straight-backed figure in the third row ahead: Zhou Ze.

He was the sort of person born to be chased by sunshine. The curve of his jersey lifting in the breeze on the basketball court, the faint tap of his fingers on the desk after he solved the last physics problem, even the way the air seemed to sparkle with flecks of gold when the teacher called his name. Jiang Huaiqing secretly tucked these fragments into the lining of her notebook. Her handwriting was so light, as if afraid to startle anyone, just like the heartbeat hidden in her chest, whose rhythm she never dared let falter.

On the day they filled out their university applications, she stared at the school Zhou Ze was certain he would attend. Her pencil hovered over the application for a long time before she finally pressed down, as if staking the weight of her entire youth on her choice.

In September, the university's camphor leaves carpeted the ground in a path of scattered gold. She ran into him in the library corridor. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled to his elbows, and he was listening to a girl walking with him, head bowed. His profile was more distinct than she remembered. Jiang Huaiqing's breath caught. The letter in her canvas bag, written and rewritten, was crumpled at the corners where her fingers gripped it.

But the wind that afternoon was too unruly, carrying a fragment she wasn't meant to hear. From between several rows of bookshelves, she heard someone laughing as they asked Zhou Ze if he was interested in the girl who kept coming to see him. He didn't deny it, only gave a low laugh. The sound was like a fine needle, puncturing the courage Jiang Huaiqing had built up over three years before she could react.

She quietly slipped away, as if she'd never been there. Later, the letter was buried at the bottom of a box, along with the name she had never said aloud, locked away in the past.

When she took the graduate school entrance exam, she chose a school in another city. After graduation, she joined a newspaper and covered social news. She saw more than enough of the warmth and coldness of human nature, and her days passed like the stories she wrote: objective, composed, and rarely troubled by a ripple.

Until, during an interview with a publicly listed company, she saw Zhou Ze again outside a conference room.

He wore a suit and seemed far more composed than he had as a young man. When his gaze swept over her, it lingered on her face, as if he recognized her. Jiang Huaiqing's heart skipped a beat, but she remained calm and held out her hand. "Mr. Zhou, hello. I'm Jiang Huaiqing, a reporter with the City Weekly."

He took her hand. His palm was warm, and his voice low. "Reporter Jiang, long time no see."

Those words, "Long time no see," were like a stone dropped into a deep lake. The ripples that spread out somehow reached across all those years. Only later did she learn that he hadn't denied it because he was playing along with a joke for a friend. Later, he had looked for her, only to find her seat empty. Later, he had established himself at his father's company, and sometimes thought of the girl who always sat by the window in high school, quiet as a painting.

It was just that the wind had been too strong back then, blowing so many words in the wrong direction.

Now the city lights were coming on. After the interview, he walked her downstairs. The evening breeze lifted her long hair, and he suddenly said, "Jiang Huaiqing, I think I saw you in the library back then."

She looked up at him. Streetlights cast little glimmers in his eyes, just like the sunset on the basketball court in high school. This time, the wind was gentle, as if waiting for an answer that was long overdue.

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