To You in the Millennium

On January 1, 2000, Xu Ran was born. In the same year, the family next door also gave birth to a boy named Lu Xingci. They grew up together, went to school together, and went through the summer of the Beijing Olympics, the late nights before the college entrance examination, and the long winter of the city's lockdown due to the epidemic. She thought they would go on like this forever - from the Fuwa he gave her when she was eight, to the note in the desk that said "We'll meet at the top of the mountain" when she was eighteen, to when she was unemployed at twenty-two and he took the train for twelve hours and showed up downstairs. But in the spring of 2023, they broke up. He said: "Ran Ran, I'm tired." She didn't reply. Two years later, on January 1, 2025, Xu Ran turned 25 years old. On the subway during the evening rush hour, she saw Lu Xingci on the platform opposite. He was still standing in the same stance, leaning slightly to the left. There was just a girl in a white down jacket beside him, holding his arm and smiling happily. That night, she received a bowl of beef noodles anonymously ordered with the note "Happy Birthday." What she didn't know was that Lu Xing had ordered that bowl of noodles. He saw her but didn't step forward. The girl next to him was his cousin, who came to Beijing to see a doctor, and he stayed with her for a day. What she didn't even know was that the man who ordered noodles for Lu Xingci was named Lin Yizhou. The three of them grew up together and are besties. Lin Yizhou remembered everything: what she liked to eat, what she was afraid of, and what time she went to bed. He also remembered that in the summer of 2008, when she held the Fuwa that Lu Xing resigned from in her arms, he knew what "envy" meant for the first time. Three people, walking from the millennium to 2025. One doesn't say it, one dares not say it, and one cannot say it. This is a story about time. About the promise made when I was eight, the note when I was eighteen, and the reunion when I was twenty-five. About those unspoken words and a bowl of noodles that have been hot for twenty-five years. The promise made during the millennium will be fulfilled at the age of twenty-five. Purpose: Children born in the millennium are a generation that has grown up under the watchful eyes of the times. They have seen the fireworks of the Beijing Olympics, gone through the college entrance examination, and learned to cook their first bowl of noodles in a rented house under epidemic control. They are only children, a generation with high hopes, and a generation drifting alone in the tide of the times. This is a story about "waiting" - Xu Ran waited for Lu Xingci for fifteen years, waiting for him to speak, waiting for him to get closer, waiting for him to finally dare to say "I love you". Lu Xingci waited for Xu Ran all his life, from the age of eight until he was twenty-five, from Fuwa to beef noodles, never saying anything, until he finally stood in front of her. There was also a man named Lin Yizhou who didn't wait for anything. He just stood there, beside them, remembering everything for them. He remembered what she liked to eat, what time she got off work, and the address where she moved - then he ordered a bowl of noodles for his brother and watched her eat without saying anything. Twenty-five years, three people. One dares to wait, one dares to love, and one dares not to tell. This is not a story about "who is with whom." This is a story about "this is how we lived". Dedicated to those of us born in the millennium, and the unspoken words.