I waited for five years without knocking on that door.
She is my roommate next door. She is as cold as ice. She doesn't even look at her when we meet her.
She is a virtual anchor that I have followed for five years. She is gentle, straightforward, and will whisper "It's okay, take your time" late at night.
I thought it was two people.
Until that sultry summer night, I heard the sound coming from the crack of the door——
It's her.
I stood in the corridor, and the words "Live Broadcast" on the screen of my mobile phone made my eyes hurt.
Just click in and everything will be revealed.
But my thumb is hanging on the screen and I can't press it down.
I'm afraid.
I'm afraid that the person who has been with me for five years is really the cold and lonely Shen Lin.
I am even more afraid that after confirmation, even the current "pretending not to know" approach will disappear.
She doesn't know either.
She didn't know that every time she spoke to the air in the kitchen, there was someone standing in the shadows on the second floor.
She didn't know that the "meow" that locked her emotions when she collapsed was heard and remembered in her heart.
She didn't know that he had seen her watering the courtyard that had been abandoned for five years more than 260 times every week in the game.
All she knew was that the person's profile picture lit up.
It came on 16 hours ago.
He's back.
She cried in front of the camera for ten full minutes, then smiled and said, "It's okay, I just suddenly remembered something happy."
We are all covered in thick shells.
A door separates two worlds.
A key that has been hidden for five years and never dared to be used.
Until that night, she sat next to me with red eyes.
We were watching TV across the coffee table, and no one said anything.
Some things are different.
Intention: Use a book as a collective self-gazing