This is a story about "guarding" and "missing".
Lin Zhixia and Cheng Yu met at Qinghe Middle School in a small southern town. From junior high school to university, from Liu Town to Wucheng, they accompanied each other throughout their youth in the name of "friends". He would hand her a sandwich when she was so hungry that she felt dizzy, he would give her the only bed when she had nowhere to go, and he would spend his part-time salary without hesitation when she casually said "want it". He was like a parachute, always catching her steadily when she was about to fall.
However, some words are never spoken and some distances are never crossed. When she finally got up the courage to look back, he had already embarked on another path.
The novel uses delicate writing to outline an emotional bond that lasts for more than ten years. From the snacks secretly stuffed into the desk, to the last hug at the subway entrance of Xingqiao Station; from the summer night breeze on the back seat of the motorcycle, to the snowy late night in the cold city - those unspoken love, like an underground river, always flow at the bottom of the story.
Intention: True love does not necessarily have to be possessed. Sometimes, becoming a parachute in the other person's life is the best arrival. In the story of Lin Zhixia and Cheng Yu, there is no confession, no holding hands, and no ceremony to confirm the relationship. But there is a phone between them that can be dialed with a message at three o'clock in the morning, a door that is opened without hesitation when they are penniless, and a heart that is firmly remembered when a casual "want" is said. The accumulation of these moments has more weight than a sentence of "I love you".
What the work wants to convey is: in this era where everything must have consequences, the meaning of some emotions lies precisely in the fact that they have no consequences. It is not a failed love, nor a pure friendship, but a vast area in between that cannot be named. It teaches us that the value of a relationship does not lie in the final belonging, but in the moments that really happened and illuminated each other.
