*The Wisdom Tooth, urban arc, happy ending
*Upcoming novel: Undying Fireworks
Shi Li would rather have died in the midsummer of his seventeenth year.
Then he never would have met Yu Si again.
She taught him how to kiss, how to love, how to grow up.
She said she was no different from the countless millions of people in this world. It was because you loved me that I became the one and only.
She was the blazing sun over Fenhe.
She was the stars surging above the tundra.
She was a wild rose reflected in late-spring rain.
She was the fleeting, unfathomable beauty of his life.
She rebuilt him, then destroyed him.
*
That winter,
Yu Si left in a hurry, and their relationship simply faded away.
They met again years later at a gathering of old friends.
A summer night, a swimming pool, a haze of cigarette smoke, Long Island iced tea...
Shi Li looked just as he had before, dressed in a gorgeous, classical white shirt.
Standing there, he was like an elaborate, sumptuous Baroque painting.
Yu Si arrived beneath the moonlight, confident and radiant.
She greeted him first. "Long time no see, Shi Li."
Shi Li gave a slight nod, a faint smile playing at the corners of his lips.
Everyone thought they had let bygones be bygones and become friends instead of lovers.
Only Yu Si could see his distant indifference, keeping her at arm's length.
He was perfectly courteous. He simply didn't love her anymore.
*
A seaside band variety show invited Yu Si to be a mentor.
Half an hour after the show aired,
netizens had dug up every detail of Yu Si's romantic history.
The pure, white moonlight and muse of inspiration she'd mentioned on the show
was the most famous prodigy at Jing University, an unattainable moon atop a high peak, a cool and melancholy porcelain beauty, and the youngest professor in the School of Physics.
One moment, netizens were lamenting the tragic ending of the ultimate couple.
The next, the show's stars shot to the top of the trending topics.
The trending video was filmed at an empty swimming pool on a summer night.
Through the mist, Yu Si grabbed Shi Li by the collar and, eyes red, asked, "Do you really not love me anymore?"
Netizens tagged Shi Li's Weibo account in the comments on the trending video.
His only Weibo post unrelated to work was published on the day the video was filmed.
Those gentle kisses in the bitter winter
The sweet potatoes burnt in a dim room
The sunset at six o'clock by the broken bridge in the western suburbs
Will all become reasons I love you forever
#Content warnings:
* A cool, aloof, untouchable beauty × a radiant, spirited wild rose
* Physics professor × rock star
* The urban arc and bonus chapters of The Wisdom Tooth, with a happy ending
* A literary mess with loose logic and stream-of-consciousness writing
Theme: World peace, and not letting the one you love slip away
