1.
The Fang family had a tradition of going to Qi'an Temple on the second day of the new year to burn incense and pray for peace and good fortune in the year ahead. Fang Shuji had never believed in it, but she had taken the child staying at her home along with her.
The child was usually very well-behaved, but this time he turned around and ran off somewhere.
When Fang Shuji found him amid the crowd, twelve-year-old Cen Ningnan was leaning over an incense table, carefully writing:
"I hope everything goes well for Sister. May she meet a considerate boss who pays her on time. I hope Panpan stays healthy and keeps Sister company until she's ninety-nine. I'll study hard and work hard to become a client someday."
He'd written on and on, with a thousand wishes, not one of them for himself.
She stared at him in a daze, meeting his dark eyes and serious expression.
2.
The years flashed by in an instant.
Later, Fang Shuji returned to Qi'an Temple on an errand and, by chance, discovered familiar handwriting.
Twenty-year-old Cen Ningnan had written only: "I hope Fang Shuji has everything go her way."
Standing in the wind, surrounded by swirling incense smoke, she suddenly realized that the boy had grown into a man. At some point, he had stopped calling her "Big Sister."
But through the nights when he stayed by her side alone as snow fell, the greetings he sent after traveling a thousand miles, and the first New Year's blessing at midnight...
Through all those long, long days, Cen Ningnan had always been her puppy.
"How could time wait for anyone? I'm the one who's been waiting for you."
* "There are always things that endure in this world, unlike grapes, unlike flowers, unlike the scanty snow."
/ Jorge Luis Borges, "Endymion on Mount Latmos"
Eight-year age gap, older sister and younger brother.
Synopsis written on 2022.10.18, saved.
To be revised before the story starts.
The last line comes from the internet.
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Theme: Haven't thought of one yet.
