At Last

Fates entwine and part. When will it end? When will it finally reach its destination?

Nie Chao (zhao) x Xu Shichang

He looked at the string of words on the envelope. For the 321st time, he still didn’t know. He didn’t understand. It was like a new language he had never encountered before, like discovering a new continent while sailing across the ocean, digging up an unfamiliar fossil underground, or glimpsing an indistinct shape through the fog. He couldn’t make out its meaning, its appearance, the way time had worn it down, or its truest form. It presented itself in the most familiar way, yet even after seeing it several times, it still felt like the beginning. Perhaps he still didn’t understand why it had come here. He repeated it, but he knew he could no longer keep going like this.

“How did you know the ‘password’ to open that letter on your first try?”

“Who said I only tried once?”

“I don’t know if you can hear me, but I believe you can, right? After all, you’ve only fallen asleep. Unlike me, when I fall asleep, I sleep right through everything and can’t hear a thing.”

“I once had a daughter. When she first came, it was clearly the first time we’d met, but she seemed to know me. She looked at me as if she’d been waiting for a very, very long time. So I took her hand, but I don’t know when I let go. Then I couldn’t find her.”

I’m new and know I haven’t written much, and don’t have many readers. If anyone is looking forward to reading this, sorry about that. For the past few years, my update schedule has generally been irregular.

Theme: People are multidimensional.