Listening to Dreams: Wounds Without Hurt

When his childhood sweetheart leaves without a word,

he realizes that her love was humble yet profound.

When he hears of her death,

regret consumes him, and he sinks deeper and deeper into despair.

In the blink of an eye, six years have passed.

A new city, a new life.

Who could have guessed

that his scarred heart would suddenly begin to ache again?

A mysterious woman writer looks exactly like his childhood sweetheart.

Could she be her?

On the long journey through life, everyone is bound to bear scars, some deep, some shallow, on the body or in the heart. Sometimes, we envy babies in their swaddling clothes, so perfect and unblemished. But the scars that follow us through life remind us that no matter how painful things were, one day we can look back and say, “It’s all behind me.” Isn’t that a philosophy life itself has taught us?

Give someone an ending, and they will long to know how it happened. Give someone a beginning, and they will hope for a fitting conclusion. Yet one way or another, a story has begun to unfold. Will he and she stand by each other through thick and thin, or forget one another in the vast world?

Ye Chen:

The wind blows toward me, season after season,

from blossoms opening to blossoms falling.

Another scene in which we cannot meet again.

The flower about to bloom on that broken branch,

I once waited for in stillness.

In dreams, I heard the sound of flowers opening.

When we met again,

the flowers drifted down on a night without wind or rain.

It turns out

that flowers cannot escape their season of blooming and fading.

Today is just like yesterday,

as dreamlike and illusory as ever.

Did my daily prayers finally come true,

or was yesterday’s dream not yet over?

This scene rewinds to the moment before you left.

It turns out we cannot escape the fate written for us on the Three Lives Stone.

Was this love deep or shallow?

So shallow that you left and never came back,

so deep that, year after year and month after month, I could not let go of my hope,

all for the chance to see you once more.

A stranger, just like you.

So familiar, just like you.

We begin again the story left unfinished.

Whether joy or sorrow, it was all part of the plan you laid.

I listen only to my heart.

It tells me to follow you.

“Blossoming”

Han Yining:

Along the timeline of black and white,

my thoughts become strings of broken characters.

All this love, simplified bit by bit.

Was this departure an accident, or a plan long in the making?

Plots within plots.

Did God accidentally shatter the fairy tale?

Pure white wings slowly transformed,

and that dazzling white light blossomed into a rainbow halo.

Footsteps that never waited

meet someone from yesterday today.

Are you unable to escape the gloom,

or am I still longing for yesterday?

A smile in my left hand,

tears in my right.

Could we rewind the curtain to long ago?

“Bewitched”

Shen Lei:

Is it real?

Is it a lie?

I remember the warmth of our embrace.

How could I not long for all the days and months that followed?

What secrets are written

behind your smile?

I tried my best to become a tree,

hiding you close to my heart.

The wind is blowing, or has it begun to rain again?

Please, just let me hold you quietly,

like that day when you hid in my arms.

Whether the sky is clear or overcast,

it doesn’t matter,

as long as you still want to come back here.

“Here”