He Stood Under the Plane Tree and Waited for Me for Ten Years

When she came, she only carried a canvas schoolbag. There was no money in the schoolbag, only two melted toffees. People in Wutong Alley say that the feng shui under the Wutong tree at the entrance of the alley is not good - the people who come here are the people who have been abandoned elsewhere. Su Wantang is no exception. After her parents died, she was arranged to live with Aunt Lin at Wutong Bookstore and her taciturn son Lu Huaian who always carried old notes in his white coat pocket. There is also a strange old lady in the alley, surnamed Jiang, who keeps a whole yard of cats. She says to everyone she meets that "cats know who should stay before people do." She said that the sycamore tree is the root of this alley, and if the roots are there, people will not be able to disperse. Su Wantang didn't believe this. She just wants to get through each day. But she gradually discovered that the lights in the bookstore never seemed to go out, Lu Huaian's notes were filled with other people's medical records, and Grandma Jiang's cat squatted on the stone bench on time every night to wait for dawn. She began to vaguely feel that there might be a place that was not waiting for you to prove that you were worthy of being taken in - but that the door was ajar, just waiting for you to push it open. The sycamore leaves fell to the ground, the wind chimes rang softly, and someone pushed the door open and walked in. This time, it was her turn to look up and say: You are home.