Twenty-Four Transparent Summers

In the summer of 2005, Lu Shen, a young man from Guangdong, went north to Wuhu to study. He passed Lin Zhiyang, who was painting, on Wutong Road of An Normal University. She thought he was just the name in the school magazine who could write articles, and he thought she was just a quiet figure in the studio. It took them three years to go from acquaintance to passionate love, and it took them one summer to break everything. Lu Shen went to Shenzhen and Zhiyang went to Nanjing. Separated by a distance of two thousand miles and not seeing each other for three years, they wrote letters, waited for letters, and deleted letters. Some words were written, and some words were never sent. Later she finally bought a ticket to Shenzhen. When he walked out of the train station, he stood at the exit waiting for her - he had been waiting for her for three years, including these last few seconds. They took root in Shenzhen, lived together in a nine-square-meter rental house in Baishizhou, and slowly integrated each other into their daily lives. More than ten years have passed, and they have experienced Shen Qinghe's reconciliation, Zhao Yiming's wedding, Lu Shen's father's illness, Zhiyang's solo exhibition, and the article at Wuhu Pier. In the end, they stood in the dusk of Shenzhen Bay. She said, "Have you ever thought about what if we didn't have -", and he said, "No. There is no such if." Twenty-four summers passed. He still remembered the first time she appeared at the school gate. It was not yet dark at that time, and the sycamore leaves were turning yellow.