The Evening Breeze Dies Down in Nancheng

The plum rain season in the old neighborhoods of South City never seems to end. The day Shen Ji, a construction worker, moved back into his old fifth-floor rental, he bumped into Xu Zhixia, an illustrator, in the stairwell and knocked her drawings to the floor. He borrowed her screwdriver, accepted packages for her, fed the timid calico cat by the wall with her, and shared a table with her at the breakfast shop on the corner. They were all the smallest, most ordinary moments between neighbors, nothing earth-shattering, yet the two of them quietly fell for each other. He was used to shouldering every problem alone, and spoke so little that every word had to be dragged out of him. She was sensitive and stubborn, always waiting for him to take one more step. All their push and pull was hidden in the routines of everyday life. From strangers living above and below each other, to sharing the same roof, and then to going their separate ways. They loved each other and tried their best, but in the end they still lost to the fundamental mismatch in their personalities and the crushing weight of reality they could not escape. The evening breeze still blows through South City's old alleyways. But the people who once stood together in it can no longer stand side by side beneath the camphor tree.