Prelude: Our youth was so fleeting, yet we always thought there was still a long road ahead. We believed sadness was merely a solo act of youth, like a lonely joy belonging to one person, as if it had somewhere to be found, yet as if no one cared. One night, amid the flow of traffic and people passing by in haste, who could have known that tomorrow would find us separated by mountains and rivers, each facing our own storms? We plunged headlong into the mundane world. Our vows to never forget and never part were swallowed by the sea of people, becoming fragmented and blurred. Su Li and Ming Xi were two rookie prosecutors, level-headed and bold enough to take risks and try new things. In today's parlance, they were top students, and their talent meant their careers could have gone smoothly. With a few more years of work and steady progress, they might have become legends of their era. But over the next thirty-two years, one truth sent them wandering from place to place, meeting all kinds of people and events. From Qinjiang to Malaysia, and from Malaysia to Banshan, they began new chapters in their lives one after another. The world was vast, and fate turned in cycles; they fell asleep, then awoke. The price of every rise and fall was steeped in feeling, every step in tears.
