Lin Wan and Gu Yan had known each other for seven years.
Seven years was enough time for a child to finish middle school, and enough time for two people to go from talking about everything to slowly reaching the point where "some things need to be said in person."
One ordinary night, Lin Wan stood on the rooftop of an office building, watching the city lights flow like a river. The message on her phone had been sitting there for three hours. She knew what he wanted to say, and she also knew that there were things she had wanted to say for a long time.
The next afternoon, she arrived early at the cafe. Gu Yan walked in carrying an umbrella he hadn't had time to put away, even though it wasn't raining outside. He sat down, paused, and said, "I'm going to quit my job and head south."
With one sentence, he gently lifted the corner of their seven years together.
This is a novel about farewells and words left unspoken for far too long: how two people drift apart, and how, before they do, they sit down together one last time and truly talk. The city is vast, its lights countless. Beneath any one of them, there might be someone living happily, or just someone staring blankly at a takeout box late into the night.
