Chapter 99: A River of Water

"...... Jiang Bie ? Which one is 'bie'?"

"The parting of the parting." -

In 2017, Jiang Bie's mother died in Hong Kong after a short illness.

Her illness had been delayed for four years, and everyone had been prepared for this outcome for a long enough time.

On the day of the funeral, a rare snowstorm fell in this southern city.

Jiang Bie accompanied his sister-in-law to see off the guests at the funeral, sweating from the heat.

Auntie took off his coat, entered the house and saw the room where his sister used to live and her eyes turned red.

Remembering that Jiang Bie was not too young, the elders did not want to upset the child with their emotions, so they turned their backs and quickly wiped away their tears.

"Jenson, have you packed all your things? Your dad said he'll come to Hong Kong tomorrow to pick you up. When you get to YunJing, take good care of yourself from now on, okay?"

Jiang Bie nodded and sat down at his mother's desk, where she used to sit, to look through the few things she had left.

Auntie looked at them, "These are all your mother's leftovers, you can send them by post if you want to take them with you, the postal service in the Mainland is very advanced, they can reach YunJing in two days."

Among the relics is an old-fashioned video recorder.

Jiang Bie long presses the on button and the screen flashes to reveal the small world of his mother.

The cancer was terminal and she could no longer stand and walk.

For the last two months, the camera recorded every sunset at the top of Hong Kong's Pacific Ocean.

My sister-in-law came up to me, "Oh. I said what were you taking pictures of, the sunset at the top of Taiping was so beautiful."

The view from the top is magnificent, with the port of Verona in full view.

Jiang Bie looked up: " Is the sunset in YunJing the same as in Hong Kong?"

My sister-in-law bent down and looked at him, "Of course it's the same. The sun rises and the sun sets every day."

Jiang Bie flipped through two of them and abruptly said, "Not the same."

The man who promised to watch the sunset with his mother for the rest of his life has a new family in YunJing.

All that was left was for her to keep this flimsy promise day in and day out.

She recorded every sunset on the Peak and wondered how it was different from the sunset at YunJing.

My sister-in-law squeezed his shoulder and looked at him tenderly, "What's different, Jenson take a picture and show me one will you."

Jiang Bie answers the question, "Auntie, when you say mum is watching the sunset, see is watching dad?"

The hand on his shoulder lost its strength so abruptly that his sister-in-law whimpered and leaned against him, howling-

In September, Jiang Bie arrived in YunJing with only the camera his mother had left behind.

Jiang's father has a new family and Jiang Bie is already an outsider, so bringing more 'extras' may upset his new wife.

He documented some of the city views and photographed sunsets in many different places that didn't look much different from the ones at the top of the Pacific.

The olive tree in the Annexe has stripped its leaves and drifted from the first floor to the ground floor.

The receptionist was quite interested in his name: " Jiang Bie ? Which one is 'Bie'?"

Jiang Bie said with a smile, "A farewell to farewell."

As the receptionist helped him with his school registration, Jiang Bie subconsciously took out his mobile phone to record YunJing's first sunset as the sun set.

He looked up curiously as the sound of a lively piano came to his ears, and across the room was the music classroom.

The mobile phone camera wobbles with his stride as he pushes open the door of the music classroom.

The piano stopped abruptly and Jiang Bie looked over to see a student in the classroom who, upon seeing him, stood up alertly.

Jiang Bie's face appeared from behind the phone: "Am I disturbing you?"

The man shook his head, "Are you recording?"

Jiang Bie "hmmm" and babbled, "The school requires that none of us make a freshman vlog, so I'll delete it if you mind."

He saw him shake his head.

Jiang Bie wondered, "What class are you in?"

"Senior class."

Like him, it was an incoming freshman.

"And you."

Jiang Bie laughs, "Guess."

The man hesitated and spoke slowly, "...... Are you a senior."

Jiang Bie thought for a moment, "Well, that's fine."

He looks intently at the screen of his phone.

In the shot, the sunset over YunJing arrives late, casting a dim glow over the city. The pillars of light are cut neatly and scattered across the music room, half blocked by the man's body.

With the light behind him, he couldn't quite make out his face, and only looked into a pair of clean eyes.

The school music of the Annexe, "Tomorrow will be better", plays lazily in the campus.

"Spring breeze unsettles and blows teenagers' hearts ......"

The man spoke politely, "Hello, Senior."

Jiang Bie couldn't hold it in and burst out laughing.

He witnessed his first sunset in YunJing.

The first meeting between Jiang Bie and Sheng Mingzhi began with a misunderstanding.

Jiang Bie knew that he was one of those people who would reopen old scores when there was an argument, and could even tell the temperature and weather of the day with uncanny accuracy every time.

Whenever Sheng Mingzhi started a fight, Jiang Bie would suggest that he could become a weather presenter in the future and not let his talent go to waste.

Shen Ling will pretend to be defensive and say "I'll say something to be fair", but often the subtext of her words is "I'm going to help Sheng Mingzhi beat you up now". You".

At the end of the semester, Sheng Mingzhi was invited to attend a winter camp at King's University.

Shen Ling leaned over the table, "Isn't your brother at King's too?"

Sheng Mingzhi, who was writing a physics paper, turned the page: "Hmm."

Jiang Bie was playing with the zip of his school uniform, which annoyed Sheng Mingzhi, who took a water pen and poked Jiang Bie on the shoulder.

The dense patch, all water-pen marks that he had poked out, now left the latest marks.

Jiang Bie quipped, "Domestic violence, domestic violence, domestic violence."

Sheng Mingzhi glared at him, "Don't bother."

Shen Ling, waiting blearily to copy Sheng Mingzhi's homework, casually mentioned, "So Lu Jiayan is here too?"

Sheng Mingzhi's water pen just paused and smudged a black spot on the test paper.

His movements are too subtle.

So much so that no one but Jiang Bie noticed.

That was the first time Jiang Bie heard Lu Jiayan's name.

Still unaware of what the name signified, Shang asked with a little curiosity, " Who is Lu Jiayan?"

Sheng Mingzhi suddenly stood up from his seat, startling both men.

He hurriedly gathered up his papers, said something about going downstairs to buy water, and disappeared from Jiang Bie's sight.

When I actually met Lu Jiayan, it was New Year's Day.

Sheng Mingzhi came back from the winter camp and sat with Jiang Bie in front of the dance class waiting for Shen Ling to finish her class.

As time wore on, a bit of homework was simply written off and a light blue love note fell out of the compartment as the books were taken out of the bag.

Jiang Bie turned his pen and flipped over the love letter to see that the envelope read "Received by Sheng Mingzhi".

He raised an eyebrow, "A love letter?"

Sheng Mingzhi looked at it, "Probably."

Jiang Bie looked at him with his chin propped up, "How come you're so popular everywhere, you're catching up to me."

"Don't give me narcissism."

"Don't you want to open it?"

"Don't look."

"Don't want to know who wrote it?"

"I don't want to." After a pause, Sheng Mingzhi revealed a hint of distress, "I know who wrote it. It's a guy."

Jiang Bie's heart beats a second faster.

"A male?"

"Winter camp for the same period." Sheng Mingzhi: "Awkward I want to die."

Jiang Bie felt his tone lighten considerably, with a little test: "You don't like men?"

Sheng Mingzhi scribbled in his notebook, "If I fall in love early, my brother will break both my legs."

The answer is not what is asked.

Jiang Bie knew he was digressing, but he joked with a smile: "I can't do that. Why don't you fall in love with me and I'll share a leg with you, and I'll suffer a bit of love with you."

Unsurprisingly, Sheng Mingzhi rolled his eyes and gave him a vicious kick towards his calf.

That's how he is, bad-tempered, bad-tempered, with nothing to like but his face, but Jiang Bie suddenly understands his mother's approach in this moment.

All the sunsets he took had a desire to be shared.

Later, the New Year's Day party at King's opened.

Sheng Mingzhi was entrusted with the task of capturing his brother's handsome performance on stage.

When Jiang Bie first met Sheng Xu, he thought he looked very much like Sheng Mingzhi.

Only Sheng Mingzhi was always calling his brother ugly, so the comment was rotten in his stomach in a very beguiling way.

Sheng Xu says narcissistically, "Remember to make me look better than Lu Jiayan, okay? Although, he's not as good looking as me."

Sheng Mingzhi looked down and fiddled with his camera and sneered, "Can you have some self-awareness?"

This is the second time Jiang Bie has heard Lu Jiayan's name.

He had heard it from the mouth of Shen Ling, he had heard it from the mouth of Sheng Xu, and he knew it was something he did not understand, something that belonged to Sheng Mingzhi's past.

The New Year's Day party at KYU was packed.

Jiang Bie began to hear Lu Jiayan's name more and more frequently, from schoolgirls who came to see him perform, to students from other schools who came to see him.

There were few places left in the auditorium before it had even started.

Sheng Mingzhi Couldn't squeeze in, had to stand on the ledge, and you shot from the window?"

As humiliating as it was, there was nothing else Sheng Mingzhi could do at the moment.

After lying on the window sill and taking more photos than he knew what to do with, Jiang Bie was embarrassed and asked to put him down.

"That's a good shot? Don't you shoot it."

"No messing around with the photos, okay." Sheng Mingzhi picked up his brother's photo: "Help me choose."

Sheng Xu's photos are either out of focus or blurry, making them laughable.

The two laughed as they watched, and Sheng Mingzhi laughed so hard that tears fell from his eyes.

He got up and went backstage to find Sheng Xu, and Jiang Bie was waiting for him outside.

I had nothing better to do than to scroll down, and inexplicably a man began to appear frequently in the camera, apparently all taken by Sheng Mingzhi just now.

Sitting in front of the piano.

Even with a casual camera shot, you can detect the pervasive reserve.

One by one, from the show to the end, only two or three minutes, but dozens of pictures left in the camera.

Jiang Bie had never met Lu Jiayan, but in this moment he was sure of the name of the man in the photo.

He read it back and forth three or four times for some unknown psychological reason.

Then he put down his camera and looked somewhat vacantly into the distance.

The heart felt like it had been stabbed with a sheepish needle.

Flooded with dense pain.

That evening, Sheng Mingzhi was in a bad mood somehow.

Didn't say a few words, just looked down sullenly at the ground.

Sheng Xu and the others are preparing a farewell party for Lu Jiayan.

Jiang Bie noticed Lu Jiayan at first glance in the crowd, and he looked no different from the man in Sheng Mingzhi's camera.

When you smile, your peach blossom eyes bend into a bridge.

He heard his classmates around him say, "They're not like us single dogs, they're accompanied by Jane's school girl when they go abroad!"

Lu Jiayan scolded with a smile and a soft voice: "Get lost."

While everyone is looking at Lu Jiayan, only Jiang Bie notices that Sheng Mingzhi is holding a new paper gift bag in his hand, his bones a little white from the moment he clutches it.

Sheng Mingzhi begins to wander frequently.

When the final exams came around, the results fell off and the anxious class teacher searched them out.

Find Jiang Bie, who says nothing.

He probably knew why Sheng Mingzhi was like that, except that he was surprisingly selfish and took some vicious pleasure in it from his heart.

He makes it difficult for himself and there is always someone to make it difficult for him.

At least in this moment, they feel the same.

But this vicious pleasure did not last long, as the first snowfall in YunJing arrived late.

Sheng Mingzhi lost his watch, which Lu Jiayan had given him as a last birthday present before he left the country.

Jiang Bie wondered what time Sheng Mingzhi started looking.

After calling Sheng Mingzhi all afternoon without success, a wave of uncontrollable panic washed over him.

Jiang Bie went out in a hurry, scaring his father.

It was already ten o'clock at night and no one knew where he was going.

He searched for Sheng Mingzhi in his usual haunts and finally found him in front of the dance studio with a high fever.

I don't know how many times he fell, but Sheng Mingzhi's clothes and trouser legs were covered in snow, mixed with wet mud and turned into a dirty mess.

At that moment, Jiang Bie went into cardiac arrest and his mind went blank.

He took off Sheng Mingzhi's wet down jacket, then took off his own jacket and wrapped it around him. Jiang Bie himself didn't even notice that his hands were shaking violently, and when he was zipping Sheng Mingzhi up, he couldn't get it up several times.

Seemingly awakened by his movement, Sheng Mingzhi turned slowly awake, his fever making his whole body terribly hot, his face obviously red but his lips miserably white, cold sweat rolling down in drops.

He was uncomfortably held by Jiang Bie and struggled up on his hands and knees, literally burnt out from the snowy day.

Jiang Bie's voice was dry: "What are you doing out in this cold weather?"

Sheng Mingzhi mumbled, "I've lost my watch, I'm coming out to find it."

Jiang Bie wanted to be angry but couldn't bear to be angry with him, "Why don't you just throw it away and buy it again?"

"Can't buy it."

"I have money. I'll buy it for you, now can we go to the hospital first?"

It was a long time before Sheng Mingzhi spoke softly but firmly.

"I don't want you to buy it."

Jiang Bie felt that the air was suddenly too thin to breathe, causing his heart to clench suddenly and viciously.

Like a heavy hammer, it struck Jiang Bie's heart hard.

Sheng Mingzhi struggles to get up but fails once again because he has no strength.

Like the last straw that broke his heart, Sheng Mingzhi's defences collapsed.

What you can't keep is what you can't keep.

Even if he got the same watch again, it would not be the original one, it was not given to him by Lu Jiayan.

Without warning, he lost his voice and sobbed, then turned into a hoarse cry of pain, gripping Jiang Bie's arm so hard that his fingertips were white.

Sheng Mingzhi was not a crier, so Jiang Bie had never seen him cry so desperately and so sadly.

It seemed on the verge of breaking his heart to tears.

Jiang Bie hugged him bewildered, his eyes following a red circle.

It hurts to even breathe.

It was during this snowfall that he realised that it is possible to love someone without having to get them.

Sheng Mingzhi's love killed him over and over again, his tears killed his jealousy and selfishness, allowing the wilderness of his heart to slowly grow into wholeness and tolerance.

It was too hard to love someone alone, and he didn't want Sheng Mingzhi to suffer as much as he did.

"I will." He suppressed his voice, his eyes red, "I'll find it for you. Now go to the hospital first, okay?"

In reply, Sheng Mingzhi's disembodied breathing is quiet and pin drop audible.

He hugged hard, as if to bury all his love in this snowy night.

Sheng Mingzhi It took three days to recover from this cold.

Jiang Bie followed every path they normally took to find the missing watch. The first two days were in vain until the third day, when he fell off a bridge due to a slippery snowy ground and into a deep pit that had been drained of water, where he accidentally found the broken watch at the bottom of the pit.

He was sure that this was the piece.

Sheng Mingzhi watched the watch for as long as he wore it, almost as if he had memorised every detail of the watch by heart.

Sheng Mingzhi was not as happy as he thought he would be when he lost it.

When he had recovered from his cold, Jiang Bie took him to the ski slopes.

He told him that this was the closest ski resort to YunJing International Airport, the highest mountain in YunJing, and that from here, he could see every plane that took off.

He said that when he was a child, his mother told him that if he stood on this mountain and spoke to the plane, the people on the plane could hear him.

Jiang Bie lied, he had never been to YunJing as a child, Hong Kong was only the high summit of the Peak and the sunset day after day.

No northern snow.

There is also no Sheng Mingzhi.

He paused, his throat cutting raw from the cold northern wind as he breathed.

It's like telling Sheng Mingzhi, and it's like telling yourself.

"My mother said. Before you love someone, you have to learn to love yourself."

The world is quiet, with only the sound of snow falling.

Sadly, his mother didn't learn and neither did he.

Later Sheng Mingzhi froze and followed his example of shouting at the plane before stumbling and falling to the ground.

The voice was hoarse and howling.

Jiang Bie used all his strength to keep himself in place, only to take off his clothes and drape them over Sheng Mingzhi when he was shivering with cold, and lead him to the milk tea shop halfway up the hill.

Sheng Mingzhi sits at the front, writing carefully on a post-it note.

Jiang Bie also asked for a pen and tore up a post-it note.

Without any hesitation, the moment I saw the snow outside, the words came to mind.

--If we were to share the snow today, we would be together in this life.

As she put it on the wall, the owner suddenly warned, "Student, you're too far in, no one can see it."

Jiang Bie put it on carefully and smiled, "I don't need him to see it."

Sheng Mingzhi came over to me when he was done: "What did you write?"

Jiang Bie's face doesn't change: "Add v to see SpongeBob SquarePants WeChat."

He seemed to be in a much better mood and hammered him hard on the shoulder, "You're nuts!"

Jiang Bie, still looking like a ditzy teenager, dodged while screaming, "Domestic violence!"

On the way down the mountain, Sheng Mingzhi developed a high fever.

At dusk, Jiang Bie carries him on his back as he makes his way down the hill, one foot deep and one foot shallow.

It was snowing heavily in YunJing and neither of them had an umbrella with them.

While waiting for Sheng Xu to pick them up, Sheng Mingzhi suddenly said, "Your hair looks as if it has gone grey."

Jiang Bie shook the snow off his body and laughed: "You're not white too."

Sheng Mingzhi is not convinced: "You're more handsome even when you're white."

Noticing Jiang Bie's gaze, he spoke, "What are you looking at?"

"The moon." Jiang Bie took his eyes off him and looked up at the night sky, "It's sure to be a clear day tomorrow."

He knew it was not his moon, but for a brief moment, at least, he had it.