chapter 5

That pen holder was, without question, the most mysterious birthday gift I received in all my years at university.

Near the final exams of the first semester of junior year, Xiao An and I, inspired by a sudden spirit of adventure, decided to study in the school’s famous haunted building on a gloomy afternoon. Compared with the teaching buildings built in the past twenty years, the classrooms there had extremely high ceilings. Dim yellow light fell from above like a thin smear of butter. Through the windows one could see leafless trees, their hard branches stabbing upward into the sky.

Only the two of us were in the classroom, sleepily memorizing dull theories of literary aesthetics. At one point, we went to the restroom together.

That night, when I returned to the dormitory, I suddenly discovered an extra ceramic pen holder in my backpack. It had no wrapping at all. It lay bare in one corner beside my glasses case. Across its body stretched a vividly colored painting: flat, rounded green leaves with clear veins, and above them a profusion of splendid flowers whose name I did not know—lively yet lonely, flourishing in silence.

“Maybe a ghost gave it to you,” Xiao An said, shivering as she spoke.

“Maybe,” I agreed, though I did not find it frightening. “If it really was a ghost, then it must have been a ghost with very good taste.”

Although I was shy then, at certain moments I was strangely brave. Later, when I learned that the painted design had been added by hand, I cherished it even more. Whoever had given it to me had put thought into it. I was grateful.

A week later, after the Marxist philosophy exam, Xiao An’s mind had been rearmed by materialism. She decided the ghost theory was absurd and came up with a new idea. “Maybe it was from someone who has a crush on you. He designed the pattern himself and painted it on a pure white pen holder as a confession. How romantic. Just wait—maybe he’ll appear in a few days.”

That rumor later collapsed on its own, because the person never appeared.

Ren Fei’s fingers were long and fine. Now they waved once before my eyes. I blinked. I did not know how many moments had passed before I came back to myself.

*The Cuckoo’s Egg* had been closed. On its cover, warmly printed, was an egg from which a baby was breaking free. Ren Fei held the tea I had poured for him. The liquid was a healthy brown, and it seemed to have gone cold.

“You finished?” I asked.

As I spoke, I took the book in puzzlement and opened it to the title page. He did not answer, only slowly drank the cold tea. My gaze fell upon the sketched flower pattern in the center of the page.

Many years later, when listening to old songs full of nostalgia, I would still sometimes think of this moment. In all twenty-seven years of my life, it was the only minute that went completely blank, as if I had briefly stepped out of the mortal world.

I looked at the drawing. The pattern was exactly the one from the pen holder I had loved most and broken.

It took all my strength to hold back my emotions long enough to ask, “That pen holder… was it from you?”

He turned the empty cup in his hand and did not look at me. After a long while, he said, “Perhaps.”

Another silence passed. Then he said, “At graduation, I remember asking where you planned to go, what you wanted to do. You said you were going to Australia to continue studying.” He raised his head and smiled faintly. “I never thought you would end up opening this inn.”

What remained of that afternoon, in the end, was an enormous silence.

When he picked up the teapot again to refill his cup, his wife, who taught at the Academy of Fine Arts, appeared at the courtyard gate carrying a huge easel. From afar she called, “Ren Fei, Qin Ran, I painted something pretty good. Do you want to come see?”

He set down the teapot and rose to meet his wife.

I propped my forehead on my hand and felt dampness gathering at the corners of my eyes. Lifting my head, I looked at the wisteria blooming overhead like a quiet blue fire and heard Mi Xue ask, puzzled, “Qin Ran, what’s wrong?”

I smiled and handed her *The Cuckoo’s Egg*. “Nothing. I’m just… saying goodbye to the past. This is for you.”

After a moment, I added, “I wish you happiness.”

Her delicate fingers opened the cover. “Wow,” she said. “What flower is this? It’s beautiful.”

Beside her, Ren Fei answered, “Iris.” He paused, then added, “At least, I meant to draw irises. Somehow they turned into this instead.”

So that was how it had been.

A few days later, I packed my bags and set out for Shangri-La. Neither too far nor too near, it was a place where I could remember some things and forget others. A journey is a new stretch of life. The world contains all kinds of regrets, and the regret of that moment was only the tip of the iceberg of the greater regret called living.

Perhaps I had always lived inside my attachment to the past. But time is a river of growth. Sometimes we feel it flows year after year with no difference at all, yet the water passing through this moment and the water passing through the next are never the same.

That was what I thought.

June third. Clear.

I sent Xiao An a postcard, shouldered my enormous backpack, and walked into Shangri-La.

END