Chapter 43

*The Moon Runs to Me*
Qin Sang didn’t dare go straight home. She stood outside for a while longer before going in. She’d thought that at this hour, after taking out the trash, Wen Shuyu would have gone back to her room to rest.
Who knew that when she carefully pushed the door open, the living room lights were still on. Wen Shuyu was sitting on the sofa watching TV. Without turning her head, she said, “Sang-sang, come here.”
Qin Sang froze for a second, then gave an awkward laugh. “Mom, you’re still up?”
“Mm.” Wen Shuyu patted the sofa. “Come sit with me for a bit.”
Qin could only resign herself, walking over to sit beside her. What she hadn’t expected was that Wen Shuyu was watching one of her old movies.
After she sat down, Wen Shuyu didn’t say anything.
Qin was absentminded, her gaze drifting. She stole glances at Wen Shuyu, who seemed completely absorbed in the film, showing no sign of wanting to talk. It felt like she’d only called her over to watch a movie.
Qin pressed her lips together, a little nervous. It felt like being back in high school and getting caught “dating” by a parent—sitting on pins and needles, heart pounding, even though she hadn’t done anything out of line.
Her thoughts ran wild. In the end she couldn’t hold it in. “Mom, you don’t have anything you want to ask me?”
“Ask?” Wen Shuyu finally shifted her gaze to her face. Seeing her tangled expression, she laughed. “What should I ask? You’re not a teenager anymore. Dating is normal. Do you expect your mother to meddle in everything?”
“It’s him, isn’t it?” Wen Shuyu suddenly said.
Qin paused, not quite understanding.
Wen Shuyu sighed. “You’ve never been good at hiding things from me. You might fool other people, but you can’t fool me. Do you remember? Back in your last year of high school, your father heard that Nanshan Temple in Jingcheng was very effective—especially for studies and the future. So on the day school let out before the entrance exam, he and I picked you up and took a detour up there to draw a lot for you.”
She remembered. That was before everything happened to Qin Dahai. An uncle in Jingcheng had told him Nanshan Temple was very “spiritual.” Many parents of seniors had lit Wenchang lamps there and offered incense, hoping to secure a bright future for their children.
Qin Dahai had kept telling her there was nothing to worry about—even if she didn’t do well, it wasn’t the end of the world. But as a parent, he was more nervous than she was. For a child from an ordinary family, the college entrance exam was the only real chance to change fate. If you could do well, who would willingly fall to the bottom?
At that time, Qin Sang’s grades had stabilized. Her second and third mock exams had been reasonably good—stable performance. She still couldn’t beat the top students in the experimental class, but she was doing well enough to be safely admitted to a university in the capital, though with limits on her major and school. She couldn’t pick the hottest majors, and the capital schools she could choose were few.
She remembered that when Qin Dahai asked where she wanted to go, she blurted out, “The capital,” without thinking.
“Why the capital?” he’d asked.
With her grades, it didn’t make such a big difference where she went. In fact, staying local might have been better, though the local majors ranked lower.
She answered vaguely, “I grew up in Ningjiang. The biggest world I’ve seen is Jingcheng. I heard the capital’s prosperity is different from the south’s. I heard winter comes early there, and it snows every year. Dad, I want to see a different world. I want to see snow.”
For a child from the south, the biggest obsession was seeing a real heavy snowfall.
Later, she did go to the capital—but her whole state of mind changed, and Qin Dahai died.
She found that the capital really did get winter early and snow every year—but that also brought unbearable cold and transportation troubles. The falling snow and spreading drifts were disasters for ordinary people.
In her first year there, a snowstorm paralyzed the city’s transport network. She didn’t make it home as planned. Instead, she spent days camped out in the train station. The first couple nights she’d slept in the main hall; when most travelers had left, she slept in the underground passage nearby, making do for a few nights.
Snow-watching sounded refined. But for someone hungry, cold, and broke, the endless snow and wind were just a nightmare.
All that was long past. Thinking about it now didn’t feel quite so unbearable. She laughed quietly. “I remember. The lot I drew wasn’t good. Dad said it was all feudal superstition and not to believe it.”
She’d never had much luck. From childhood on, she’d never even won a consolation prize. So drawing a “bad” lot on top of that didn’t come as a surprise.
“At the end of the mountains and rivers, there seems to be no road—but in the deep shade of willows and bright flowers, another village appears.”
Looking back now, she didn’t know whether to call it accurate, or to say that the words had, in shining on reality, pushed her off the “set” track of her life onto a road she’d never imagined.
Back then, she’d had no great ambitions, no lofty life goals. The clearest road she could see was simply that she wanted to go to the capital.
Yes, she truly longed for the capital. Its prosperity was different from Ningjiang’s. In winter, when the snow came, the empty stillness felt like it could wash her soul clean.
And on the other hand… it was because she liked Xie Yuncheng.
She knew this kind of liking would probably end without a word. But she always thought that even if she couldn’t walk beside him, it would be enough to be a passerby—at least they’d be in the same city, living under the same sky, breathing the same air.
Which of those two thoughts weighed more—even she couldn’t say. She only knew that before she turned eighteen, she’d been full of longing for the future.
She wanted to apply to Capital Normal University—majoring in archaeology, a rather niche field. With her scores, she could likely get in. After graduating, she could either become a teacher or a field archaeologist: squatting in pits year after year, digging up the past.
Maybe…
No good comes from being ruled by romance. On the day she turned eighteen, her world had been turned upside down.
But she didn’t hate or blame anyone. She only felt it was a miracle she’d managed to crawl out from that nightmare at all.
Wen Shuyu smiled. “After we drew the lot, on the way home you seemed down and cried in secret. Your father panicked—he thought it was because the fortune was bad. Was it?”
No.
Qin stayed silent. Back then, she’d cried mostly because of the parting that was coming. She knew that after graduation, everyone would go their own way. That distant glimpse might be the last time.
She hadn’t been able to stop crying.
“Sang-sang, I owe you an apology too,” Wen Shuyu said. “That day when you went to hang your wish plaque… I peeked at what you wrote.”
Her voice was full of guilt. Qin was stunned.
She remembered that she’d written a lot on that plaque. Besides wishing for her own future, there had been Xie Yuncheng.
At the time, she’d written: *“I hope I can meet Classmate Xie again in the capital.”*
It was a simple, beautiful wish—that she’d get into a capital university as hoped, and have a chance to see him there. Even if only for a fleeting pass in the crowd.
“You were about to take the exam,” Wen went on. “I couldn’t bring myself to ask. And later…”
She paused. “Later too many things happened. I forgot I should have been paying attention to you. You know your father and I never asked much of you. We only wanted you to be happy.”
If nothing had happened to Qin Dahai, once the exam was over she would’ve asked who that ‘Classmate Xie’ was. If she’d known her daughter liked someone, she would have encouraged her to go after her own happiness. Liking someone isn’t a mistake, and it hadn’t delayed her life. As parents, why would they object?
“At your uncle’s welcome banquet,” Wen said, “I only thought that surname Xie sounded familiar. I didn’t think much of it. Then your aunt kicked up such a fuss, and I forgot to ask.”
She stopped again. “He’s that ‘Classmate Xie,’ isn’t he?”
If she hadn’t seen Xie Yuncheng appear at their front door tonight, she might’ve missed it again. The car had been parked far away without its lights on, but she’d guessed that Qin was in the car too—that was the only reason she’d helped him smooth things over with Granny Sun.
Thinking of everything her daughter had done and felt recently, she suddenly remembered that old incident. So that was it. He was the “Classmate Xie” her daughter had always kept in her heart.
Qin hadn’t expected her mother to have known her feelings that early.
She paused, then admitted with a nod. “Mm. It’s him.”
“That’s wonderful.” Wen Shuyu’s gaze was gentle, equal parts gratified and pained. “Sang-sang, do you know how long a lifetime is? People you brush past—you might never know them; you might cross paths once or twice; but partings are always more common than reunions. Meeting an old acquaintance again is very hard.”
“Getting what you once wished for is even harder. So…”
“Being able to be with the person you once liked is a very lucky thing,” she said softly. “I really am happy for you.”
Happy that what her daughter had once longed for and failed to obtain… had finally answered.
How could she not see it clearly? Her daughter was her daughter. She knew very well that the Xie child came from an exceptional family, and he himself was excellent. Compared to them, it was the difference between heaven and earth. Liking someone like that took real courage.
…
Later, Wen Shuyu grew tired and went to bed. Qin returned to her room alone. After lying there for a while, she heard her phone chime with a new message.
[X: Are you asleep?]
Qin held the phone and typed.
[No. I just came back to my room.]
[It’s your fault.]
She couldn’t resist complaining.
[Talking nonsense in front of my mom, making her think I’m a scumbag keeping you on the hook like a fish.]
It wasn’t that serious, of course. Before heading to bed, Wen Shuyu had only said casually, “Sang-sang, I’m old. I don’t quite understand how you young people handle relationships these days. If you want to test that boy, I won’t stop you—but we can’t copy irresponsible behavior.”
Qin had been mortified, stammering, “I didn’t mean it like that.”
The more she thought about it, the more riled she got, venting furiously in a few lines.
[And you still want to go from intern to full-time? (angry)]
[Points deducted! A big deduction! (frantic) (frantic) (death-smile)]
She had barely sent the messages when her phone rang.
Qin snapped, “What now?”
“Sang-sang.” His voice was low and magnetic on the line, a little hoarse. “Open the window.”
She froze, then looked toward the lattice window, a feeling rising unbidden.
She shot up and ran to open it. The old hinges creaked loudly as they moved.
Outside, his car was still there. He hadn’t left.
He leaned against the car, quietly looking up at her. The moon, too, had crept out. Its light fell on him like a thin wash of silver.
“You…” Qin’s throat tightened. “You never left?”
Surely not. She’d sat in the living room with Wen Shuyu through an entire movie—at least an hour. And he’d been here the whole time?
“Mm.” His eyes were clear and dark. His tone was calm. “I wanted to see you. I couldn’t bear to leave.”
He had watched her go home—her small figure moving through the gaps between floors. With each step on the stairs, another light came on, as if the sound of footsteps in the still night wasn’t on the steps but on his heart.
He’d waited downstairs until that little light came on, the faint yellow glow spilling through the glass. Among thousands of lights, this tiny one was the bond he couldn’t cut.
“Sang-sang.”
Ever since he’d made his feelings clear, he seemed especially fond of calling her that.
Qin’s fingers toyed with the window latch unconsciously. A rush of warmth spread through her chest, leaving her at a loss. She answered softly, “Mm?”
Xie Yuncheng’s voice carried a smile; his gaze was gentler than the moonlight. “Can I have the points back now?”