Chapter 093: Happy Birthday

At eleven o’clock at night, the coastal road was brushed by cool sea breezes. The air was crisp and refreshing.

The dim streetlamps cast long shadows, as though they meant to stretch all the way to the ends of the earth. Along the roadside, the branches of ginkgo trees swayed recklessly in the wind, graceful and light.

On the empty street, a few luxury cars occasionally passed by on their way to the famous villa district at the end of the street.

A red Flying Pigeon bicycle carried two young people forward through the thin mist, riding with the wind.

Because Lin Yu was pedaling slowly, the bicycle only let out a soft creak every second or two.

“Are you tired?” Yang Zhilin asked in a low voice, her loose hair streaming in the wind. She felt a little heavy to herself.

They were still a short distance from the sea. If Lin Yu was tired, the two of them could simply walk the rest of the way.

“An old saying goes: the plump can be elegant, the slender can be lovely. You’re just like Zhao Feiyan, all grace and no weight. So I’m not tired,” Lin Yu said with a smile, eyes fixed ahead.

Then, suddenly feeling like smoking, he acted on the impulse at once, letting go of the handlebars, taking out a cigarette, and preparing to light it.

That difficult maneuver happened to be seen by Yang Zhilin, whose long frame had just leaned over to look. The usually calm girl’s face went faintly pale, as though startled.

Yet she said nothing. She only felt her heart begin to race, the pounding in her chest quickening a little.

“Don’t smoke. Every cigarette is just burning your own life away,” she said after a moment, once the shock had eased from her a little.

Lin Yu had only managed a few satisfying puffs when he heard her reminder. Smiling, he flicked the cigarette butt straight toward the trash bin by the roadside.

This time, it went in on the first try. That was absolutely not because he had mastered the physics of uniform motion; it was sheer luck. Still, it made Lin Yu feel that this life of his had truly turned its fortune around, and that compared with his previous life, things were much better now.

“Could you go a little faster? I feel like I’m riding in an old carriage,” Yang Zhilin complained softly from the seat while Lin Yu was lost in thought.

“The girl on the back seat is too precious. I’m afraid I’ll jostle her loose,” Lin Yu replied with a smile, then sped up into the wind.

Feeling the sea breeze rushing past him, Lin Yu once again thought of that Xingchuan event with Zhou Xingchi, and a faint warmth stirred in his heart.

“When I was a child, there were many jasmine blossoms by the door, releasing a delicate fragrance... In that rainy season of my seventeenth year, when I look back on the bits and pieces of childhood, I find that growing up has slowly come near...”

As they neared the sea, Yang Zhilin, pure and elegant as a lotus, softly hummed Lin Zhiying’s “The Rainy Season of My Seventeenth Year.”

She did not sing especially well, and from time to time she drifted off-key, but her feeling was sincere. As she sang, a faint mist gathered in her eyes.

Even Lin Yu listened with deep emotion, a clear, gentle sadness rising within him.

Soon they reached the shore. Parked by the roadside, the bicycle was left behind as the two of them walked toward the surging sea.

Looking out at this rare and magnificent expanse, Yang Zhilin, who was usually so quiet, suddenly ran a few steps ahead onto the wet sand, spread her arms, and called out with all her might, “Then doesn’t this count as facing the sea, with spring blossoms in full bloom!”

What answered her was the cold sea wind, along with a few not-quite-loud echoes.

Lin Yu felt that something about Yang Zhilin tonight was a little unusual. He stood quietly behind her, watching in silence, still as a statue.

At this hour of midnight, coming to the seaside on such a whim should have seemed foolish.

And yet the girl’s serene, lovely back and her long hair dancing in the wind easily made him think of a sacred moonlit goddess.

Some things are eternal because they are meant to endure; others are destined to vanish. Time is everlasting, while we are only tiny flecks within it, letting time drip and fill a cup of longing, carrying our memories far away with it.

But Lin Yu felt that the figure standing by the sea tonight, and everything that happened tonight, would surely remain forever in his mind.

At that moment, Yang Zhilin lifted a hand to tidy her three thousand dark strands as they danced in the evening breeze, and murmured softly, “Who kissed my eyes and covered half my wandering years? Who brushed my face and comforted half my sorrow? Who took my heart in hand and melted half my frost? Who steadied my shoulders and drove away the silence of my whole life? Who called to my heart and veiled all the oppression of my days...”

At that instant, Lin Yu could not have said what he felt. Perhaps it was a sudden flutter of the heart, perhaps only the faint beginning of affection.

But when he thought of taking off his jacket to give the girl some warmth, Qi Yue came to mind, and he did nothing. After all, the world of the heart is too small to hold three people.

Night deepened, the cold wind rose, and only the moonlight remained unchanged, accompanying the girl as she stood alone in the world and gazed quietly at the sea. For a moment, one might even imagine that the waves of the vast ocean would endure forever, or that one had stepped into a realm of tranquil, unbidden calm.

After a long while, Yang Zhilin turned back with a faint smile and asked, “Why are you standing so far away from me?”

Lin Yu gave a slightly awkward smile, took two steps forward, and stood beside her, both of them gazing at the distant line of the sea, though in truth they could not see very far.

“Did you see anything?” After a while of silence, the girl asked in a very natural tone.

“Only that the seawater is a little cloudy. About a few dozen meters out, there seems to be a reef,” Lin Yu answered casually, the words coming before he had thought them through, a purely instinctive response.

“But I saw my own heart speaking,” Yang Zhilin said. Then she drew a deep breath.

“How should I understand that?” Lin Yu asked, a little uneasy. He had begun to suspect, just a little, that she might have some fondness for him.

Yang Zhilin did not answer directly. Instead, she murmured softly, “At first meeting you, it is like an old friend returning.”

Hearing that, something stirred in Lin Yu’s chest. He thought of a text message.

The one whose content had been, “May you be well.”

Then came a stretch of silent stillness. The two of them simply watched the sea and listened to it.

“Are you cold?” Lin Yu was the first to break the silence. After being battered by the sea wind for so long, even he was beginning to feel it.

“Today is the very last day of my seventeenth year. That’s why I wanted to be a little wild,” Yang Zhilin said, her usual coolness replaced by a trace of languid ease.

“So that’s it! Why didn’t you say so sooner? I could have prepared a birthday present,” Lin Yu said, startled. Only then did he understand why the girl tonight was so unlike her usual self. So this was the last night before she became an adult.

“Right now, I’m very happy,” the girl said again, seemingly at random.

“So am I.” Lin Yu wanted to say more, but once he opened his mouth, those were the only simple words he could manage.

“That’s good.” Yang Zhilin turned her head and looked at him with a smile.

It was the first time in her life that such a brilliant smile had bloomed on her face, carrying within its chill a soft warmth, and within that warmth a faint, lingering heat.

Feeling his heartbeat quicken, Lin Yu could only glance at his watch to hide his restlessness.

But that movement instantly disappointed the girl, whose perception was keen. She asked, “It’s getting late. Do you want to go back?”

“No, it’s almost twelve. I just wanted to be the first to congratulate you on becoming an adult. To be the first to say it: happy birthday,” Lin Yu said softly.

At that moment, Yang Zhilin, who had always kept joy and sorrow from showing on her face, burst into tears.