Chapter 115: Moonlit Youth, Embrace You in My Arms

Go or stay.

It was a serious question.

The night was already deep.

Lin Shenlu thought for a while, then tapped several times on his phone.

Soon, a red packet containing two hundred yuan was sent to Hai Lan Jing.

Hai Lan Jing froze.

What was that supposed to mean?

She opened it.

Exactly two hundred.

Whale Blowing Bubbles: Why did you send me a red packet?

Girl Kidnapper: I was afraid you’d run out of liquor. Buy some more…

Whale Blowing Bubbles: You bastard…

Whale Blowing Bubbles: Go to hell!

Girl Kidnapper: I meant well, and you’ve mistaken my kindness for ill intent. [Red exclamation mark]

Lin Shenlu stared blankly. Had she blocked him?

What the hell…

…

Lin Shenlu smiled. Hai Lan Jing had not been drunk in the first place. And secondly… getting drunk had already happened to Lin Shenlu twice. After two times, the third simply lost its effect.

He had developed an immunity.

Taking out his phone, Lin Shenlu photographed the moon hanging among the treetops outside the window.

Then he posted to his social feed:

“The moon beneath the sea is the moon in the sky; the person before my eyes is the one within my heart.”

He did not know how many people would be able to see his post.

But those were the words in his heart.

He tossed and turned in bed.

Lin Shenlu could not sleep.

He picked up his phone and looked.

The post he had just made had received two likes.

One was from An Muxi, and the other was from Hai Lan Jing.

There were no comments.

Huh? Strange. Hadn’t Hai Lan Jing blocked him?

Lin Shenlu refreshed his feed.

Above his own post, Hai Lan Jing had just posted something new.

An Muxi had updated hers as well.

The moon in An Muxi’s photograph was the same as his—the moon shining through the old tree in the courtyard.

An Muxi had written:

“Moon, moon, you can shine upon the south, and you can shine upon the north. Shine upon him, and tell him that I miss him.”

Lin Shenlu pressed his lips together and left a reply beneath it:

“Moon, moon, you can speak to me, and you can speak to her. When you return, remember to tell her that I miss her too.”

Then he looked at Hai Lan Jing’s other post.

It was also a photograph of the moon.

The moon above Whale-Deer Inn was perfectly round and brilliantly bright.

It was the same moon hanging in the heavens, only it had not illuminated the same person at the same moment.

Hai Lan Jing had paired her moon with another passage:

“I know that moon is not mine. But for one moment, its light truly did fall upon me.”

Lin Shenlu fell silent.

He did not even know how he should comment on Hai Lan Jing’s words.

His fingers moved back and forth across the screen again and again.

At last, Lin Shenlu wrote:

“The moonlight is still the moonlight of the young, and the nine provinces are still washed in Li Bai’s frost…”

Lin Shenlu lay quietly with his eyes open, staring into the darkness of the room.

The mountains and rivers of a thousand ages had not changed their colors. Only the young man’s hair had turned white.

…

Daybreak came.

As usual, Lin Shenlu went out for his morning run.

He had just stepped outside, fully dressed, when he unexpectedly encountered An Muxi.

Lin Shenlu was rather curious.

Since when had even An Muxi become so determined to outdo herself?

“Is it really that strange?” An Muxi asked with a smile.

“Ever since I came back to Chengdu, I’ve gotten up every morning to run. I know this is when you wake up, so come on. Let’s run together.” As she spoke softly, An Muxi removed the cap from Lin Shenlu’s head and placed it on her own.

Lin Shenlu smiled as well and followed An Muxi as she began to run.

“Last night, the moon told me that you missed me?” Lin Shenlu asked as he ran beside her.

“No, no, no. What I said to the moon… it delivered the message to the wrong person…” An Muxi refused to admit it.

…

Their morning-running route was the same as always.

Lin Shenlu had run along this road countless times.

During the days he had spent in Lishui, he had run alone, run with Su Bao’er, run with Hai Lan Jing, and now run with An Muxi.

Every morning, he met the distant mountains and their heavy mist, watching fog and clouds merge into a single color as they streamed down from the mountaintops and spread over layer upon layer of terraced fields.

That was Lin Shenlu’s favorite part of every day.

Running through this place with An Muxi this time, however, made the feeling entirely different.

“Are you really going to leave?” An Muxi asked as she rested on a tree stump beside the road.

She did not run in the mornings nearly as often as Lin Shenlu, and before long she was already beginning to run out of strength.

Lin Shenlu nodded.

“I’ve been in Lishui for a long time. I’ve finished everything I came here to do, and I have no regrets left. If I stay any longer, I’ll grow tired of it. It’s time to leave,” Lin Shenlu said softly.

An Muxi nodded as well.

“Come on. Let’s go say goodbye to Whale. I’ll go with you.” An Muxi rose and gently took Lin Shenlu’s hand.

Lin Shenlu was stunned. Although he had taken An Muxi’s hand countless times over the years, this was the first time she had reached out and taken his hand of her own accord.

The feeling was completely different.

Lin Shenlu looked at An Muxi, unused to it.

“What? It’s not as if we’ve never held hands before. What is that expression?” An Muxi asked with a smile.

“Muxi, hug me. Let me feel that this is real,” Lin Shenlu said softly as he stepped closer.

An Muxi nodded tenderly. After all these years, Lin Shenlu was the only person to whom she had ever shown such tenderness.

She gently drew him into her arms and rested her chin on his shoulder. Lin Shenlu buried his face in her soft hair.

They both breathed deeply, taking in each other’s familiar scent.

Lin Shenlu still smelled of Bvlgari’s Darjeeling Tea.

An Muxi, meanwhile, had changed to Givenchy’s L’Interdit Eau de Parfum.

The moment felt both familiar and strange.

An Muxi gently stroked the back of Lin Shenlu’s head.

“Come on, Little Deer,” she said.

Lin Shenlu nodded.

At last, he felt that this was real.

At that moment, he had An Muxi.

And this time, Lin Shenlu did not ask whether she wanted to be his girlfriend.

Perhaps, at this moment, it no longer mattered.

The two of them slowly made their way toward the inn.

Lin Shenlu had told An Muxi before that he had discovered the old house during his first morning run.

Later, he had recommended it to Hai Lan Jing, who turned it into an inn.

An Muxi was quite interested in such a distinctive place.

Of course, if Lin Shenlu had not already had somewhere to stay, she might truly have booked a room there.

The liveliness of the previous day had vanished without a trace.

That morning, everything at the inn seemed exceptionally quiet.

It was a wonderful place to stay. Every morning, one could watch the sea of clouds surge and the dense mist coil through the mountains.

Opening the window offered an immediate taste of the solitude deep in the mountains.

It was the joy of having time entirely to oneself.

Opening an inn in such a place was truly something unique.

Lin Shenlu led An Muxi into the inn.

All the excellent paintings received the previous day had been hung on the walls by Hai Lan Jing.

The long corridor extending from the entrance was covered with paintings.

It looked almost like an art gallery.

The works displayed there represented professional and amateur artists of every generation—old, middle-aged, and young.

Not far away, Hai Lan Jing stood clutching a bottle of liquor, staring fixedly at the two people entering hand in hand.