Time rewound, and memories flowed.
Beneath the blue-purple night sky, the sea breeze blew, and the moonlight shone clear and bright.
"So this is what the lighthouse looked like when it was working..."
Zhong Yi gazed at the light atop the lighthouse, its brilliant beam cutting through the mist over the sea, and murmured to himself.
In every memory that came later, this lighthouse stood abandoned, and the intense light stone at its summit never shone again.
At that moment, Gu Yun and Lin Xi were on a date on the bench beneath the lighthouse.
"Was that why you approached me back then?"
"Yes."
"And now?"
"Uh, only a very small part of it."
"..."
The light in Lin Xi's eyes dimmed again, and she remained silent for a long time.
Gu Yun hurried to explain, "That was... that was a very, very long time ago! I didn't understand anything back then... I don't think that way anymore."
With that, he looked at Lin Xi, his gaze sincere.
"Zhang Peng and Wang Qiao said I should be honest with you, and that includes this... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have made such a farce of our first meeting..."
When Gu Yun said "first," Lin Xi suddenly raised her head as though an electric shock had passed through her, and looked at him too.
Her gaze became unfathomably deep once more.
A brief silence settled over them.
"Damn it! Were we too late again!?"
Zhong Yi pressed a hand to his forehead and let out a long sigh.
He had grown accustomed to finding threads of clues in scattered words from a story full of people who spoke in riddles.
In the memory at the restaurant not long before, Zhang Peng had asked Gu Yun whether he had "told her about that."