Maple Leaves Turned Red

It was just that Xu Zizhen could see the man's bloodshot eyes through the gaps between his fingers as he covered his face.

"Uncle—"

Xu Zizhen hesitated, unsure what he should say at a time like this.

"Heh. Your great-grandmother already told me, you know."

Uncle Xu seemed not to hear Xu Zizhen at all. He went on talking to himself. "She said the bond between us had run its course, and told me not to keep forcing it."

"I wouldn't listen. I insisted on holding on for all these years."

"And in the end..."

He lowered his head and closed his eyes slightly. His voice was faint, touched by a tremor so slight it was almost imperceptible. "Was it all just a one-man show?"

His voice had been so low that only Uncle Xu himself and Xiao Xiao had heard him.

"No."

Xiao Xiao looked at the middle-aged man, who still had his head lowered but had clearly stiffened. "It never left, either."

"It's been here all along."

"Every time you waited, it was by your side."

"It's not that it didn't want to come out and see you."

"It's that even when it came out, you couldn't see it."

At that, Uncle Xu couldn't help raising his head. His eyes were bloodshot as he looked at Xiao Xiao.

"Is that true?"

Had she missed him just as much as he had missed her?

Had she stayed away not by choice, but because she had no other option?

So all his devotion had been answered after all?

It hadn't all been in his imagination?

"Yes."

Xiao Xiao nodded.

"It's here? It's right here in this maple tree?"

Uncle Xu looked up at the thick canopy of maple leaves.

Through a gap in