Embracing the Bright Moon

Liu Chang'an was quite surprised to receive a text message from Zhu Juntang. It likely had something to do with him leaving his phone number for Fan Jian; that was an oversight on his part.

It turned out that the young girl standing on the roof of Baolong Center last night, looking as if she were about to commit suicide, was named Zhu Juntang. The roof of Baolong Center featured a rainwater collection system, a sky garden, and a helipad.

Liu Chang'an and Zhu Juntang had met on the helipad and chatted for a while.

Hearing Liu Chang'an speak eloquently about his own immortality and his inability to find death, Zhu Juntang laughed and said, "I've never heard of an immortal who lives so miserably. Take Peng Zu, for example; he lived to be eight hundred and had countless offerings and worship. And you? You've been around for thousands of years, yet you've spent most of that time in prison. Is there anyone more useless than you?"

Liu Chang'an still remembered how Zhu Juntang's eyes had narrowed when she said that last night; she looked quite charming, and her smile was beautiful.

"What's wrong with being in prison? To me, a dynasty is nothing more than a white horse passing a crack in the wall. Once the dynasty falls, the guards watching me die off, and the prison rots away, I naturally walk out."

"You're quite open-minded about it." Zhu Juntang sneered. "But you wouldn't understand. A true prison is one that binds your heart, making the world feel vast yet leaving you nowhere to escape, where even breathing becomes difficult. Do you know that feeling? The ones guarding you aren't jailers, but countless gazes filled with ulterior motives. Do you know that?"

"Oh, in that case, you should just jump. That would end it all."

"You... you're telling me to jump just because I said that!" Upon hearing this, Zhu Juntang naturally didn't actually jump. Instead, she took a few steps back. The strong wind whipped her skirt, revealing two straight, slender calves with skin like curdled milk, glowing with a crystalline luster in the darkness. Zhu Juntang glared at Liu Chang'an: "Are you even human? How could you encourage someone to jump?"

"Women are truly incomprehensible." Liu Chang'an felt a sense of lament. From ancient times to the present, women had always been this way. No wonder that man once said that only women and small-minded men are difficult to deal with.

"Also, this is the roof of my building! This entire building belongs to me. What are you doing here?" Zhu Juntang walked over, hands behind her back, looking at him suspiciously. "Are you a thief?"

"I'm not a thief. Like you, I'm just here to jump off the building," Liu Chang'an said, looking at her.

"Then go ahead and jump!" Zhu Juntang mocked. She didn't mention that she was just feeling stifled and had no real desire to jump.

"Fine."

As soon as Liu Chang'an finished speaking, he jumped.

Liu Chang'an was certainly not seeking death; he simply did such things because they had certain benefits for his body and memory. He hadn't expected that what he thought would be nothing more than a fleeting, panicked dream for the girl would leave a trace, leading her to track him down and send a semi-literate, barely coherent invitation via text.

Liu Chang'an deleted the message and cleanly added the sender's phone number to his blacklist.

It was a bit of a nuisance, but nothing worth worrying about.

At this moment, Liu Chang'an had already returned home.

This was a very old building. Behind high-rises, there are always small alleys; behind prosperity, there is hidden loneliness. The government compound, which had been the envy of many decades ago, had since had its perimeter fences and wide green belts torn down, leaving only a few scattered buildings.

In houses from that era, the ground floor wasn't a garage, but a storage room. Liu Chang'an rented out his own apartment and lived in the storage room himself. While the living conditions weren't great, he had a stable income and occasionally picked up odd jobs, such as the two hundred yuan he earned today.

On his ID card, eighteen-year-old Liu Chang'an didn't look much different from most boys his age, save for a slightly more mature gaze and temperament. It was May, and the summer in Junsha was scorching; he would be taking the annual college entrance exam next month.

Today wasn't a Sunday or a holiday; Liu Chang'an had simply skipped a morning of classes for a two-hundred-yuan odd job.

He would likely be nagged by his homeroom teacher, Huang Shan, and questioned by his desk mate, An Nuan. Liu Chang'an moved his folding rattan chair out of his storage room and placed it under the shade of a tree, brewed a pot of tea, and prepared to lie down for the afternoon.

In the courtyard between the buildings, there was only this one large Chinese parasol tree that grew to block out the sky. May was the time when its branches and leaves were growing wildly, casting a cool shade over the ground.

Besides Liu Chang'an, several elderly people were also in similar postures, preparing to spend a cozy and comfortable afternoon. Very few young people lived here; it was mostly retired old men and women.

He glanced sideways at Old Man Qian nearby. His hair had fallen out in patches, his face was covered in age spots, and his skin hung loose and wrinkled. He sat with his eyes closed, motionless, as if he intended to spend the rest of his life lying just like that.

Liu Chang'an turned his head and looked at the lines in his book: "To roam with the flying immortals, to embrace the bright moon and last forever."

These were lines from Su Shi's Ode to the Red Cliff. The lines written by another person who wrote about the Three Kingdoms were also quite good: "The rolling Yangtze flows east, its waves washing away all heroes. Right and wrong, success and failure, all turn to nothing in a glance. The green mountains remain, as the sunset glows time and again."

Su Shi had been dead for many years, leaving behind only some writings. Yet, for the countless ants in the infinite flow of time, this was already the most beautiful trace a life could leave behind.

One must realize that the vast majority of people leave no trace in this world at all, as if they had never been here.

For the entire afternoon, Liu Chang'an didn't sleep. Instead, he read half of the Collected Works of Mr. Ba. Feeling hungry, he finally moved his folding chair and teapot back inside.

He simply cherished the past and remembered the ancients, yet he was not weary of his current life. On the contrary, reading ancient books while enjoying his present life made him feel very content.

His inability to find death was, of course, just a joke. The longer one lives, the less one wants to die. In this beautiful or ugly human world, there are ultimately too many unknowns that make him curious about what the future holds for him to observe.

With a light tap, he crushed the green onions to release their fragrance, fried the ginger and garlic in lard, and poured it over the onions and greens. He scooped out the noodles he had boiled for three minutes—neither mushy nor raw, the texture just right. Mixing the bowl, the aroma filled the air. By the time Liu Chang'an finished eating, the sky had already begun to darken.

He went out for a walk. Liu Chang'an's pace was neither fast nor slow. It was the peak of the evening rush hour, and the streets were bustling with people. Passing through the crowd, looking at the faces of strangers—some indifferent, some rigid, some strained, some relaxed, some joyful—Liu Chang'an occasionally felt a sense of loneliness.

Because too many familiar faces were no longer to be seen.

Arriving at the riverbank, there were no white-haired fishermen or drifting covered boats in the quietly flowing water, yet Liu Chang'an still felt that poem was fitting.

"A white-haired fisherman and woodcutter on the river islet, accustomed to watching the autumn moon and spring breeze, meeting happily over a pot of boiled wine."

Who could he meet? Liu Chang'an sighed to himself.

This was just another unremarkable day for Liu Chang'an.