Liu Chang'an was quite surprised to receive a message from Zhu Juntang. It probably had something to do with him leaving his phone number with Fan Jian; he had been careless.
The girl who had looked as though she was about to jump from the roof of Baolong Center last night was Zhu Juntang. The rooftop of Baolong Center had 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.
After hearing Liu Chang'an talk at length about how he was immortal and unable to die, Zhu Juntang laughed and said, "I've never heard of anyone who could live forever and still be so miserable. Peng Zu lived for eight hundred years and had countless people offering him incense and paying him tribute. What about you? You must be thousands of years old by now, right? You spent most of that time in prison. Could anyone be more useless?"
Liu Chang'an still remembered how Zhu Juntang had narrowed her eyes when she said that last night, giving her an alluring air. Her smile had been beautiful.
"What's wrong with being in prison? A dynasty lasts no more than the blink of an eye to me. Once it falls and all the guards watching me have died, the prison will decay, and I'll naturally get out."
"You take it well." Zhu Juntang gave a cold laugh. "But you wouldn't understand. A real prison is one that shackles your heart, making you feel that the world is vast, yet there's nowhere to escape. Even breathing is hard. Do you know what that feels like? You're not watched over by prison guards, but by countless eyes, each with its own ulterior motives. Do you understand?"
"Oh. In that case, jump, then. That'll put an end to it."
"You... You think I'll jump just because you tell me to?" Of course, Zhu Juntang didn't actually jump. Instead, she backed away a few steps. The strong wind whipped her skirt up, revealing two slender, straight legs with skin as pale as cream, gleaming in the darkness. She glared at Liu Chang'an. "Are you even human? How can you tell someone to jump?"
"Women are truly unreasonable," Liu Chang'an remarked. Women had been much the same throughout the ages. No wonder someone had said that only women and petty men were difficult to deal with.
"Also, this is my rooftop! This whole building is mine. What are you doing here?" Zhu Juntang walked over with her hands behind her back and eyed Zhang An suspiciously. "Are you a thief?"
"I'm not a thief. I'm here to jump, just like you." Liu Chang'an looked at her.
"Then go on and jump!" Zhu Juntang mocked him. She didn't say that she was merely feeling stifled and had no desire to jump.
"All right."
As soon as Liu Chang'an said that, he jumped.
Liu Chang'an wasn't actually unable to die. He did this sort of thing because it benefited his body and memory. He hadn't expected it to leave a mark and prompt someone to seek him out, rather than simply becoming a moment of panic in a girl's dream. He had even received an invitation by text that was half literary and barely coherent.
Liu Chang'an deleted the message, then promptly added the sender's number to his blacklist.
It was a bit of a nuisance, but nothing worth worrying about.
At that moment, Liu Chang'an was already back home.
It was a very old apartment. Behind tall buildings, there were always narrow lanes; behind prosperity, there was loneliness. The government compound, which had made people envious several decades ago, had now lost all the fences and wide green belts around it. Only a few scattered buildings remained.
The ground floors of homes built in that era weren't garages, but storage rooms. Liu Chang'an rented out the main part of his apartment and lived in the storage room himself. His living conditions weren't great, but he had a stable income and could occasionally take odd jobs, like the one that had earned him two hundred yuan today.
According to his ID, Liu Chang'an was eighteen. Apart from his eyes and bearing seeming a little more mature, he wasn't much different from most boys his age. It was May, and summer in Junsha was scorching. The annual college entrance exams were just a month away.
It wasn't Sunday or a holiday. Liu Chang'an had simply skipped the morning's classes for a two-hundred-yuan odd job.
His homeroom teacher, Huang Shan, would probably nag him again, and his deskmate, An Nuan, would probably question him until she got to the bottom of things. Liu Chang'an carried a folding cane chair out of his storage room, set it in the shade of a tree, brewed a pot of tea, and prepared to spend the afternoon reclining there.
There was only one enormous Chinese parasol tree growing in the courtyard between the buildings, its canopy spreading wide enough to block out the sky. May was when its branches and leaves grew at a furious pace, casting cool shade across the ground.
A few old people were also preparing to spend a pleasant, comfortable afternoon much the same way. Few young people lived here; almost everyone was a long-retired senior.
Liu Chang'an glanced at Old Man Qian, who sat nearest to him. His hair had fallen out in wispy patches, age spots covered his face, and his wrinkles hung loose. He lay motionless with his eyes closed, as if he planned to spend all the time he had left in life this way.
Liu Chang'an turned back to the words in his book: "I'd clasp the flying immortal and roam with him, embrace the bright moon and live forever."
These were lines from Su Shi's Ode on the Red Cliffs. Another line by a writer who had written about the Three Kingdoms was also quite good: "The mighty Yangtze flows east, its waves sweeping away heroes. Right and wrong, success and failure vanish in a blink. The green hills remain, while sunsets come and go."
Su Shi had been dead for many years, leaving behind only a few written words. Yet for the innumerable specks of life in the endless river of time, that was already the most beautiful trace a life could leave behind.
Most people left no trace in this world at all, as if they had never been here.
Liu Chang'an didn't sleep all afternoon. He read about half of the Collected Works of Mr. Ba before hunger finally drove him to carry the folding chair and teapot back inside.
He was merely reminiscing about the past, not tired of his life now. On the contrary, reading old books while enjoying the present was a great pleasure for him.
His talk of being unable to die was, of course, a joke. The longer one lived, the less one wanted to die. This world, wonderful or ugly, held so many unknowns that he couldn't help wondering what the future had in store for him to witness.
He lightly patted the chopped scallions to release their aroma, then fried ginger and garlic in lard before pouring them over the scallions and greens. He lifted out the noodles after boiling them for three minutes; they were neither mushy nor undercooked, with just the right bite. Once tossed together in a bowl, they smelled wonderful. By the time Liu Chang'an finished eating, dusk had settled.
He went out for a walk at an unhurried pace. It was rush hour, and the streets were packed with people. As he made his way through the crowds, he saw strangers' faces—some indifferent, some stiff, some strained, some relaxed, some cheerful—and sometimes felt a little lonely.
So many familiar faces had disappeared forever.
When he reached the river, there was no white-haired fisherman or swaying covered boat on the quiet, flowing water. Even so, Liu Chang'an felt the poem was fitting.
"White-haired fishermen and woodcutters on the riverbanks, accustomed to seeing autumn moons and spring breezes, delighting in a jug of wine when old friends meet."
Who could he meet? Liu Chang'an sighed inwardly.
That was an ordinary day in Liu Chang'an's life.
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