After Wang Dong'er left, she returned to her bedroom.
She took out the quilt and pillow she had kept in the dormitory and lay down on them.
Wang Dong'er hugged the quilt to her chest as though embracing a giant furnace.
The quilt was deep blue, the same color as the curtains in Tian Chen's dormitory room. The pillowcase had faded slightly from washing, yet still carried a faint scent of osmanthus.
It was the scent of the matching shampoo she and Tian Chen used most often.
She remembered smelling it the first time she leaned against his shoulder, crisp and clean with a hint of sweetness.
She buried her whole face in the pillow and breathed deeply.
In that instant, a tiny current seemed to leap from the tip of her nose into her heart, then burst its way down her spine.
"Tian Chen..."
She called his name softly, her voice extraordinarily tender.
The quilt no longer held any warmth, but she stubbornly searched along its old folds anyway.
Half asleep, she seemed to hear the old soul guidance lamp in the dormitory flicker on with a sizzling buzz.
Tian Chen sat beneath the lamp, his profile gilded in pale gold, twirling an uncapped fountain pen in his hand.
He looked up and crooked a finger at her. "Kicked off your quilt again? Come here. I'll hold it down for you."
Wang Dong'er whimpered and reached out to grasp him, only to catch a handful of cold air.
The lamplight shattered into snowy radiance, and Tian Chen vanished.
She opened her eyes, her chest painfully tight.
Then she folded the pillow in half and hugged it tighter, as though trying to knead that lingering fragrance into her bones and blood.
"I'm not crying."
She protested to the empty room,