Lu Mingfei was about to agree. He opened his mouth, but swallowed the words at the last moment. Because he thought of Chen Wenwen.
If he went to the United States, to Kassel College, he probably would never see Chen Wenwen again...
He suddenly remembered that sunny afternoon. Chen Wenwen had sat by the window, the white cotton dress she wore gently fluttering in the breeze as she lowered her head to read Duras's The Lover.
It was at that moment that Lu Mingfei felt the entire noisy classroom fall silent, as though all the spotlights in the world were shining on her. From then on, he had been the Literature Club's most faithful member for three years, sitting in the corner farthest from her at every event, yet one that let him see her profile perfectly.
He remembered the pale pink tint of her fingertips when she handed him the club application form, the soft, delicate lilt at the end of her sentences, and the Hello Kitty hairclip pinned in her hair.
Now he was leaving, going somewhere she would never reach. Those tiny fragments about her that he had treasured so carefully... the occasional smile she gave him, the faint scent of ink left in the books she lent him... would all be sealed away in a box of memories that would never be opened again.
A dull ache spread from his heart. It was not the kind of pain that tore him apart, but like something was being slowly drawn out of his body, leaving behind a void that could never be filled.
The thought of missing her late at night in Chicago, missing her in Kassel College classrooms, missing her in every careless moment made an inexplicable emotion erupt from his heart like a volcano.
No.