Chu Yilan had a "secret base."
Such a slightly childish description did not really suit him, but when the flower garden was being expanded, Shen Lian noticed that the glass walls rising on all four sides extended halfway underground and casually told Chu Yilan, "A basement would be nice, too."
As everyone knew, Chu Yilan carefully analyzed and considered anything that came out of Shen Lian's mouth.
And so the basement was built.
But Teacher Shen was impossibly busy. The one thing he never forgot was sending Chu Yilan flowers; the basement had slipped his mind.
The flowers wilted too quickly, though, and after discovering white roots on one occasion, Chu Yilan ventured in a new direction-
That was how the three tiers of red and pink potted roses by the window came to be.
They flourished.
It was as though their vigorous love, which had burned for years and needed no words between them, had become rich nourishment for the flowers.
Chu Yilan also carefully stored the colorful origami Shen Lian had given him as a joke in exquisite boxes, taking them out to look at from time to time.
Little by little, things accumulated. By the time Shen Lian noticed, Chu Yilan had already moved plenty of things into the basement.
A custom-made cabinet displayed the preserved flowers he had decided to make on a whim, every single one selected from gifts Shen Lian had sent him.
There was a bed by the window, covered with a pale yellow blanket. Sometimes, when Shen Lian was too busy to come home, Chu Yilan sat in this little space like a dragon guarding his treasures, admiring his collection piece by piece, never tiring of it no matter how many times he looked.
And just like that, the loneliness of his