You stand in a parallel world beyond my reach, while the years look back.
On the slanting branches hang shattered dreams, broken dreams.
I stand exactly where you stand, breathing in my fictional past, reminiscing about my fictional story.
Sorrow or happiness? Listening to the theme song of Ming Ji, this very character qing from the song title that everyone asks me about.
So be it, a single character qing has run through the beginning and end of so many stories &……
Perhaps, even after adding who knows how many solvents, the traces of time still cannot be dissolved away.
I can only, almost tragically, lose myself in those dazed eyes—lost, bewildered, blurred &……
"A butterfly cannot fly across the sea, because there is no longer any expectation on the other shore."
I cannot cross the sea, because I do not know whether the other shore is worth expecting.
Clutching your promise in my hands, those weaknesses too hard to speak of only make me more and more cowardly.
I only wanted to hide until you grew anxious; only wanted to disappear until your heart began to panic.
These immature actions were only meant to prove a proposition that could never be proven in the first place.
Just as I can never clearly know what everything would have been like if I had chosen differently back then &……
That entire month of July 2010 amounted to only 749 text messages after all.
And the chat records that began on February 14, 2011 came to only fifty-seven pages after all.
After that, it returned to indifference, one sentence missed for every one spoken, with joy or sorrow...
I wonder, when will there be a snowfall to cover those deep and shallow footprints I have left behind?
I wonder, after taking so many wrong turns, when will I finally be able to return to the right path?
Cold water leaves its traces; the Buddha said: "Jie Xia."
The years change again and again, yet I still cannot say a single "farewell."
The Iliad says: "When young Dawn with her rosy fingers bowed down."
And yet I keep thinking about when I will be able to say, like in The Kite Runner: "For you, a thousand times over."
Before, I could not find anyone; later, I woke up, because...
I am no longer that child who, after reading in a comprehension passage that sweets can make people happy, desperately ate White Rabbit candy,
nor am I still that child who believed melting snow made a wondrous sound.
Listening to sorrowful songs, watching you log in and out again and again, it seems there is nothing left to say.
I should not wait for you to speak first; I should only hope that you can take good care of yourself &……
The only thing rotting into disaster is my own shattered state of mind.
Perhaps one day I will understand what the sky is sighing about.
I think back to 5 Centimeters per Second, to Children Who Chase Lost Voices that I watched back then;
I think back to Castle in the Sky, to The Girl Who Leapt Through Time that I watched back then;
Those stories I prepared for you came to a calm end behind a bleak smile,
I want to say that I am very composed, but my surging emotions can see no warm light, can hear no piercing cries &……
The movie The Post-80s that we watched together that year—now I have completely forgotten the plot,
but I still remember one sentence you said, two gestures, three expressions.
I miss life as it was then, even though your heart was filled entirely with days that were all about him.
I do not mind. I do not overthink. I do not care. As long as you are joyful and happy.
But please, every time you go out to have fun, come home a little earlier—your family will worry &……
I remember telling myself a very, very long time ago, "I've grown up."
I remember telling myself a very, very long time ago, "Starting tomorrow, be a happy person."
I remember telling everyone a very, very long time ago, "Those who used to look down on me, just wait and see."
I have always had a thought: to visit a psychiatric hospital. Just like what was said in Veronika Decides to Die, the book someone gave me.
I remember a very, very long time ago Wang Lingling slapped my shoulder hard and said, "Can your shoulders bear it?"
I do not know. Because I do not know, I want even less to know.
I do not know whether you and I are still those children who were so easily sentimental,
but I hope not, because I have grown up!
Goodbye, past. Goodbye, once. Goodbye, youth &……
In the world outside, flowers have begun to fall like snow.
-2012-04-03

Haha, a little self-mockery.
Those innocent days really do seem very far away now.
I do not know whether this kind of change is good or bad.
Only now, I write code while thinking of other things.
At six in the morning, I watch the ancient sunlight slowly spread, while lively dust particles soak through the air.
I want to say that sunlight itself is impure, isn't it?
Just like the cherry blossoms outside the window, the speed at which they fall surely is not five centimeters per second, isn't it?
But then, why deliberately dwell in that deliberately manufactured poetic mood?
More and more, I feel that I have become rational.
More and more, I feel that pain and enjoyment were always two things that complement each other.
Those sorrows too hard to speak of—since they are sorrow, then do not speak them aloud.
Because no one is listening.
Just like those past days of coding day and night to meet the DDL,
I simply did not want to let down my teammates, nor did I want to let down myself.
In an empty room with no one there, the only pleasure is on the stairs, going up and then down again.
Round and round; when tired, I continue writing code.
Or I look at the traffic outside the window, trying hard to make out every person's expression, imagining their moods.
At that moment, there is no pain, only calm.
Alright, it seems I may have said a little too much nonsense.
In this solemn season, I solemnly swear:
For the next month, whenever I have no classes during periods 1 and 2, I will get up at 6 to go for a morning run, and then read.
If I can't do it? I'm a puppy? :)
Finally,
Perhaps, many years ago, I still firmly believed that
with my back to the sun, my shadow was my world.
And now I only want to say:
Jie Xia.