The summer wind swept heat waves into the balcony, and the knuckles of Jiang Xubai's hand holding the beer can had turned white. Downstairs, neon lights refracted shattered patches of light across the glass curtain wall, just like his shattered heart at this moment. His phone screen lit up for the third time—it was a location shared by Lin Wan, sent at two in the morning from the liveliest bar in the downtown area.
He tilted his head and downed the last of the beer. The stinging sensation of the icy liquid sliding down his throat could not compare to the churning bitterness in his chest. This was already the seventh time this month he had gone to a bar to pick her up. From initial anxiety to present numbness, he had lost count of how many strange men he had seen with their arms around her shoulders in the dim booth.
In the autumn three years ago, Jiang Xubai met Lin Wan for the first time in the library. She wore a white knitted sweater, her long hair draped over the wooden desk, and her focused expression as she turned the pages looked like a tranquil oil painting. On an impulse, he sat opposite her and awkwardly struck up a conversation, which was rewarded with the curved, smiling crescents of her eyes. From then on, that regular seat in the library became their secret base. He accompanied her as she prepared for the IELTS exam, and she taught him how to play the ukulele.
Chapter 189