Every girl has surely imagined her own wedding with her best friends.
The groom must be handsome, wealthy, and learned; he must be ambitious and considerate toward her, and most importantly, they must be deeply in love. The wedding decor must be beautiful, and she would wear the most luxurious gown, play her favorite music, and exchange rings in the presence of family and friends.
"And the bouquet! This absolutely cannot be sloppy. Last time, when my aunt’s youngest daughter got married, there were actually two white chrysanthemums in the bouquet. It was hideous." Lin Xialing imagined herself tossing a bouquet filled with white chrysanthemums and quickly shook her head; that was absolutely out of the question!
She glanced at the two people beside her, who were focused on eating their popsicles. "Did you hear me? When the time comes, the bouquet you give me must be roses, or tea roses—anything as long as it's pretty."
"But there are two of us," eighteen-year-old Heyue said, biting into her popsicle with a look of doubt. "There is only one bouquet."
Lin Xialing hopped off the swing and gestured at their heights. "Looks like I have a higher chance of catching it."
Hearing Lin Xialing say this, Heyue pretended to look aggrieved and turned toward Luo Yilan. Luo Yilan couldn’t help but curve her lips, revealing two dimples.
"Then I’ll just make two bouquets, one for each of you, and I’ll personally hand them to you." Luo Yilan mimed the motion of handing over flowers, only for Lin Xialing to tease her: "One each? Luo, you’re too greedy!"
"How is that greedy? Otherwise, wouldn't one hand be empty?" As she spoke, she walked between them and linked arms with them. "But the most important thing right now—if we don't go, we’ll miss the bus!"
"Help, I have an exam tonight!"
The three of them ran toward the bus stop, laughing and joking. On the way, Lin Xialing thought for a moment and couldn't help but nag them while running: "And I want a very long tulle skirt, tulle skirts are better!"
"Got it—" Luo Yilan replied.
A gust of wind swept by, carrying away all their innocent and beautiful fantasies. And the sunset glow bathed their bright and youthful eighteen-year-old selves.
***
Luo Yilan was actually getting married.
Among Heyue’s two best friends, Lin Xialing had had a romance at eighteen that shook all the colleges in Qucheng. Luo Yilan, however, was so beautiful that her suitors could have lined up all the way to France. There were nerds, there were corporate titans, yet she never took a liking to any of them—let alone dating, she didn't even have a single flirtation.
Every time Lin Xialing showed off her sweet text messages, Luo Yilan always looked like her mind was on loftier things. "I want to be a Wolf of Wall Street in the future," Luo Yilan had declared, her ambition making Lin Xialing and Heyue burst into laughter.
The beautiful memories came to an abrupt halt. Heyue closed her eyes. She should go back. Even if it was just to catch a glimpse from afar, she should go see Luo Yilan. She was so beautiful; she must look even more stunning in a wedding dress.
***
The sky was clear and bright that day at the Mingwei Hotel.
As the most high-end hotel in Qucheng, luxury cars pulled up at the entrance one after another, all the passengers impeccably dressed. The doormen, having long since developed a sharp eye, could distinguish the true elites from the poseurs, stepping forward to diligently park the cars for the real bosses while earning some tips.
When a taxi pulled up, the doormen collectively withdrew their smiles, looking straight ahead and pretending they saw nothing.
A woman in a baseball cap stepped out, the brim pulled low. She didn't care about the doormen's deliberate disregard; she simply glanced at the electronic bulletin board at the entrance: "Yunlong Class of 2010, Class 3 Reunion," then walked in without looking back.
Perhaps because news of Luo Yilan’s wedding had spread, this reunion was particularly well-attended. Everyone was curious about what kind of man the once-haughty Luo Yilan had married. They were all here to see a joke—who didn't know that Luo Yilan had been blinded in one eye by a suitor back then? How could she possibly marry a good husband?
Luo Yilan seemed blind to the mockery in their eyes as she politely handed out invitations one by one. She wore a simple dress that day, with bangs and glasses, but even so, when people took the invitations, they couldn't help but notice the white patch over the right eye hidden behind her lenses. They exchanged knowing glances.
"Congratulations, Yilan."
"We will definitely be there!"
"You're still young, you can have a third child!"
They chirped with hypocritical well-wishes. Then, someone sharp-eyed noticed that Luo Yilan still had two invitations in her hand. The Chinese-style invitations were pinned with magnolia flowers, looking especially elegant.
"Those must be for Xialing and Heyue."
"Yes," Luo Yilan said, pushing up her glasses, her voice as gentle as ever.
"Oh, they won't come. They haven't been to a reunion in ten years," someone said, seemingly pitying her. "It’s really tough of you to put in so much effort."
"Yeah, maybe they’ve made it big and long forgotten about us," another chimed in, posing as if they were feeling regret on her behalf. "By the way, do you get many holidays as a teacher? How many days of wedding leave?"
"Is your husband from Yunlong? My kid is going to high school this year, can you ask your husband to help out?"
The names Lin Xialing and Heyue were quickly swallowed by more trivial chatter, so fast that Luo Yilan couldn't recall their faces for a moment. She stood in the crowd but could not blend in; she merely handled everyone’s questions with ease while shielding the invitations in her arms. The magnolia flowers on them were fragile, and she was afraid of accidentally breaking a petal; that wouldn't look good.
***
"Did you see that? Her eye, it’s hideous!"
"Who told her to hang out with those low-life thugs back then? And she acted so superior."
In the restroom, several women, having eaten and drunk their fill, were gossiping while touching up their makeup, treating the scandal as a post-dinner dessert. They all laughed happily, watching the once-proud and brilliant Luo Yilan now reduced to an ordinary job and an ordinary husband—after all, the students of Yunlong had lived in the shadow of Luo Yilan’s excellence for too long.
"But I heard her husband is very considerate to her, absolutely dotes on her."
"So what? He’s just a civil servant at the Education Bureau!" The woman glared at her companion. "She used to act like the 'high-mountain flower,' thinking she could hook Yue Zhou, but look at her now—worse than me, a half-blind wreck."
The woman sneered disdainfully and put her makeup back into her bag. As she turned, she collided head-on with a toilet plunger that stuck firmly to her mouth.
"Mmph-mph—!"
Her companion screamed as well, looking at the woman in the baseball cap who had appeared from nowhere. Panicked, she almost bit her own tongue: "What are you doing!"
"I'm unblocking the toilet! Is that a problem? 'Masked Lady'—" the woman in the baseball cap didn't back down at all. "What, is it your turn next? Your mouths are all stinking like corpses; no amount of powder can cover that stench."
"Mmph-mph—!"
They didn't even have time to argue with her, rushing to help pull the plunger off. Seeing them scrambling in a panic, the woman rolled her eyes, adjusted her baseball cap, and walked away coldly without looking back.
After finally prying the plunger off, the woman screamed and pushed away the classmates trying to comfort her. "Lin Xialing!" she wailed, wiping the dirty water off her face. "It must be that lunatic Lin Xialing who’s back!"
***
Qucheng is a small city that loves spicy food and is full of warm, forthright people. Every night, the curbsides are filled with the aroma of barbecue. Heyue hadn't set foot in this city for a long time; for a moment, she felt a strange sense of nostalgia and trepidation. She wandered aimlessly through the streets, her mind racing, until she reached a three-way intersection.
Red light. Stop.
She stopped there, looking around. Her gaze eventually landed on the two-story bridal shop across the street, where a woman was trying on a wedding dress with a look of pure happiness.
"So beautiful," Heyue whispered. In that moment, her fear turned into longing, and tears streamed down her face.
Luo Yilan, wearing the wedding dress, was holding her husband's arm, posing for a photo. A perfect match, like a pair from a classic romance. A sales clerk walked out with two exquisite tulle skirts to show Luo Yilan. Luo Yilan took a careful look and gestured something to the clerk.
Heyue couldn't hear, but she could guess. She must be saying that one of the skirts needed to be longer because one of her bridesmaids was taller.
"A-Ning..." Lin Xialing was indeed taller.
Luo Yilan had truly prepared bridesmaid dresses for the two of them. She had never, ever forgotten them! Even though that invitation hadn't been delivered, even though they hadn't been able to meet, Luo Yilan had already prepared everything.
Heyue sobbed uncontrollably. She couldn't stop. She clutched her arms, trembling, crying harder and harder in the middle of the crowd.
In an inadvertent turn of her head, she saw another incredibly familiar figure. Heyue froze, staring blankly at the person.
On the other side of the intersection, a woman slowly took off her baseball cap. Her long hair flowed in the wind, revealing eyes red with tears. She tilted her head, smiled, and mouthed something to Heyue.
*Little Moon, long time no see.*
Amidst the traffic, the three of them stood at the intersection. They had walked too long a road of life alone.
As the two locked eyes, black clouds suddenly obscured the sun, but soon, a piercing red light cut through the clouds, falling upon the panicked crowd.
"Why is the weather changing?"
All three looked up at that strange sky simultaneously, not knowing why their hearts were racing; the world felt noisy and piercing. Heyue slowly lowered her head and saw Lin Xialing looking terrified, throwing her baseball cap aside and sprinting toward her, ignoring the red light.
"Heyue, get out of the way!"
"Bang!"
A sensation of weightlessness lifted Heyue high into the air. That blood-red moon seemed within reach.
And she heard, quite clearly, the sound of her own bones shattering. Heyue tilted her head to look at the driver. When she saw the face, her pupils involuntarily constricted. The person driving the car to hit her was Dahe!
It was her thirty-eight-year-old self driving, trying to kill her!