Chapter 4: Cool Night

No matter how heavy the rain beneath heaven, it cannot fill a single flower.

—Fei Ming

The schedule at the subforum was broadly similar to that of the main forum in Dancheng. After arriving, they first met up with the professors from S University and held the morning session.

Su Nan was responsible for distributing materials, contacting professors, and handling small tasks such as serving tea and water. After the morning session ended, Jiang Mingqian led the professors to the reserved hotel for lunch, while she had to remain behind and arrange the nameplates for the afternoon.

Fortunately, she still received a boxed lunch once she finished. It contained fried fish, diced chicken, and stir-fried bean sprouts, though it was already somewhat cold when it arrived. After escorting the professors to the hotel, Jiang Mingqian wandered off to find an old high school classmate at S University and cadge a meal, leaving Su Nan alone in the enormous auditorium.

There was an unlimited supply of hot water. Su Nan poured herself a cup, secretly helped herself to a few snacks left over from the tea reception, and made do with a meal in the corner of the auditorium.

She had gone to bed late the previous night and risen before six that morning. Already short on sleep, she grew overwhelmingly drowsy once the midday sunlight streamed in. Seeing that there was still plenty of time before the afternoon session, she set an alarm for half an hour and laid her head down to sleep.

In her daze, she heard footsteps enter. Her leg moved, and she abruptly woke. She jerked her head up and met someone’s gaze. Her breath caught in fright, and she scrambled to her feet.

“Professor Chen.”

“Why are you sleeping here?”

“It would be a hassle to return to the hotel, and I still need to check the equipment later.” Su Nan raised a hand and touched the corner of her mouth.

The gesture was entirely unconscious.

She still looked slightly dazed. Because she had rested her head on the sleeve of her knitted cardigan, several red impressions of the woven pattern had been pressed into her cheek.

Chen Zhiyu stared at them for a moment before suddenly leaning his upper body toward her.

Su Nan instinctively dodged to the side, only to see Chen Zhiyu reach into the compartment beneath the seat and retrieve a USB drive. She had been sitting in the seat he had occupied that morning.

How embarrassing.

Su Nan rubbed her nose, picked up her backpack, and moved to the next seat.

“It’s fine. Stay there. I’m not coming this afternoon.”

She froze. “Do you have something to do?”

He slipped the USB drive into his pocket and smiled with raised eyebrows. “I’m skipping it. I’m going out to have some fun.”

He turned toward the exit but stopped at the door. Smiling at her, he instructed, “Keep it a secret for me.”

She nodded blankly.

At around three or four that afternoon, the sky, which had been clear for most of the day, suddenly turned overcast. Rain began falling as the session ended. The professors’ plan to take an evening cruise along the city moat was ruined, so after dinner, they could only remain at the hotel and pass the time.

Su Nan was exhausted, but she was sharing a room with a lecturer from the university and did not dare relax too much.

She took a book from her backpack, sat on the edge of the bed, and opened it in a show of reading, though her thoughts had long since wandered elsewhere. Her phone suddenly vibrated. She hurriedly picked it up and saw a message from Jiang Mingqian asking whether she wanted to visit the cultural district near the university that evening.

She politely declined without hesitation. When she raised her eyes and saw the professor sharing her room working on a laptop, the atmosphere felt so stifling that she could no longer bear to stay. She simply used Jiang Mingqian’s invitation as an excuse to go downstairs.

Rain whispered steadily outside. Su Nan borrowed an umbrella from the front desk.

S University’s campus was quite small. Its southern section contained a cluster of Republican-era buildings. A Republican-era romantic drama had been filmed there two years earlier, bringing the campus a brief surge of fame.

The shadows of the trees loomed heavily in the rainy night. The buildings had blue-gray brick walls and black-tiled roofs, with the corner of an eave hidden among the leaves.

Su Nan walked beneath the eaves and closed her umbrella.

Mist had risen in the rain. The distant city had been reduced to a silhouette, its blurred lights bleeding softly into the night. The wind was slightly chilly and carried the scent of rainwater.

“Autumn grows deep...” A song suddenly came to mind, and she began humming without realizing it. “Autumn weighs heavily on the hearts of those who part. A cup of wine, a thousand emotions, so many farewells...”

She could not remember the lyrics that followed, so she simply hummed the melody. She repeated the same four lines several times.

“Could you sing something else?”

Su Nan’s breath caught in fright. Following the voice, she finally noticed a person standing in front of the neighboring building. She had no idea when he had appeared.

The man paused before walking toward her.

His figure grew clearer in the darkness. When he drew close, she called out with mixed feelings, “Professor Chen.”

Chen Zhiyu stopped beside her, felt inside his pocket, and lit a cigarette. “What are you doing here?”

“Just... looking around.”

With the cigarette between his lips, Chen Zhiyu slowly took a drag. He raised a hand and pointed toward something in the darkness ahead. “That’s an art museum. Can you see it?”

“Mm.”

“A friend of mine designed it.”

Su Nan did not know why Chen Zhiyu was telling her this or how she was supposed to respond. Several seconds passed, and the appropriate moment to reply seemed to have gone, so she simply remained silent.

Then she heard him continue beside her. “The view is good from here. Seen from this angle, the roof of the museum resembles a paper kite.”

She followed his gaze. It truly did look somewhat like one.

Chen Zhiyu fell silent, staring through the heavy curtain of rain at the visible corner of the museum.

He smoked very slowly, as though something weighed on his mind.

Su Nan felt extremely uncomfortable. She did not know whether she should leave or stay, much less whether she should ask him if she ought to leave or stay.

After a long time, Chen Zhiyu seemed finally to remember that she was standing beside him. He extinguished the small remainder of his cigarette, cleared his throat, and asked as though searching for a topic, “Where are you from?”

“Qicheng.”

“Qicheng...” Chen Zhiyu suddenly grew distracted. “Autumn is lovely there. Once it starts raining, it rains for a month. It’s the perfect place to find somewhere to drink and admire the maples.”

There was something indescribable wrapped within his tone.

Su Nan turned to look at him. “Have you been there, Professor Chen?”

“I have.” Chen Zhiyu’s smile was faint. “Many years ago.”

“There aren’t any maple trees in the city now. When they repaired the roads a few years ago, all the maples along Ping’an Road were cut down. Only a few remain on Mount Qi.”

“What a pity.” His tone was even, revealing no emotion.

Su Nan paused. “I have photographs on my phone. Would you like to see them?”

Rain tapped steadily against the eaves.

“Mm,” Chen Zhiyu replied.

Su Nan placed her umbrella on the ground, took out her phone, and opened the photo album. A moment later, she handed it to him. “Swipe backward. The next few are all of them.”

Chen Zhiyu accepted the phone and looked at the screen.

Green scholar trees and crimson maples stretched for miles along the mountain road, blazing brilliantly as though aflame.

He swiped through the photographs. His finger paused over one showing a curved black wooden bridge spanning an emerald stream.

“This bridge is still there?”

“Mm... But no one goes down there now. The bridge is almost abandoned.”

“It’s probably better that way. That bridge isn’t safe.”

Su Nan could not shake the feeling that Chen Zhiyu was acting somewhat strangely today. Speaking so intimately despite their shallow acquaintance was one thing, but his words always seemed tinged with a sigh for the past.

After looking through the photographs, Chen Zhiyu returned her phone. “Thank you.”

She shook her head and slipped the phone back into her pocket.

Silence descended. Only the patter of rain passing through the leaves could be heard.

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. In the darkness, his figure seemed inexplicably lonely, unlike the somewhat bold and unrestrained Chen Zhiyu she had come to know over the past several weeks.

After remaining a little longer, Su Nan said softly, “Professor Chen, I’m going back to the hotel.”

Chen Zhiyu’s gaze rested somewhere unknown. He seemed not to hear her.

Moving quietly, Su Nan stepped back, bent to pick up the umbrella, and walked away with light, measured steps.

At the corner, she looked back.

Chen Zhiyu had lit another cigarette. Its ember flickered in the darkness.

After they returned to Dancheng, nothing else happened.

When Su Nan finished class on Thursday and was switching off the equipment, Chen Zhiyu placed the reference books and water bottle he had brought in front of her.

“Take these to my office and wait for me. I need to speak with you.”

Chen Zhiyu’s office was on the third floor, facing south. It had the finest view on the entire floor. In summer, opening the window revealed nothing but lush greenery. In late autumn, however, the leaves had fallen and the branches had withered. On rainy days, the view seemed particularly bleak.

Su Nan placed the books and water bottle on his desk, then stood beside the window and looked outside. Students hurried past, their umbrellas merging into the rain one after another.

A click sounded behind her. Su Nan turned around. “Professor Chen.”

Chen Zhiyu left the door open and walked directly behind his desk. He took a stack of materials from the bookshelf.

“Follow the list here and help me collect these materials.”

“Are you preparing a literature review?”

“No. You only need to find relevant material and paste it into the document. There’s a stipend calculated by word count.” Chen Zhiyu glanced at her and smiled. “But don’t paste irrelevant material just to inflate the word count. I’ll be checking.”

She replied awkwardly, “I wouldn’t.”

“Take it back and work on it at your own pace. You have three months. Collect as much as you can and report to me once a week.”

She did not dare object. “Then... should I give you my first report this Saturday?”

“Saturday...” Chen Zhiyu took out his phone and checked it. “Not this Saturday. I’m returning to Chongcheng. Start next week.”

At eight that same evening, however, Chen Zhiyu received an email from Su Nan. It contained a two-thousand-word document asking whether she should organize the material in that format. The document was orderly and meticulously arranged, making everything clear at a glance.

He replied:

Could you possibly be any more meticulous?

At midnight, his computer chimed with another reply.

Chen Zhiyu had just emerged from the shower. He opened the email and nearly laughed himself senseless.

Su Nan had sent a second document, even more detailed and painstakingly precise than the first. At the end, she had added an aggrieved little sentence:

Professor Chen, I redid it according to your instructions. Is this acceptable?

After thinking for a moment, he took out his phone and sent Su Nan a WeChat message.

Before long, he watched the “typing” indicator flash for quite some time. In the end, only three words appeared:

Professor Chen...

He laughed. Reaching for the pack of cigarettes on his desk, he drew one out while replying:

Can’t you recognize sarcasm? I meant that a rough compilation would be enough. You don’t have to be so meticulous. I’ll need to screen all the material myself afterward anyway.

Su Nan replied:

I understand.

Holding the cigarette between his lips, he lowered his head to light it. Leaning back against the desk, he sent another message:

Go to bed early. I’m paying you so little that it isn’t worth staying up and exhausting yourself over this.

After a moment, Su Nan replied again:

I understand.

He could not tell whether this woman was genuinely foolish or merely pretending to be.

With a laugh, he tossed his phone aside, stood, and poured himself a cup of hot water.

Autumn in Dancheng was rainy. Once the rain began, it seemed as though it would never end.

He lay down in bed and listened for a long time, unable to fall asleep.

A lingering melancholy wound through his heart and refused to dissipate.

Perhaps what he lacked was a little wine, and a view of the late-autumn maples.