Life is like a seemingly calm pool of water, but all it takes is a single small pebble to create unforeseen ripples. The pebble that hit Lin Zhou was a water stain.
On Wednesday morning, Lin Zhou was awakened by the sound of dripping water. She opened her eyes to see a yellowish-brown water stain on her bedroom ceiling, slowly expanding. Water droplets were trickling down the corner of the wall, drip, drip, drip, onto the floor.
She leaped out of bed, her face pale. This was a rented apartment. If the floorboards were damaged, the compensation would be no small sum. She immediately concluded that the leak was coming from upstairs.
She rushed downstairs to call the building management. The maintenance worker came, took one look, and confirmed it was a problem with the bathroom upstairs.
"We can't get in touch with the owner of 601," the young man from management said, looking troubled. "The phone number he registered is out of service. How about you go up and knock on his door?"
Lin Zhou was a million times unwilling, but looking at the ever-growing water stain, she had no choice but to once again climb that familiar staircase.
She stood before the door of 601, took a deep breath, and pounded on it.
"Hello! Is anyone there? Your apartment is leaking! It's leaking into my place!"
She yelled as she knocked, the voice-activated light in the hallway flickering on and off, illuminating her anxious face.
There was no response from inside.
"Is anyone there? If you don't come out, I'm calling the police!" Lin Zhou's voice cracked, half from anxiety, half from anger.
Finally, just as she was about to give up, she heard a faint noise from inside, followed by those familiar, shuffling footsteps.
The lock clicked. The door opened.
Behind the door was the same figure, wearing a hat and a mask, completely covered up.
"Hello, your apartment is leaking, could you please…" Lin Zhou's words trailed off and stopped.
Because today, the man didn't immediately shut the door. He seemed to have just woken up or was unsteady from illness. His body swayed, and he reached out to brace himself against the doorframe. In that instant, the baseball cap on his head tilted, slipped, and fell to the floor.
Without the cap to shield him, his face was revealed, crashing into Lin Zhou's sight without any warning.
It was a face she knew intimately, a face that had appeared in her countless dreams. But it was no longer the sunny, handsome face from her memories. It was pale, gaunt, his chin covered in a blueish stubble, his lips chapped, his eyes sunken, etched with sickness and exhaustion.
But the eyes, the brows, the contours of his face—it was unmistakably Shen Che.
Lin Zhou felt her blood freeze. The world went silent. She stared at him, her mouth slightly agape, unable to make a sound. Her mind was a complete blank, with only one thought screaming hysterically inside: How could it be him?
Shen Che hadn't expected the cap to fall. When he saw Lin Zhou's face, a mask of shock and disbelief, he froze. His tired eyes instantly filled with panic, guilt, pain… a myriad of complex emotions weaving into a suffocating net that trapped him completely.
Time, in that moment, stood still.
Three years. One thousand and ninety-five days and nights of waiting and longing. Upstairs, downstairs, separated by a single ceiling. I thought you were a world away, but you were right here. It was the world's biggest lie, and the cruelest reality.