"Auntie has been busy with a particularly troublesome case lately, and Uncle has to leave for a conference in Dunhuang tomorrow. I don't really want to add to their burden at a time like this." Lin Qin lowered her voice as she explained.
Meng Jingnian looked at her for a moment. "Did you take your medicine?"
"I took it just now when I went to the bedroom." Lin Qin chose to lie.
Only then did Meng Jingnian nod. But judging by his expression, Lin Qin felt he didn't quite believe her.
They had grown up in nearly identical environments—how could Meng Jingnian fail to understand her psychology?
Still, when it came to this kind of minor deception, as long as it didn't involve matters of principle, Meng Jingnian usually sided with the younger generation.
Meng Yingnian finished washing the blueberries and walked out of the kitchen, casually popping one into her mouth and nodding. "These blueberries are good. Try some."
The blueberries were served in a beautiful petal-shaped ceramic bowl purchased by Lin Zhengjun. Not only that—most of the home's soft furnishings had been carefully selected by him. Uncle was a man with great taste for the finer things in life, something Auntie always admitted she couldn't match.
A moment later, Meng Luodi, having finished unwrapping her gifts, returned to the living room looking thoroughly satisfied. Lin Zhengjun had tidied up the kitchen and now came to brew tea.
The family gathered in the living room, drinking tea, eating fruit, and continuing their casual conversation.
Meng Yingnian asked Meng Jingnian, "Your pre-defense is next week—is your thesis all sorted?"
Meng Jingnian: "Mostly. A few minor revisions and it'll be finalized."
Lin Zhengjun: "Where are you planning to rent? Need our help?"
Meng Jingnian: "A senior fellow student is going abroad, so his place will be free in a couple of days."
Meng Yingnian: "Mom and Dad would still prefer you to stay at their place."
Meng Jingnian hummed in acknowledgment. "Our schedules don't align—I'd end up disturbing them if I stayed over."
"Then how about we all go to Mom and Dad's for dinner tomorrow night? Melody hasn't been there in a while either."
Lin Qin hugged a throw pillow to her chest, propping her elbow on the armrest of the sofa and resting her chin on her hand. Her eyelids drooped slightly—she was clearly running low on energy.
Meng Jingnian raised his cup to drink tea and, without meaning to, glanced in her direction. His gaze lingered for a brief moment.
After a few more exchanges of small talk, Meng Jingnian lifted his wrist to check his watch.
Checking the time was as contagious as yawning—Meng Yingnian also glanced at the wall clock. "It's already eight. Jingnian, you've been flying for over ten hours. Shouldn't you head back to the hotel and get some rest?"
Meng Jingnian said, "I was just about to leave."
"Your brother-in-law has a business trip tomorrow and needs to sleep early too—Zhengjun, why don't you drive him back."
Meng Jingnian picked up his backpack, adjusted it briefly, and prepared to take his leave.
Meng Luodi was reluctant to see him go: "Uncle, after your defense, take me out to play."
Meng Jingnian smiled. "Sure."
Meng Yingnian couldn't resist a gentle jab: "You have midterms next month, and you're still thinking about playing."
Meng Luodi turned to Meng Yingnian and made a face.
Lin Zhengjun grabbed the car keys, and Lin Qin followed behind her aunt to see Meng Jingnian to the door.
Meng Jingnian changed into his shoes and turned around. "I'm off. Sis, you all get some rest early."
He paused slightly, his gaze passing over Meng Yingnian and resting on Lin Qin for the briefest of moments—as if telling her to take her medicine soon.
Lin Qin stood behind her aunt the whole time, watching Meng Jingnian walk out the front door. There were many things she hated, and today, to that long list, she briefly added one more: the sound of the door closing.
With the guest gone, the space fell quiet. Meng Yingnian yawned and said she was going to the study to review case files, instructing Meng Luodi that she could only watch TV until nine-thirty and to keep the volume at the lowest setting.
When she turned to Lin Qin, her expression softened considerably. "Yiyi, why don't you stay the night here?"
Since starting university, Lin Qin had spent more time at her dormitory and the apartment her parents had left her, for the convenience of attending classes and shooting. Even so, this home had always kept her room, welcoming her back at any time.
Lin Qin nodded. "I didn't sleep well last night. I'll wash up and head to bed."
"You really should stop staying up so late."
Lin Qin did a quick wash-up, said goodnight to her aunt and Meng Luodi, and returned to her own bedroom.
It was a typical four-bedroom apartment with an airplane-style layout. Lin Qin's and Meng Luodi's rooms were on the same wing, both facing south. After Lin Qin moved out, Meng Luodi had asked for and received her permission to use half of her wardrobe. Other than that, the room had largely remained unchanged.
In the desk drawer, Lin Qin found the leftover ibuprofen she'd taken for menstrual cramps before. She checked the production date—still within its shelf life—pressed out a pill, swallowed it, turned off the light, and lay down on the bed.
In the dark room, her phone vibrated suddenly beneath the pillow like a heartbeat.
Lin Qin took it out and saw a WeChat message from Meng Jingnian.
Meng Jingnian's profile picture was an oil painting by Aivazovsky—a tilted ship on a vast, translucent sea. He'd never changed it in all these years.
His WeChat name was "mjn." Lin Qin had never given him a nickname note. Whatever she might have changed it to would have felt superfluous.
And Lin Qin's social media account names were, without exception, variations like "badapple" and "badapple0101," because "linqin" contains the meaning of apple. Her profile picture was a mineral-pigment painting by a niche artist—an apple that had been bitten into, with a human ribcage embedded in its center. A bad apple that grated against the teeth.
She had once secretly peeked at the WeChat note Meng Jingnian had saved her under: "Lin Yiyi."
Not "Yiyi"—that was too much like an em dash and could easily cause visual misunderstanding. Nor "Lin Qin"—using both surname and given name always felt a bit too solemn.
Lin Yiyi.
Lin Qin never told him that only her parents used to call her that.
mjn: Did you take your meds?
badapple: This time I really did.
mjn: Meaning you just lied earlier?
badapple: Didn't you already see through it, Little Uncle?
After a moment, Meng Jingnian replied with a smiley emoji. He was only twenty-eight, not some outdated fossil out of touch with the times—he naturally knew how passive-aggressive WeChat's default smiley could be, and that was exactly the usage he employed.
mjn: Rest early. I'll let Melody know and ask her to check on you later to see if your fever's gone down. I'll have her keep it confidential.
badapple: What difference is there between telling Didi and telling the whole world?
mjn: Someone needs to know your condition at all times, just in case.
badapple: If my fever goes down, can I report to you on my own initiative?
mjn: And if it doesn't go down?
badapple: I'll have Auntie take me to the hospital.
mjn: You promise?
badapple: I promise.
mjn: Good. Rest early.
badapple: Rest early.
The conversation naturally ended there.
Lin Qin scrolled through their chat history, then sent one more message: Thanks for today.
mjn: No next time.
Lin Qin rarely curved the corners of her mouth.
She locked her phone and tossed it aside. The fever made her feel like she was drifting in a dizzy, beautiful dream.
Lin Qin slept, and woke up about an hour and a half later.
Remembering her agreement with Meng Jingnian, she grabbed her phone and sent him a message right away.
Knowing he must be exhausted from the journey, she assumed he'd already gone to sleep—but to her surprise, a reply came quickly.
mjn: Good. Get some proper rest.
Lin Qin replied "ok."
She never said goodnight to him. She always felt it would be an act of wishful thinking.
/
The next morning, Lin Qin woke up and checked her phone. There was a message from Meng Jingnian sent at seven in the morning, once again confirming whether her fever had broken.
She replied that it had, and he responded with a "good," reminding her to "rest more."
Over the following days, Lin Qin attended classes as usual.
After that rain, Nancheng enjoyed clear skies for days on end. Scrolling through her moments, she saw posts saying the cherry blossoms at Bodhi Temple had bloomed, sparking a lively wave of blossom-viewing enthusiasm.
Lin Qin was a student at the School of Artificial Intelligence at Nancheng University. There were few girls in the major—only four in her entire class, just enough to fill one dormitory. The dormmates got along well, with a sense of huddling together for warmth.
Thursday afternoon had no classes, and her dormmates suggested going to see the cherry blossoms together. Unfortunately, Lin Qin had already scheduled a shoot that day with a photographer who had a modest following on social media, to shoot sample photos for a new theme.
After finishing classes Thursday morning, her three other dormmates headed off together to see the cherry blossoms, while Lin Qin returned to the dorm alone to pack her things.
Just as she was leaving the classroom building, a male student blocked her at the entrance.
He looked flustered and urgent: "Excuse me, is Lin Qin in this class?"
Lin Qin: "That's me. What do you need?"
The boy froze for a moment, his gaze fixed on her as he looked her over carefully, as if somewhat incredulous: "Oh, oh… it's like this. Our team is preparing for the computer competition, and there's an artificial intelligence section…"
"Not interested." Lin Qin walked around him and headed out.
The boy quickly chased after her. "Classmate Lin, I'm not a scammer, I'm really begging you for help in a dire emergency."
"I'm in a hurry."
The boy refused to give up, following behind Lin Qin as he continued his rapid-fire pitch: "…Our project is actually almost finished, and we're entering the college-level competition next month, but the student from the computer science school who was handling the AI algorithm part decided he's going abroad and just bailed. I heard you're ranked first in your year, so…"
"I don't have time."
"It won't take much of your time, Classmate Lin. Our team has four people total—you'd only need to handle the AI portion. We had a teacher evaluate the project, and they were very optimistic, saying that as long as we do it well, we're guaranteed at least a national third-place prize. This competition is very competitive for graduate school recommendations…"
Lin Qin couldn't be bothered to listen anymore. She turned a corner to reach the stairwell, grabbed the handrail, and hurried down the stairs.
The young man was persistent, thumping along behind her. "Have I introduced our project yet, Lin Qin? Our project uses Python and Flask to build a weather visualization system, covering weather conditions, wind direction distribution, air quality, weather forecasting…"
Lin Qin paused mid-step.
The young man nearly crashed into her and hastily braked.
"I'm busy today. My phone number is 186XXXXXXXX. Add me on WeChat, and we can talk when I'm free." Lin Qin finished curtly and continued down the stairs.
The young man froze for a moment, then quickly recited the phone number to himself while pulling out his phone to open WeChat.
When Lin Qin reached the next floor down, she heard the young man's shout from above: "I've sent you a friend request, Lin Qin—don't forget to accept it!"
/
On one outing long ago, Meng Jingnian had taken it upon himself to give a little science lesson, introducing them to the types of clouds—high cloud groups, middle cloud groups, low cloud groups, vertically developed cloud groups; cumulus, stratus, nimbus… For a non-specialist, it was hard to master the skill of reading the weather by the clouds from just a few minutes of a mini-lecture.
But Lin Qin remembered the cirrocumulus cloud, because that day had been just such a sky—white, scale-like cloud layers, like fine ripples blown across the surface of water.
Scales in the sky above, no need to turn the grain.
Such clouds meant a high probability of clear days ahead.
Lin Qin sat on the edge of the flower bed, shading her eyes with her hand as she looked up at the sky. The tree shadows filtered down pale green patches of light, like being at the bottom of a gently swaying pool.
After waiting about five minutes, a voice came from behind: "Yiyi."
Lin Qin turned around immediately.
Meng Jingnian was wearing a light gray T-shirt, the color of the edge of a cloud layer.
Lin Qin picked up her backpack and walked over to him.
"Sorry, I got a phone call at the last minute. Have you been waiting long?"
"No. Just got here. And the weather is really nice today."
Meng Jingnian looked up at the sky and said with a smile, "It is."
In earlier years, most of the colleges at Nancheng University had relocated wholesale to the new city district, and the houses near the university were all newly built residential communities with quite good landscaping and greenery.
Meng Jingnian swiped his access card and held the glass door open for Lin Qin to enter first.
The lobby was clean and bright, with a dense row of mailboxes off to one side. Meng Jingnian said, "One moment," walked over, opened mailbox 1108, and took out the journals and letters inside.
They must have belonged to the previous tenant, because Lin Qin noticed that the recipient on the envelopes wasn't Meng Jingnian's name.
"If I wrote you a letter, could I have it delivered to this address too?" Lin Qin asked.
Meng Jingnian pressed the elevator button and said with a smile, "If there's something to say, you can just tell me on WeChat. Why would you need to write a letter?"
"Like a New Year's card… or something."
"That would work, actually."
"Oh…" Lin Qin thought of something. "The gift you gave me—I really like it. Thank you."
Inside that long, flat box had been an antique fountain pen. Lin Qin had tried it; dipped in ink, it still wrote perfectly.
"Glad you like it."
"Was it expensive?"
"Not really. Bought it for twenty euros at a secondhand shop."
"Then it was a steal."
"I think so too."
Only Lin Qin and Meng Jingnian were in the elevator. Standing side by side, Lin Qin saw their two reflections in the metal walls of the car—his figure tall, upright, and graceful, like a single stroke of a brush on white rice paper, a hanging-needle vertical stroke, perfectly straight, clean and crisp.
When they reached the apartment door, Meng Jingnian keyed in the passcode and opened it. "I haven't finished tidying up yet. It's a bit of a mess inside."
Lin Qin knew that whatever he called a mess, it could never be much of one.
And sure enough, when the door opened, that was exactly the case.
It was a spacious two-bedroom, one room converted into a study, with a window facing a tall locust tree. The four o'clock afternoon sunlight made the leaves look like fresh green jade.
Stacks of books were piled along the base of the wall, and the bookshelf was still half empty.
"Uncle, do you want me to help you organize the books?" Lin Qin loathed the title, but she also had to use it as a cover from time to time.
"No need."
"It'd be perfect—I can sort them while asking you about my competition project."
Meng Jingnian thought for a moment, then said with a smile, "Then I'll trouble you."
Lin Qin took off her backpack, set it aside, and rolled up her sleeves, ready to get to work.
Meng Jingnian found a box cutter, sliced through the straps binding the books, and carried stack after stack to the desk. Lin Qin then sorted them into categories and placed them on the shelves, checking with Meng Jingnian whenever she wasn't sure how to classify one.
Most of the books were works on meteorology and related disciplines, with few literary works.
Which made the one book that was clearly a novel stand out all the more.
It was a German book. Lin Qin studied it for a moment—the author's name was Hermann Hesse. It should be Hermann Hesse, she thought, though she wasn't entirely certain; she didn't read much literature either.
Perhaps her sudden pause caught Meng Jingnian's attention, because he glanced at what she was holding.
"Klingsor's Last Summer. Jiang Cheng gave it to me."
Lin Qin pressed her lips together slightly and opened the book. On the flyleaf, in fine, elegant handwriting:
For Jingnian's keeping.
Happy birthday.
Leonie
Leonie should be Jiang Cheng's English name, or perhaps her German name.
Lin Qin closed the book. "Where should this go?"
Meng Jingnian glanced at the bookshelf, then raised a hand to point at the desk. "Just leave it there for now."
Lin Qin set the book on the far side of the desk and said nothing more.
Wind stirred outside, rustling the leaves with a soft whisper.
This study was truly lovely—a pity she couldn't stay long.
Lin Qin silently placed the books into the shelf one by one, stacking them neatly.
"Yiyi."
Lin Qin hadn't expected Meng Jingnian to speak suddenly. "…Hmm?"
"There's something I've been meaning to apologize to you about."
Lin Qin's fingers paused on a book spine for a moment. "What?"
"Before I left for Germany, do you remember? That time I walked you home, you said…"
"…I've fallen for someone I can never have." Reciting it again still felt like swallowing a mouthful of rusted nails.
Meng Jingnian nodded. "My response back then was probably a bit too presumptuous. I often remind myself not to put on airs as your elder, but sometimes it's hard to avoid."
Back then, Meng Jingnian had said that, from her experience, once Lin Qin grew a little older, she would realize there were far too many impossible things and unattainable matters in this world. So if it felt painful, that was only true for the moment—it would pass soon enough.
"…I'm sorry. My intention back then was to cheer you up and help you focus on the college entrance exam, but looking back now, to use you young people's phrase—was it a bit too 'dad-like'?"
"You're not that old." Lin Qin smiled. "…And it wasn't dad-like at all."
"But after that, aside from holiday greetings, you never sent me another message. I thought I might have inadvertently offended you."
"No, it's not that… I thought you must be busy with your studies, and I didn't want to disturb you. And also… I didn't know what to say."
Meng Jingnian nodded. "True. I was far away overseas—even if you really needed to consult me about something, I couldn't have helped much anyway."
Lin Qin felt a pang of sadness in her chest.
Meng Jingnian's widely recognized traits were her easygoing nature, tolerance, and generosity—almost anyone could become her friend.
But Lin Qin saw clearly: a person like her, who had lost both parents, stayed in an orphanage, and was then adopted and raised, used gentleness merely as a means of survival.
In truth, toward most people, she maintained a kind of soft, perfunctory courtesy—though she did it so skillfully that no one noticed.
But standing in the position of an elder with no blood relation, perhaps out of mutual sympathy, she had never been perfunctory with Lin Qin.
That was why Lin Qin had fallen so deeply.