Evanescent Dreams

18. Every time I looked back

Lin Xingren found herself floating inside a tent. It was the tent, now long thrown away, she had once taken to the third grade school sleepover party. 

"Stop moving around, Xingren!" 

The little girl giggled inside her pink sleeping bag. She mischievously rolled back and forth, squishing her buddy onto the side of the tent. 

Lin Xingren sighed.

"What can I do? I can't sleep, buddy."

"Hmm, we can count sheep."

"Count sheep? What's that?" the little girl laughed. 

"You don't know counting sheep? One little sheep jumped over the fence. Two little sheep jumped over the fence..."

"Oh oh, I know!" the little girl joined in with an exuberant voice, "Three little sheep jumped over the fence!"

The two continued chanting in their little tent throughout the night. Their unrestrained laughter painted their world with merriment and blossomed the little girl like sakura. 

A solitary tear slipped down from the older girl sitting in the shadows. 

Why did I take this for granted? 

---

Sometimes I wonder, why do beautiful scenery always give me a feeling of sadness?  It was like that last summer when I climbed up somewhere as high as the top of the world and saw the vast stretches of mountains peaking into the clouds. It is like that right now, as I view the rows of cherry blossoms around me. They are at once pink and white, and I am at once smiling and tearing. I can be myself in this forest of flowers, but I am alone. I am very alone. That said, what gives the feeling of sadness?  There are two main hormones that go down, dopamine and serotonin...

Since Ye Zhen read this little Red post of Sunflower Fruit posted one year ago, he made up his mind to not let Lin Xingren see the cherry blossoms alone this year. 

When Lin Xingren genuinely beamed over the sakuras, he felt a surge of excitement and enjoyment, a spark of emotion that temporarily lit up the world around him that he always thought had fallen in a permanent dullness. He soon realized that he had never been so keen in going somewhere since he was a small kid.

Then, on the bus ride, he was pushed forcefully back into facing the reality he had tried hard to ignore. 

The reality of Snow Pharmaceuticals.

Since the time he brushed passed that woman in the building of Snow Pharmaceuticals, he had sensed something. 

Hence, when he examined Snow Pharmaceutical's little Red account on the bus and found his sister's name in the personal info, he felt more hurt than surprised. 

If his sister did anything, then it was all his fault. He would've been the true murderer. He was the person who had been shrugged off by the world into an abyss of darkness, and became a traitor himself.

---

Back in the dreamy cherry blossom park, Lin Xingren loosely clasped her hands around Ye Zhen. Their hearts thumped. 

"Oh right, " she lifted her head from his back, "have you been here before?"

"A long time ago."

"By yourself?"

"No, with someone I miss."

Lin Xingren moved her brows. 

"Your sis-?"

"Where do you want to go now?" Ye Zhen asked.

"Where?"

We could go join Weng Bai and Chen Siyun, but...