Healing Sunshine

Chapter 19.1 - The Two Opposite Ends of Life

In 2002, all kinds of unavoidable man-made calamities had occurred, while in 2003, everywhere all over the world, there had been natural disasters or tragedies of war. However, 2004 was the year she was most unwilling to pull up in her memory.

That year, she would always think of that foreign film she had secretly watched twice because of Jungkook.

What she would recall over and over was only that scene from the beginning of the movie, that conversation between Matilda and Leon.

Matilda asked Leon, "Is life always this hard, or is it when you're a kid?"

Leon very calmly replied, "Always like this."

When Lalisa received a call from an old classmate of her former advanced science stream class in Fuzhong High School, inviting her to go to a class gathering, her heart, which had already been downcast because of Jungkook's short email, plummeted straight to the bottom of the gorge. She did not really believe the content of that telephone conversation.

Their class prefect, Mingyu, had been found to have lung cancer, and it was already in advanced stage. That male classmate informed her over the telephone of the gathering time and told her that everyone was going together to visit. Then in passing, he asked her, "Are you able to get ahold of Somi?"

Lalisa told him that Somi was in the United Kingdom and it would be difficult for her to come back. That old classmate sighed and then hung up the phone.

This was her first time facing sudden grievous news about a close friend.

Lalisa thought for a long time but still was unable to come up with how she would tell Somi. After all, he was her first love. Even if the love was no longer present, he was still a very good friend. That person who encompassed the most beautiful memories of her youth had now stepped into the final stage of his life. Lalisa was worried that Somi would not be able to bear this, so for the time being, she did not tell her.

The arranged date for everyone to go visit Class Prefect was moved several times until finally, the arrangements very coincidentally settled on February 14, Valentine's Day.

That day, a thick Valentine's atmosphere pervaded everywhere, but those twenty and more classmates gathered together were all very quiet. Seeing that everyone was so despondent, one of the classmates had arbitrarily bought a bag of sweets and shared it amongst the group. The piece tossed to Lalisa was a liquor-filled chocolate. The organizer of this gathering took out a 100 kuai bill and set it on the table. Without any prompting, everyone else also pulled out his or her wallet, and they were able to pool together a stack of money. And then, after taking two buses, they arrived at Class Prefect's house.

This was her first time coming to Class Prefect's home. Even back in that year when he and Somi were dating underage, Somi had not come here either. Everyone knew that his home was in a little village on the northern outskirts of Beijing. When they arrived, they saw it truly was a village.

It was winter. The whole earth was bare. Everywhere was cloaked in a hazy gray colour. When Class Prefect's older sister welcomed everyone into the house, she was still trying to put on a happy, smiling front. As this was still the Lunar New Year period, there were still jujubes, peanuts, and other similar items in the home, and she brought them all out and set them on the table. Lalisa did not really dare to walk inside first and waited until nearly everyone had stepped through the doorway before slowly entering that large house.

Houses in villages all tended to be very large, and even with more than twenty people in it, some standing, some sitting, the room still felt spacious.

In that moment that she stepped inside, Class Prefect happened to be rising to his feet, a brilliantly sunny smile still on his face, just as before. "Seriously, how come all of you came? So, how have you all been? You should have done quite well on your exams, right?" Class Prefect had already been a very proper and serious person during their student days together. Now, after being in military academy for so long, the way he spoke was even all the more straightforward and upright. Those male classmates were all very obliging and went along with it, chatting away with him.