The Healing Sunshine (一厘米的阳光)

Chapter 25.1 - Joined Pulses (1)

Nuannuan's boyfriend had left Chengdu two days ago, so, as it turned out, he had avoided this earthquake.

That night, Nuannuan's mother reminded the two of them to absolutely not sleep too deeply, that they should be prepared at any time to handle any aftershocks. This sort of instruction did not have any practical effect, for Jǐ Yi was utterly unable to sleep anyway. The instant she closed her eyes, she would think of Jì Chengyang. His mobile phone had already gone from a state of being unable to connect any calls to a powered-off one.

In the deep of night, there once again were intense aftershocks. The people in the bedrooms all moved out into the yard.

As Jǐ Yi sat on a small chair, her arms wrapped around her knees, she and Nuannuan stared soundlessly at each other. She did not want to speak a single word. Utterly powerless—right now, she deeply understood the meaning of those two words. A disaster befalling right around you and the feelings you get when you simply watch it on a news report are two completely different concepts.

Not far away, Nuannuan's mother was keeping Nuannuan's maternal grandpa company by casually conversing with him, remarking that there had been an especially large number of unfortunate things that had occurred this year. It was just at the end of last month that two trains had collided in the Shandong province and the casualties had been in the hundreds. Now this month, before even half the month had passed, there was also this earthquake here in Sichuan... Nuannuan's mother had always had a good relationship with Jì Chengyang, so this entire time, her heart, too, had been in her throat. Eventually, the elder, who was already beyond the age of eighty, actually ended up needing to comfort her and urge her not to worry.

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The television on the first floor was on, giving live broadcasts of pictures from the disaster relief efforts. Jǐ Yi watched fixatedy, especially fearful that he might appear in the camera shots, especially fearful that one of the people being carried out from a certain corner somewhere would be Jì Chengyang; yet she was also hoping that he would appear, if even only a backside view, to show that he was safe...

"Xixi." Nuannuan was also worried sick, but seeing Jǐ Yi like this, she could not contain the heartache for her too and wanted to divert Jǐ Yi's attention. "This time after coming back to the country, I went to see Xu Qing. His older sister went with me."

Nuannuan's words pulled her back to reality.

That warmhearted class prefect who had departed this world too early was the regrettable sorrow of every one of their high school schoolmates. The painful impact of the passing of a good friend and peer of the same age is ony understood by someone who has experienced it. Jǐ Yi quietly said, "I've never gone. I don't dare go. I only went to see him at his home with our classmates before he passed away. At that time, he had still looked quite fine."

"I also don't know why I went. At first, I didn't dare go either. Later, when I stood in front of his grave and looked at his photo, I kept feeling that this person should still be alive. I couldn't sense at all that he really isn't here anymore." Setting her chin on her knees as well, Nuannuan said in a low voice, "I can still remember especially clearly, back when he and I were together, that time during our first kiss, his arms were shaking while he held me. And after we were done kissing, he was too embarrassed to really talk to me..."

Jǐ Yi did not know what she should say.

"Back then, we had been afraid it would interfere with our studies, so we dated for a while and then just ended up breaking up. Now that I think back on it, it's actually quite a shame." Jì Nuannuan spoke in quiet tones. "If he and I had been together the whole time and then he went to study at military academy, I definitely would have been able to help him in a lot of ways. I could have somehow found a way to get him back to Beijing. He would lead his troops, and I'd be the significant other of a soldier. That actually would have been pretty nice. I'm guessing my [paternal] granddad would have been happiest about that. People in my family all would like it if I found someone who wears a military uniform, and the financial circumstances of his family would have improved quite a bit, too."