Chapter Title: Waiting for the Postman
The next morning, Lu Yuan woke earlier than usual.
For a brief moment, he didn't understand why.
Then his gaze landed on the neatly folded letter resting beside his bed.
And he remembered.
Qingyue had written.
The realization brought a strange warmth to his chest.
Small.
Gentle.
But enough to make the room feel less empty.
Carefully, he unfolded the letter again.
It was the fourth time he had read it.
Or perhaps the fifth.
He wasn't entirely sure anymore.
The words had already begun settling into his memory.
He could almost recite entire sections without looking.
Yet he read it anyway.
Slowly.
As though hearing her voice through the paper.
Only after finishing did he finally fold it again and place it back inside its envelope.
Then he picked up the fountain pen.
The dark blue one she had given him.
And stared at the blank page waiting on his desk.
Writing turned out to be harder than expected.
Not because he didn't have anything to say.
But because he had too much.
He wanted to tell her about the bakery.
The weather.
The ginkgo tree.
The students in school.
The old bookstore.
The quiet afternoons.
The empty walk home.
The way he still looked for her without thinking.
The way the days felt longer now.
But when he lowered the pen to paper—
nothing came out right.
He frowned.
Crossed out a sentence.
Started again.
Crossed out another.
The wastebasket beside his desk slowly filled with discarded sheets.
By the time he finally finished, nearly an hour had passed.
The letter itself wasn't very long.
Just a few pages.
Simple words.
Simple stories.
But they were his.
And somehow, that mattered.
The following afternoon, Lu Yuan mailed the letter on his way home.
The envelope disappeared through the slot with a soft sound.
And suddenly—
there was nothing left to do.
He had written.
He had replied.
Now all he could do was wait.
Waiting, he soon discovered, was much harder than writing.
The first day passed slowly.
The second day passed even slower.
Each afternoon after school, he found himself glancing toward the street outside his house whenever he heard footsteps.
Listening for the sound of a bicycle bell.
Watching for the familiar postman.
Nothing came.
Of course nothing came.
It had only been a few days.
Even he knew that.
Yet disappointment still arrived each time.
A week later, another letter arrived.
This time, he was waiting by the front gate when the postman appeared.
The older man chuckled as he handed over the envelope.
"Another one already?"
Lu Yuan accepted it carefully.
"Thank you."
The postman smiled knowingly.
"You must be close friends."
For a moment, Lu Yuan looked down at the handwriting on the envelope.
Qingyue's handwriting.
Familiar.
Comforting.
Then he answered quietly.
"Yes."
Very close.
He didn't wait until evening this time.
The moment he reached his room, he opened the letter.
A photograph slipped out first.
Qingyue standing beneath a row of flowering trees.
A school building visible behind her.
The smile on her face looked brighter than before.
Healthier.
Happier.
Lu Yuan stared at it for several seconds before unfolding the letter.
Dear Yuan,
You were right.
The city isn't as scary as I thought.
I still get lost sometimes, but only once this week, which is an improvement.
You may applaud my progress.
A tiny smile appeared immediately.
Classes finally started.
There are so many students here.
Sometimes I miss how quiet our old school was.
The teachers are nice, though.
One of them reminds me of Teacher Chen because he talks forever and never notices when students stop listening.
Lu Yuan actually laughed.
A rare sound inside his room.
The letter continued for several pages.
Stories.
Observations.
Small complaints.
Tiny victories.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing important.
And somehow—
those were his favorite parts.
Because they felt real.
Because they felt like Qingyue.
Weeks slowly became months.
Letters arrived regularly.
Not always on the same day.
Not always at the same time.
But they came.
And each one brought a little piece of her world with it.
Photographs of parks.
Photographs of school festivals.
Photographs of crowded streets.
Sometimes pictures of food she thought looked strange.
Once, she even mailed a pressed flower inside an envelope.
"It reminded me of the ginkgo tree," the note explained.
Lu Yuan kept that flower too.
Carefully.
Protected between the pages of a notebook.
Just like the photographs.
Just like the letters.
Just like everything else she sent.
Without realizing it, he began measuring time differently.
Not by weeks.
Not by months.
But by letters.
The days before a letter arrived.
And the days after.
The anticipation.
The relief.
The waiting.
Each envelope became a promise fulfilled.
Proof that she remembered.
Proof that she hadn't forgotten him.
Proof that somewhere beyond the distance between them—
Qingyue was still reaching back.
And Lu Yuan, sitting alone beneath the growing shadow of his troubled home life, clung to those letters more tightly with each passing month.
Because sometimes, when everything else felt uncertain—
they were the only thing he could rely on.