The streetlights were stingy, illuminating only the small patches of ground beneath them. Sheng Qingrang stood just beyond their reach, his face half-lit, half-shrouded in shadow.
The steam from the instant noodles rose quietly, the spicy aroma filling her nostrils. The convenience store's background music automatically switched to the next track, the melody suddenly turning lively.
The part-time night shift worker was disposing of expired food, their footsteps pausing intermittently. Zong Ying sat at the long table, lost in thought.
Starting from a certain year, September 14th had ceased to be a day worth celebrating.
For over a decade, she hadn’t celebrated her birthday, and for just as long, no one had wished her a "Happy Birthday."
The muffled blessing from beyond the glass window felt like something from a distant past, unfamiliar to Zong Ying.
The part-time worker suddenly looked up after finishing their task and spotted a familiar figure outside. They thought to themselves, Why is he here again?
Because of the night shift, they often encountered this strange man after 10 p.m. His demeanor and attire were old-fashioned but never shabby. Yet every time he came to the store, he never bought anything—only asked if there were any expired food items to discard.
The worker peeked outside and saw him bending slightly, his gaze fixed on the woman eating instant noodles at the table.
Surely he isn’t eyeing someone else’s noodles?!
The worker found the whole scene awkward and pursed their lips, about to look away, when the welcome chime suddenly rang. Turning toward the sound, they saw the man actually step inside.
Instead of approaching the counter to ask for discarded food, he walked straight to the window-side table and stopped beside the woman.
Clearly unsure of himself, he leaned slightly forward and cautiously murmured, "Miss Zong, I apologize. I may have been abrupt earlier."
Zong Ying had been spacing out ever since she heard his "Happy Birthday." Only when he disappeared outside the window, only when he pushed the door open, only when he spoke his apology, did she finally snap the lid back onto her noodle cup, turn her head, and unexpectedly say, "Thank you."
Seeing her expression unchanged, Sheng Qingrang finally relaxed and handed her a watch box. "I’m deeply grateful for your help these past few months. Please accept this."
Zong Ying’s gaze fell on the box. After two seconds, she reached out and took the gift.
The logo on the packaging gave a clear hint of what was inside. Opening it, she found a watch—one from the 1930s.
Unlike an heirloom antique, this watch was brand new, untouched by time. Running her fingertip over the dial, she could almost feel the warmth and scent of that era.
Zong Ying faintly detected the smell of gunpowder.
On the watch, on the box, and even on Sheng Qingrang’s clothes.
It was so sharp and intense that it overpowered the spicy aroma of the instant noodles.
Lowering her eyes, she studied Sheng Qingrang’s shoes—dust still clung to the leather, his trouser cuffs were dirty, and though his shirt was kept as neat as possible, he still looked disheveled overall. Her gaze traveled upward until it met his eyes. She wanted to ask, Where have you been all this time? But in the end, she only asked in her usual composed tone, "Have you eaten?"
Sheng Qingrang looked down at her impassive face and answered truthfully, "No."
"Good timing." Zong Ying lifted the lid again, stood up, and walked to the counter, where she asked the stunned part-time worker for another pair of chopsticks. Returning to the table, she sat down. "I haven’t eaten either. Sit."After speaking, she sat back down, holding the plastic bowl lid in one hand and chopsticks in the other, scooping out half of the curled noodles from the bowl and piling them onto the lid.
Her movements were swift and decisive.
Before Sheng Qingrang could react, she had already pushed the other pair of chopsticks and the remaining half of the noodles toward him. "Eat," she said.
Eating noodles on a birthday was nothing unusual, but sharing a bowl of instant noodles to celebrate was an experience Sheng Qingrang had never had before.
Since arriving in her time and meeting her, he had already encountered too many firsts—but this one felt subtly different.
Zong Ying always ate quickly. Sheng Qingrang tried to keep up but still lagged behind. In the end—
She watched him finish the last bite of noodles and reminded him, "Don’t drink the broth."
Sheng Qingrang set down the bowl, and Zong Ying naturally reached over, covered it with the lid, stood up, and walked to the door, tossing it into the trash along with the chopsticks and napkins.
She shoved her hands into her pockets and turned to Sheng Qingrang. "Let’s go back."
Sheng Qingrang hurriedly picked up his briefcase, grabbed the watch gift box from the table, and followed her out.
The part-time worker in the shop watched in confusion. The situation had completely defied her expectations. She wanted to take another look, but the two had already walked away.
Outside the shop, only the streetlights remained, their glow lifeless. The plane trees, battered by the storm, stood listlessly, their broad leaves scattered across the wet ground.
The entrance of Apartment 699 was similarly littered with plane tree leaves, the ground damp and slick.
Few people came or went from the building at this late hour, and the corridor was eerily quiet. The two stepped into the elevator. Zong Ying kept her head down, scrolling through her phone, while Sheng Qingrang stood beside her, awkwardly idle.
After a long silence, he finally asked, "Is Ms. Fang at the apartment?"
As the elevator doors opened, Zong Ying put away her phone. "Grandma left earlier today."
Sheng Qingrang seemed to exhale in relief.
The moment the door opened, a wave of damp air greeted them. Zong Ying flicked on the hallway light and noticed the balcony door had been left open.
She walked straight to the balcony to close it, while Sheng Qingrang bent down to place the watch box on the coffee table—each attending to their own tasks.
For the two of them to reunite like this, unhurried, in Apartment 699, was a rare occurrence.
Zong Ying was exhausted. She collapsed onto the sofa, not even bothering to turn on the TV. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock—until Sheng Qingrang went to the kitchen to boil water, filling the space with the lively sound of bubbling.
Just as he poured the hot water into cups, the doorbell suddenly rang.
At the sound, Sheng Qingrang tensed instinctively, ready to hide, but Zong Ying stood from the sofa and reassured him, "It’s just the delivery I ordered."
Delivery? Sheng Qingrang didn’t recall her ordering anything. He approached the door, and the delivery person confirmed, "Delivery for Ms. Zong. Here’s the bill."
As Sheng Qingrang reached for it, Zong Ying took the bill first, casually opening the entryway cabinet to retrieve money.
She flipped through the box, pulling out a few bills to hand over, when she suddenly noticed several thin letters tucked beneath. Her hand froze mid-motion. Under Sheng Qingrang’s anxious gaze, she pinched the stack and pulled them all out.
Right in front of him, Zong Ying read each letter one by one before finally lifting her eyes from the pages to look at him.
Every single one was written by Sheng Qingrang, each containing only a few lines—brief updates on his well-being, signed and dated at the bottom.Zong Ying lowered her gaze and asked him, "Have you been coming to the apartment these past few days?"
Sheng Qingrang bowed his head in thought before explaining, "The night I returned from Pudong, I tried calling you and the apartment, but couldn’t get through. Later, when I went back to the apartment, no one was home. I was worried your grandmother might return at any moment, so to avoid complications, I didn’t stay long. But not informing you didn’t sit right with me, so I left you a note."
Zong Ying listened, then let her hand drop. She still remembered what she had told him at the highway rest stop: "If you come back, no matter what, let me know." And he had actually done just that.
Few people took her words so seriously. Zong Ying pressed her lips together and turned her face away, tucking the note back into the entryway cabinet. She stepped forward to close the front door and quickly changed the subject. "Half a bowl of noodles earlier definitely wasn’t enough, so I ordered more food on the way back."
Sheng Qingrang recalled how she had been checking her phone the entire journey.
He hurriedly picked up the takeout containers and headed to the dining table, deftly setting things up. Seeing him busy, Zong Ying didn’t interfere. Instead, she went straight to the storage cabinet, pulled out a bottle of wine, grabbed a corkscrew, and sat down at the table.
Seven or eight boxes were spread across the table, the food still steaming—a lavish spread.
Just as Sheng Qingrang began to worry whether they could finish it all, Zong Ying glanced at him and replied, "Don’t worry, I can finish it. Nothing will go to waste."
During wartime, food was scarce, so Zong Ying fully understood his cautious attitude toward it.
As she uncorked the bottle, she asked, "How did you know it was my birthday?"
She looked up, fixing her gaze on him.
The cork popped out. Sheng Qingrang stood up to fetch two glasses and answered, "Your passcode is 914914, and your umbrella has 914 printed on it. It’s clear this number holds significance for you. Besides..." He paused. "Your ID also states your birthdate."
Zong Ying remembered she had indeed used her ID in front of him before.
She poured half a glass of wine for him and another half for herself, then said calmly, "Today is also the anniversary of my mother’s death. She passed away many years ago."
Sheng Qingrang knew that 914 was the day Yan Man had died, but this was the first time Zong Ying had voluntarily shared her past with him.
He understood this wasn’t the moment to interrupt. Sure enough, Zong Ying continued, "That day, the nanny told me she would come back in the evening to celebrate my birthday, so early in the morning, she prepared a cake and candles. But I waited from dawn till dusk, and she never came. Late at night, people arrived to deliver the news—she had taken her own life in the new building. When my father found out, he was furious. He took it out on me and smashed my cake and candles."
She took another sip of wine. "It was a two-tiered cream cake, overly sweet. The candles had electronic chips that played music. Even after they were smashed, the nanny threw them in the trash, but they kept singing—just slower, eerier. That night, everyone in the house left, and I was alone. I sat by the trash can, listening to the music until the batteries died. I was terrified. I didn’t sleep at all that night."
At this point, she tilted her head back and drained her glass.
It was rare for Zong Ying to speak so much, yet her tone remained flat, as if recounting someone else’s story. Only beneath her usual detached expression lay an undercurrent of sorrow.The soft, warm light overhead cast its glow, and even though she was still clad in her rigid armor, she didn’t seem as cold or unapproachable.
She wasn’t a machine. Beneath that efficient, unyielding exterior lay her own emotions.
Sheng Qingrang caught a glimpse of genuine exhaustion in her gaze—soft and real.
The living room fell into silence, broken only by the indifferent ticking of the wall clock as it marched relentlessly toward a new day.
After the clock struck midnight, the sharp scent of alcohol gradually faded, leaving only a pile of empty takeout boxes on the table—everything had been eaten.
Sheng Qingrang stood to clean up, while Zong Ying collected herself, picked up her cigarette case, and stepped out onto the balcony to smoke.
By the time she lit her second cigarette, the sound of running water from the kitchen stopped. Sheng Qingrang walked over and paused a few steps away from her.
Standing in the darkness outside, she watched him under the light as he studied her bookshelf, her photo frames, and her information board.
Suddenly, Sheng Qingrang asked, "Miss Zong, you’re not just an ordinary doctor, are you?"
Zong Ying frowned, took a drag from her cigarette, and replied, "I used to be. Not anymore."
He asked, "Why not?"
Zong Ying glanced at her hand from the corner of her eye and said, "Some things happened. The door I used to walk through closed, so I had to carve out another one."
His gaze returned to the information board, covered in reports of accidents and homicides. He should have realized it sooner—no ordinary doctor spent their days dealing with the dead.
Then he turned to the bookshelf and spotted a small badge from an extreme sports association tucked in the corner. "Miss Zong, do you like extreme sports?"
Zong Ying seemed to recall something from a long time ago. "Yes."
"What kind?"
"Rock climbing."
"Do you still do it now?"
"No."
"Because it’s dangerous?"
Her cigarette was nearly burnt out. "Hard on the hands," she said.
Sheng Qingrang dropped the topic and asked instead, "Is work busy?"
"Very." She paused. "But I’m on leave right now."
"Why?"
"Because there’s something more important than work to take care of."
Sheng Qingrang suddenly remembered the "will" and her selling off shares to settle her assets. After hesitating, he finally asked, "May I ask what it is?"
Zong Ying had answered every question tonight, but this time, she countered with one of her own: "Life and death?"
He sensed it was something serious. "Is there any way I can help?"
Zong Ying shook her head.
Sheng Qingrang watched her for a moment before shifting his gaze back inside.
On the bookshelf sat a small photo frame—a nebula, spread like the wings of a butterfly, breathtakingly beautiful.
Zong Ying walked back inside, stubbed her cigarette out in an empty soda can, and glanced at the frame Sheng Qingrang was staring at. "That’s a dead star," she said.
Sheng Qingrang turned to look at her.
This was beyond his knowledge. "Do you like astronomy?"
"I did when I was younger." She suddenly looked up at the wall clock. "It’s late. Go take a shower and get some rest."
At her urging, Sheng Qingrang knew he shouldn’t delay. He turned to head upstairs for his clothes, but Zong Ying called out, "Wait—"
She strode back to her room, pulled out a white shirt, and tossed it to him. "The shirt you left on the hotel stairs in Nanjing. I had it cleaned when I sent mine in. It’s clean."
With that, she dropped onto the sofa, picked up the half-finished bottle of alcohol from earlier, and without looking up, urged him again, "Go shower."When Sheng Qingrang came out of the shower, Zong Ying was curled up asleep on the sofa, having finished the remaining half bottle of wine.
Her sleeping posture looked uncomfortable, and she hadn’t even covered herself with a blanket. Sheng Qingrang leaned down and called to her softly, "Miss Zong, wake up. Go sleep in the bedroom."
Zong Ying didn’t wake. Instead, she frowned, clenched her teeth tighter, and her breathing grew heavier. The alcohol had brought a rare flush to her cheeks. Her lips parted slightly as she spoke in a hoarse voice, "Mom, I’m a little scared."
It was sleep-talk.
Sheng Qingrang called her name again gently, but she suddenly reached out and grabbed his fingers.
His entire back stiffened.
Zong Ying woke up on the sofa. A recliner had been placed beside it, but Sheng Qingrang was nowhere to be seen. Outside, the sky was already bright.
Morning light crept into the living room. Zong Ying sat up, rubbing her temples to clear her head, her gaze landing on the watch box on the coffee table.
She reached out and picked it up, remembering how, years ago on the eve of her birthday, she had asked her grandmother, "What gift will Mom give me this year?"
Her grandmother, who knew the truth, had replied, "Your mother mentioned recently that you have no sense of time—finishing your homework and then just sleeping. Maybe she’ll give you a watch?"
But as night fell, and until last night, she had never received a watch.
She suddenly took the watch from the box and slipped it onto her wrist, fastening it.
forlife—
OpenNovel