Volume 15
Chapter 6: In the Midst of Fireworks (Part 3)
The diary began when Baili was in elementary school. The two of them lay side by side on her small bed, and Baili read out the contents of the diary in a small voice. At first, it was all the rambling accounts of an elementary school student, not written every day, once a week, sometimes once a month. Occasionally, a few words and phrases would make Lu Li’s heart ache, such as “The school organized a trip to the zoo. The teacher collected 12 yuan for the entrance fee. I’d better not go.” “I ran so fast today, I got upstairs without my dad seeing me! Hooray!” “I hate Xiong Meiqi so much. She always says I stink. I just didn’t take a shower for one day…” On the pages of her elementary school diary, there were also various colorful little stickers: little suns, little rainbows, and little flowers.
But by the time she was in junior high, these little stickers were gone. Her handwriting had also become much more elegant and neat, and Baili would also write the weather, the day of the week, and the month at the beginning of each diary entry. From this time on, Baili’s diary was mostly filled with complaints, like a gloomy, resentful wife cursing in a corner. She hated her home, hated her school, hated her teachers, hated her classmates. She felt there was no meaning in living, but she didn’t have the courage to die.
An Baili was a little evasive when she was showing Lu Li the diary from this period. Lu Li didn’t say anything, just wrapped his arm around her waist, held her tightly, and quickly flipped through these few pages with her hand. The frequency of her diary writing in junior high became lower and lower. By the second half of the book, it was rare for her to write even once a month. Most of the pages in the middle had become Baili’s random doodles.
In high school, Baili wrote only one diary entry at the beginning of the school year. She wrote: “I don’t want to live anymore. This time, I must be a little braver…” After that, there were no more entries. Lu Li turned his head to look at the quail-like Baili. “Do you still want to live now?” She said in a small voice, “I do~”
“Are you still brave?”
“Not brave anymore…”
“Do you dare to have this kind of thought in the future?”
“I don’t dare anymore~”
After a few sentences, she began to act cute. Lu Li’s stern face relaxed, and he was clung to by her on the bed for a long while. If not for the fact that Lu Li had other plans, he would have almost been unable to protect his own underwear.
…
After this fuss, Baili’s mood was clearly much better. Before leaving, she even waved at the main door. “Goodbye, my past!” Walking out the door, facing the sunlight, she was a field of sunflowers.
After having dinner with Baili, Lu Li carried a box of “Cloud Dream Marsh” fireworks up to the Jinjiang Bridge. Today, there were construction signs at both ends of the Jinjiang Bridge, so the bridge was empty of cars. When the two of them stepped onto the bridge, it felt as if they were standing on the spine of a vast dragon.
Lu Li knew that An Baili liked to set off fireworks. He undid the button of his collar and carefully took out the firework tubes one by one. Seeing Baili motionless for a long while, he looked back and saw her looking at her with deep affection, her eyes as if holding the autumn water, rippling with the slightest breeze. Perhaps she liked Lu Li himself more than setting off fireworks.
This was the place where Baili from his first life had drowned herself. It was the source of their three-life entanglement, and also the place where Lu Li and Baili had truly reconciled in this life. The Jinjiang Bridge had a special meaning for the two of them. It was originally not allowed to set off fireworks here, but Lu Li had asked the two princes to step in, and with the royal privilege, they were able to have the bridge to themselves for a while, unlike in his past life, when they had to secretly set off fireworks and then be chased by the city management.
And Lu Li’s arrangements were far from just this. He had also asked the owners of the commercial street on the opposite bank to light up the neon lights at 8:30 in the evening and to launch the most brilliant fireworks from the roof of every commercial building. He wanted tonight’s Chuanhai night sky to belong only to the girl beside him.
“Baili, you don’t want to set off fireworks?”
“I do, of course I do.” She tilted her head, looking at Lu Li with a smile.
“Then why don’t you come and get the firework tube? You’re not proactive at all.”
“I just want to look at you a little more.”
…
The night in Chuanhai at the turn of winter and spring fell very quickly. While the couple was talking, the sun set in the west, and a quiet brilliance spread over the entire sea surface. Every ripple on the surface of the river was reflected in a brilliant red. In less than a moment, the last sliver of crimson and deep purple was swallowed by the river, and a shimmering blue reflection appeared on the water. Looking up, he saw that the moon had risen.
Lu Li handed her the firework tube. “The first one is yours.”
An Baili took the firework tube with great enthusiasm. She had never played with such high-end fireworks before and for a moment, couldn’t find how to light them. Lu Li taught her to hold the stick and use a lighter with the other hand to light the fuse. Baili was a coward. She shrank her neck and tried to light it several times but failed. Her afraid-yet-playful little appearance made Lu Li laugh out loud.
Finally, the firework shot out of her hand with a whoosh. The vibration from the firework tube even startled the little coward. But when the firework, with a low eagle’s cry, rose into the sky and bloomed into a colorful flower of light, the little coward forgot her fear and looked at the fireworks filling the sky with a look of envy. “So beautiful.”
An Baili’s profile changed color under the illumination of the multi-colored fireworks. Lu Li thought, You’re more beautiful than the fireworks.
…
A little while later, Baili excitedly took another firework tube. “I want to play more!”
“They’re all yours. No one is going to compete with you for them.”
“Let’s do it together. You too. You count to three, two, one, and we’ll set them off together!” The little village girl insisted on setting off fireworks with Lu Li at the same time.
“Alright, alright,” Lu Li said dotingly. He had never been very good at refusing girls, especially pretty girls. A soft heart was a disease, and he was probably terminally ill.
“Three, two, one, launch!”
Two fireworks rose into the sky and bloomed in mid-air at the same time. It was unclear if it was a coincidence, but the shape of the fireworks was just like a pair of mandarin ducks flying side by side.
Tears shone in An Baili’s eyes. She looked at the pair of birds in the night sky, a little dazed.
Lu Li also looked at Baili in a daze. This time, when they came to Chuanhai, Baili hadn’t asked him what he was here to do, hadn’t asked him why he was suddenly setting off fireworks, hadn’t asked him why there was no one on the bridge, why they could set off fireworks in the city. She had just cast all that aside and was purely enjoying her time with Lu Li.
Lu Li suddenly felt that the extravagant fireworks display he had arranged was bland and tasteless. Perhaps Baili didn’t care at all about the fireworks filling the city, didn’t care about the night sky that belonged only to her. What she cared more about, perhaps, was just the two of them snuggling together as usual, watching the romantic mandarin ducks in the sky.
The river reflected the fireworks. It was hard to tell if it was on the surface of the water or under it that butterflies made of light were dancing. Lu Li suddenly forgot his elaborate arrangements and blurted out, “Baili, marry me.”
He took out the red box with the ring from his pants pocket, so casually, the only audience being the colorful butterflies at his feet.
Baili, as a matter of course, turned her head, without the slightest hesitation. “Okay.”
After a pause, she said again, “I want to be with you forever. The last life, this life, the next life, the future, the future of the future… Li, I want to be with you forever.”
This time, it was Lu Li’s turn to not hesitate in the slightest. “Okay.”
Only at this moment, on the distant opposite bank, the neon lights flashed, and the fireworks in the sky bloomed all at once, surrounding the entire Jinjiang Bridge in a riot of color.
