"I'm called Liu Zheng," she said, "because the night my mom gave birth to me, she dreamt of a wandering kite. Have you ever lost a kite? When I was young, I lost so many kites, never knowing where they ended up."
"Lost them."
"Did you find them again?"
"I found them, but couldn't pick them up again."
"Why not?"
Why not? Why not? She could never understand why she found them yet couldn't pick them up again; by the time she finally understood, she had lost her very important, very important kite. She found it too, yet she really could never pick it up again.
Everyone has a streak of starlight in their hearts, which at times, during some lonely nights, lights up the fuzzy and fragmented memories.
A river of stars flowed in Ruan Liuzheng's heart.
It belonged to a man whose eyes shimmered with the flow of the galaxy, the sparkling of broken stars.
He never smiled, and the wrinkles between his eyebrows seemed etched onto his forehead as if they were born with him.
He always wore clean, neatly pressed white coats, with two pens forever tucked in the pocket.
When he took out a pen to write, his eyelids would droop down, his eyelashes very long.
He had beautiful hands, perhaps due to holding surgical tools for so many years; even his fingers felt as cold as scalpels.
He wasn't a man of many words; on the rare occasions he spoke, he never raised his voice, sounding like the streamwater flowing gracefully in the cold night's starlight, echo lingering, yet cold and indifferent.
She had spent many years loving him and quite a few years trying to forget him.
Later, time gradually blurred his features, and standing under the starry sky of a foreign land, she strained to remember him, unable to piece together his exact face anymore, only recalling the brightness and coolness of starlight in his eyes.
She once thought forgetting wasn't so difficult, but later, much later, when he told her, "Liu Zheng, forget me," she realized there are some people, even if a lifetime is spent, they cannot be forgotten.
Time flows away, but starlight remains eternal.
Even if the shooting stars fall, leaving only her profound affection.
"You're called Liu Zheng?"
"Yes... yes..."
"I heard you like me?"
"Um... yes... I... but..."
"Then let's get married."
"Oh. Okay... huh?"
Where does the story start from here, and where does it end?
Airport.
Ruan Liuzheng was holding her phone, making a call, and hastily dragging her suitcase along.
When the call finally connected, she urgently asked, "Mom, I'm back! Just landed! Which hospital is Dad in?"
"Zheng'er, your dad is fine now, he made it through," came the voice of her mom, Pei Sufen.
Relieved by the news, Ruan Liuzheng had panicked and immediately bought a plane ticket to return, even forgetting to ask which hospital he was in.
"Mom, which hospital is he in? I'm coming right over."
"It's at..." Pei Sufen hesitated, "It's at Zhiqian's place..." She then hurriedly explained, fearing her daughter would be upset, "Zheng'er, you weren't home, and your dad suddenly fell ill, I didn't know what to do, Zhiqian is family after all, so I just..."
Hearing that name, a part of her heart clenched, and a familiar pain spread through her.
But how could she blame her mom? It had been six years since she had left her parents, failing to fulfill her duties; her dad being sick only made her feel guilty, not angry. It's just that the term "family"...
Ha... no longer... or perhaps, never was.