Light-Years Away – End
When Gu Jianian transferred to Beilin, she had just passed her seventh birthday. Her parents arranged for her to enter second grade as a transfer student.
She had spent six or seven carefree years playing in Yunmo. In kindergarten, she had only learned simple arithmetic; most of the time, she had simply played games under the teachers’ guidance.
But the children in Beilin had gone through prenatal education, early childhood education, bilingual kindergartens, and elite preschool classes.
When they stood beside Gu Jianian, it was like giants facing a little dwarf.
At first, Gu Jianian naturally could not keep up.
Fortunately, primary school knowledge was simple, and she was desperate to please her parents and her new teachers, so she studied extremely hard.
She listened carefully in class and completed every piece of extra homework the teachers assigned with meticulous care after returning home.
Just like that, Gu Jianian’s grades got better and better. When she took the entrance exam for junior high, she was admitted into Zhihua Junior High, the best junior high school in Dongcheng District.
On the day the results came out, her parents could hardly wait to announce it to the whole world.
They took her to Pizza Hut and ordered her a huge pizza. Even now, she still remembered that the pizza had been black pepper beef flavour.
They also took her to an amusement park. On the speeding roller coaster, they praised her with bright, glowing faces, calling her a little genius.
And so, Gu Jianian entered junior high in that floating, blissful atmosphere.
As the best junior high school in the district, Zhihua Junior High had difficult teaching content and equally intense competition.
From the very first term, Gu Jianian discovered that she lacked talent in maths and physics. Studying was no longer like it had been in primary school, where effort alone would bring results.
Most of the children who had been admitted to Zhihua had strong foundations.
The teachers taught quickly. Although Gu Jianian listened with full concentration, took notes meticulously, and carefully did practice questions after class, she still found it very hard to keep up with the pace.
She felt as if her brain was a sieve with huge holes. Those formulas and numbers poured in noisily, then were filtered straight out without leaving anything behind.
Teachers naturally liked students with strong comprehension skills. That was human nature.
But Gu Jianian clearly did not belong to that category.
She still remembered the first and only time she had gathered the courage to take her exercise book and ask the maths teacher a question.
After the maths teacher explained the solution process, she thought about it, yet still found it difficult to understand.
When she asked for the third time, the maths teacher said nothing. She only frowned and raised her head to glance at her.
That look was as if Gu Jianian were some alien creature.
“Use your brain. Don’t waste my time.”
The blood rushed to Gu Jianian’s face, and from then on, she never dared to ask questions again.
In that state, the midterm exam rankings came out.
Her maths and physics scores were near the bottom of the class, and her overall ranking was also in the lower range.
Discouraged and upset, she took her results home, hoping to receive comfort from her parents. Instead, she saw even greater unease, anxiety, and anger on their faces.
They kept holding the exam papers and questioning her, saying that if she continued like this, she would be finished. She would not get into a good high school, and she would not get into a good university either.
It was as if she had not merely done badly on a midterm exam, but had fallen into a dark, terrifying, bottomless cave.
After every exam that followed, Gu Jianian watched her parents walk into their room again and again, arguing because of her grades.
At first, they would close the door. Later, they could not even be bothered to leave it half-shut, as if they were arguing deliberately for her to hear.
They blamed each other’s education methods, fiercely accused one another of not caring enough, and in the end even began insulting each other’s genes.
“I was good at maths since I was young. It must all be because of you. Otherwise, would she be this stupid? Her maths teacher said she can’t understand no matter how much she studies!”
“I worked my way from Yunmo all the way to Beilin for university, and you call me stupid? I think your daughter takes after you. No brain, stubborn as a mule!”
Gu Jianian hid behind the door and cried silently.
She wanted to push the door open and walk in. She wanted to defend herself and say that she was not stupid.
She wanted to promise them that she would work hard.
And so, the second term of seventh grade arrived.
Gu Jianian studied with all her might.
She locked all her miscellaneous books into the bookcase and gritted her teeth as she worked through practice questions.
If her brain was slow, then she would practise more.
She completed one thick exercise book after another. Every night, after her parents had fallen asleep, she would get up again to preview and revise, studying until one or two in the morning.
Although that period was hard, there was still hope in her heart.
She still remembered the pride on her parents’ faces after her primary-to-junior-high entrance exam. In order to prove that she was still the “genius” they spoke of, she was willing to give everything.
Gu Jianian’s efforts finally paid off.
In the final exams at the end of seventh grade, Gu Jianian’s maths and physics grades improved greatly. Along with her Chinese and English scores, which had always been fairly good, her overall ranking slowly climbed from the lower-middle range into the top five of the class.
Her parents were extremely surprised and delighted. For the first time, that old comfortable pride appeared again on their anxious faces.
Their relaxed brows and approving gazes filled Gu Jianian with satisfaction. Secretly, she felt that her effort had not been in vain.
She seemed to have grasped a little of the rhythm of studying. In order to maintain that so-called “talent” in front of her parents, in order to keep up with everyone else, she was willing to put in twice the time and effort.
Unfortunately, it did not take long for her parents’ pride to spoil rapidly, like pickled cabbage soaking in a leaking fermentation jar.
At the parent-teacher meeting at the start of eighth grade, the homeroom teacher spoke to her parents. She praised Gu Jianian as someone with potential, a good seedling for a key high school and a key university, someone who should naturally go even further.
She bluntly said that although Gu Jianian’s science grades had improved, they were still not stable enough. Earnestly, she hoped that her parents would properly supervise her progress and absolutely not allow her to slack off.
That day, after her parents returned from school, it was as if they had been injected with adrenaline.
They were no longer satisfied with her being in the top five of the class. Instead, they began paying attention to her ranking in the year group and her ranking in district-wide joint exams.
They spoke with great confidence and soaring ambition. Beilin University, Zhoushan University, Nanli University… those famous top-tier universities seemed as if they were already in their pockets, easily within reach.
With passion, they described the bright future they hoped Gu Jianian would have.
And so, from the first term of eighth grade onward, her parents hired tutors for her in maths, physics, and chemistry. Each subject had three extra sessions a week, two hours each time, occupying almost all of her free time.
The rhythm Gu Jianian had only just found was chopped into pieces.
Her parents were eager to see results. Each tutor was usually only tried for one or two months. If Gu Jianian’s grades did not improve during that period, they would immediately replace them.
Gu Jianian had a slow-to-warm-up personality. It was hard for her to become close to people quickly. Often, before she had even adjusted to one tutor, they had already been replaced by another.
During that time, Gu Jianian felt like a shellfish being farmed in a pond, forced to take in one rough grain of sand after another.
She endured the pain and worked hard to turn those grains of sand into pearls. But before she could succeed, the old grain would be dug out of her, bloody and raw, and a new, hard grain would be forced in. There was never a day she could heal.
She was also like an old, rundown inn, receiving travellers who came and went with blurred, indistinct faces.
Most of them only stayed for one or two nights. No one had the time to truly stop, understand her, or repair her.
Just like that, her grades not only failed to improve, they fell instead.
From the top five of the class, to the top ten, to the top fifteen, and then back to the middle.
Her parents’ disappointment and curses were like sharp knives, stabbing into her flesh again and again. She began to realise that the vocabulary for insults could be so rich.
It turned out that in their eyes, she was even more unbearable than the most unbearable things in the world.
Unwilling to accept it, they counted on their fingers, accusing her with every sum of money the family had spent on hiring tutors for her, and every ounce of energy and time they had given to improve her grades.
One by one, all of them became sins piled onto her body.
It was from that year onward that Gu Jianian began suffering from insomnia.
She hid the books she secretly bought under her bed. When she could not sleep at night, she would take them out and hide under the covers to read.
Those stories accompanied her through one sleepless night after another, giving her the belief to keep going in her loneliness.
In the term before the high school entrance exam, Gu Jianian gathered the courage to climb upward once more.
She turned down all gatherings. The entire term and holiday were spent doing practice questions and attending tutoring sessions.
It was also during that stage that she lost the few friends she had in junior high.
“When you get into a good university, friends will naturally come.”
“The road to success is always lonely.”
Her parents comforted her like this.
Her grades finally improved again.
When the high school entrance exam results came out, she ranked eleventh in her class. Her total score was only three marks below Lin High School’s admission line.
Lin High School was the best high school in Beilin City, with a ninety-five percent first-tier university admission rate. It was also the high school her parents most wanted her to attend.
Gu Jianian wanted to settle for the next best option and go to another decent high school near home, Beilin No. 9 High School.
In order to compete with other second-tier high schools for students who had fallen just short of Lin High School, No. 9 High School’s teachers even called to invite her, saying they would place her in the liberal arts experimental class and nurture her properly.
But her parents were unwilling to accept that.
Gritting their teeth, they paid Lin High School’s school-choice fee for her.
Lin High School had a rule: students whose high school entrance exam scores were within three marks below the admission line could become school-choice students by paying a fee.
One mark cost thirty thousand yuan.
On the day her mother returned from paying the school-choice fee, she suddenly began searching Gu Jianian’s room and found more than a dozen miscellaneous books under her bed.
Furious, she tore them all apart.
Gu Jianian sobbed and threw herself forward to stop her, but she was beaten.
Her mother’s slaps landed harshly on her face, back, and shoulders. She twisted her arms, pinched her thighs, frantically venting all of her anger and unwillingness.
“Do you know how much money those three marks you were short cost?”
“This term, I thought you had finally improved. But it turns out you were hiding in your room every day secretly reading these useless books! If you hadn’t wasted your energy and time on these books, you would have been properly admitted to Lin High School!”
Gu Jianian stared dazedly at the scraps scattered all over the floor and did not defend herself anymore.
It probably began from that moment.
Gu Jianian entered Lin High School as a school-choice student, carrying the label of a “poor student.”
The words “poor student” also began appearing frequently in her parents’ and teachers’ mouths.
Even when her classmates referred to her, they called her that.
“That poor student, Gu Jianian.”
The three years of high school passed like a white horse flashing past a crack, so grey and bleak that she could not fully recall them.
At the end of tenth grade, she numbly followed her parents’ wishes and chose the science track, which the school valued more and which supposedly offered better job prospects.
In eleventh grade, she buried her head in profound maths and physics problems, enduring the gap she could not close no matter how much she studied, listening to the mockery and sarcasm from subject teachers and classmates.
Until she entered twelfth grade.
Gu Jianian’s grades still showed no improvement. She remained near the bottom of the class, and in several mock exams, her results hovered around the first-tier university cut-off line.
Her parents began asking everywhere for so-called educational methods, especially from colleagues whose children had been admitted into key universities.
They tried every kind of tactic on her.
Confiscating her phone, unplugging the internet cable, regularly checking her revision progress. If they were even slightly dissatisfied, she would face harsh verbal attacks and physical punishment.
They also punished her by making her copy out the questions she had answered incorrectly, hoping she would deeply engrave them into her mind.
The worst time, Gu Jianian copied the physics questions she had gotten wrong on an exam paper fifty times.
But even after copying them fifty times, the next time she encountered the same type of question, she still could not solve it.
Or rather, she could not even persist until she had finished reading the question. Her body would react instinctively: dizziness, nausea, pain so intense she wanted to vomit.
In the final term before the gaokao, her parents began installing a camera in the study so they could constantly monitor her during the final sprint stage.
Gu Jianian’s insomnia grew even worse.
What kind of days were those?
On some nights, she held a pen and looked at the exam papers and exercise books in front of her, but her soul seemed to leave her body, floating above the room and looking down at herself.
She began to wonder: who exactly was she?
Who was this person sitting at the desk like a puppet without a soul?
She began seriously considering “giving up.”
From—
“I’m really not stupid. I’ll work hard.”
To—
“I’ve already worked very hard. Maybe I really am just too stupid.”
From the age of seven to seventeen, Gu Jianian had gritted her teeth and walked a road full of thorn bushes, only to realise that what waited for her was not a bright, open mountaintop, but a rotten, muddy swamp.
She did not know how to solve her insomnia. She did not know whether there was medicine for the constant palpitations she felt day after day.
One month before the gaokao, she skipped evening self-study for the first time, wanting to go to the school rooftop and catch her breath.
It was that day that she saw someone smoking on the rooftop.
They were a few little thugs from outside school. They looked familiar; occasionally, they mixed with some of Lin High School’s poor students. She did not know how they had snuck into the school.
They smoked while chatting and laughing, telling crude, low-class jokes.
When they saw Gu Jianian, they whistled at her through the swirling smoke.
“Pretty girl, want to come chat with us?”
Their laughter was so reckless, without any burden, as if the world belonged to them.
Gu Jianian, however, seemed to have fallen under a spell.
She walked over and asked the leading thug for a cigarette.
The first time she smoked, she could barely accept the taste. She almost choked until tears came out.
The group of thugs laughed at her from the side.
“Lin High School’s good students are all bookworms. They don’t even know how to smoke.”
Gu Jianian forced herself to finish one cigarette, then handed them money with trembling hands, asking them to buy cigarettes for her.
The second day, the third day… As if bewitched, she used the excuse of going out for tutoring every day and skipped class to go to the rooftop.
The thugs would occasionally come and bring her a pack of cigarettes in passing.
But most of the time, she was alone.
During those nights, it was as if she had obtained a peace she had never felt in all those long years.
She stood in the free evening wind that belonged only to her, allowing herself to sink into that cheap tobacco smell, falling, decaying.
She thought she could rely on that kind of indulgence to last until the gaokao.
Unfortunately, things had always been difficult for her to get as she wished.
Just like when she was little, in order to keep a small turtle, she had desperately wanted to score ninety-five marks, but in the end, she had only scored ninety-four point five.
That missing half a mark was her fate.
On the final evening she stayed at school before the gaokao, Gu Jianian went to the rooftop for the last time, only to be discovered by her Chinese teacher, who had come there by chance.
From then on, an even deeper nightmare began.
…
By the time Gu Jianian finally finished recounting those long ten years, the night was already deep.
Neither of them spoke. Only the second hand of the clock on the wall kept moving with a tick-tock sound.
Chi Yan turned his head to look.
The little girl was curled up in the large single armchair, hugging her knees with both hands. Her waist, outlined by the green floral dress, looked especially slender as she shrank into herself.
Her eyes were wide open, yet there was no emotion in them.
She was so calm that it seemed as if she were telling someone else’s story.
Chi Yan wanted to speak and break that calm, but his throat felt dry and hoarse, making it difficult to make a sound.
A person who had always been good with words now found even a few fragments of speech difficult.
The room was silent. Even the air conditioner had stopped running.
As if sensing something, he suddenly turned to glance at the clock on the wall.
Eleven fifty-nine.
He sighed, then suddenly, unable to restrain himself, reached out and gently rubbed the top of her head.
The feeling beneath his fingertips was still somewhat warm, inexplicably putting him at ease.
“Last minute,” he said, tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Happy birthday. Congratulations on becoming an adult.”
He hoped she could be happy.
Happy birthday.
Congratulations on becoming an adult.
Gu Jianian’s dry eyes suddenly began to ache. She curled deeper into the sofa, buried her face in her hands, and tears surged out from between her fingers like a tide.
Her numb, calm emotions suddenly broke through the dam.
At first, she could still suppress the sound of her crying, but later, it was as if she had given up completely.
As if she wanted to pour out more than ten years of resentment and grievance through her tears.
She bent deeply at the waist, letting the scalding tears soak through the hem of her skirt between her fingers.
Until someone hesitated, then gently patted her hunched, trembling back again and again.
Unable to control herself, Gu Jianian reached out one hand and clutched tightly at the hem of his shirt like a drowning person.
Only after a long time did her emotions calm slightly.
She slowly opened her swollen eyes. Some reason returned to her. She sniffed and finally let go of the fabric she had been clutching.
“Sorry. I couldn’t control it.”
Chi Yan smoothed out the wrinkled hem of his shirt and asked her with amusement, “Where did you get this habit of tugging at people’s clothes?”
It had been the same at the hospital that time too. She could endure the pain without crying, yet she had almost torn the hem of his shirt apart.
“I don’t know… It’s not like I tug at just anyone’s.”
Chi Yan glanced at her and half-joked, “Oh, so you have a grudge against me? Heartless little kid.”
Gu Jianian knew he was not truly blaming her.
After crying so hard, her heart no longer felt quite so blocked. It only felt empty, as if a thousand pounds of flesh and blood had been peeled away from her, leaving behind nothing but a hollow skeleton.
She probably looked terrible right now.
Her nose was blocked, her hair was messy from crying, and every inch of skin on her face felt as if it had soaked up tears, hot and swollen.
She must look very ugly.
Gu Jianian turned her head away and pulled the blanket up over her face, revealing only a pair of large eyes.
Seeing her action, Chi Yan gave a slow, mocking laugh.
“You’re still worried about looking pretty at a time like this? Don’t worry. I won’t dislike you for being ugly.”
“Besides, you’re not ugly.”
The words came out very naturally. But after saying them, his brows suddenly twitched.
Why did that sound a little ambiguous?
Ugly or not ugly, disliking or not disliking.
He sounded like some bastard flirting with a child.
Chi Yan coughed and wanted to add a few words to fix it, only to find Gu Jianian staring directly at the black, cold fireplace behind the desk, as if she were wondering whether it would be warm if it burned in winter.
His brow twitched again, and then he heard her ask, “Chi Yan, why do you think people have to go to university?”
“My parents always say that if I don’t go to university, I won’t be able to survive in the future. Is it really true that you have to go to university in order to survive?”
Chi Yan frowned, thinking about how to answer such a vast question.
**Nomad: Trigger warning for self-harm, if you would like you can skip until the next red text**
But before he could answer, Gu Jianian murmured again, “I used to think that too. On the day the gaokao results came out, I even thought the end of the world had arrived.”
“For several whole days, I couldn’t sleep. I was afraid my parents would find out everything, and I was also afraid that I wouldn’t be able to survive in the future.”
“I locked myself in my room and took the craft knife out of the drawer again and again, wanting to end that fear… Since I wouldn’t be able to survive in the future anyway, why not skip all that pain and go straight to the final step?”
Chi Yan’s heartbeat seemed to stop for an instant.
Fortunately, she smiled again and said, “Luckily, I couldn’t bring myself to do it in the end. Compared to death, I think I’m more afraid of pain.”
After saying that, she hid even her eyes beneath the blanket.
**Nomad: You can continue reading now**
“But someone like me slowly got better after coming to Yunmo.”
“Every morning, I fold my quilt, push open the window, and say good morning to myself. I follow Grandma and learn how to cook, grow vegetables, and raise chickens. I go with my cousins to catch crabs in the river and dig wild vegetables. I even wake up at five in the morning to go with you all to the lively morning market.”
Chi Yan could not help raising his hand and pressing his brow.
A muffled laugh came from inside the blanket.
“I had never eaten such delicious wontons before. A full big bowl, and it only cost five yuan. Only five yuan.”
As she spoke, she suddenly pulled away the blanket covering her whole face. With tear-blurred eyes, she raised her head and looked at him stubbornly.
“Then why do I have to go to university?”
“I can already live, can’t I? Just like most people in Yunmo, living day after day for decades. Isn’t that enough?”
Chi Yan said nothing.
His brow was twitching violently, and the dull ache in his chest grew stronger and stronger.
Time was enough to destroy the most innocent and wilful soul, tearing apart everything that could be called a dream.
He knew better than anyone what that felt like.
No longer caring whether it was ambiguous or whether he seemed like a bastard, he reached out uncontrollably and gently wiped away the tears at the corners of the girl’s eyes with his fingertips.
They kept spilling from her hot, damp eyes, and he wiped them away again and again with his fingers.
Cold touched burning heat, and neither was able to warm the other.
Time passed second by second. Gu Jianian still waited stubbornly and yearningly for his response.
After a long while, his hoarse, rough voice sounded beside her ear.
“Jianian, what you said is right. After so many years, you are already an adult with the ability to think independently.”
For the first time, he called her “Jianian,” in a manner of equal conversation between adults.
He did not think her words were rebellious or absurd.
He agreed with her openly.
Gu Jianian’s throat clogged. She worked hard to suppress the urge to cry out loud and continued listening to him.
“If it is only for the sake of staying alive, then people do not have to go to university. There are many people in this world who, for all kinds of reasons, did not attend university. Yet they still live busy lives. They have food to eat, clothes to wear, and a roof over their heads. Perhaps they are even happier than you and me.”
“It is just,” he bent down and met her eyes, and there was no longer any of his usual casual perfunctoriness in them, “only after we have the confidence to survive, after we no longer feel terrified and uneasy simply over staying alive, that we should think about how we want to live.”
His fingertip still rested at the corner of her eye, still cold.
“Little girl, being alive is not our purpose. How we want to spend this life—that is the purpose.”
Being alive was not the purpose.
How one wanted to spend this life was the purpose.
Gu Jianian listened blankly. It seemed as if she understood a little, yet she also seemed unable to fully digest it.
She frowned painfully, her mind chaotically turning over his words.
But she still could not untangle them.
Chi Yan withdrew his hand and waited tolerantly for a long time before continuing.
“I know you like coming to my house to read. From the first time we met, I knew you loved reading. Then do you know how many books I have here?”
Gu Jianian shook her head and murmured, “I don’t know. Probably a lot.”
“It is quite a lot,” Chi Yan said with a smile. “I can’t remember the exact number either. Perhaps tens of thousands.”
“However, the collection of any university library in the country far exceeds what I have here.”
“I once saw you copying my reading notes. Then do you know that every university’s Chinese department has experienced professors? They prepare professional teaching plans and arrange systematic courses that can truly lead you to open the door to reading.”
“The university archives also contain a great number of documents left behind by those who came before you, filled with the trial and error and insights of senior students. Through these experiences, you can look at reading again, and look at the world again.”
Gu Jianian froze. As he spoke, she could not help holding her breath.
A moment later, he good-naturedly touched her hair and told her to close her eyes.
“Every person who loves books has a library in their heart. Jianian, imagine the one in yours.”
Tempted by his words, Gu Jianian obediently closed her eyes.
The second hand of the wall clock moved frame by frame. The room was so quiet that even a falling needle could be heard.
She sank into her own imagination, almost unable to feel the flow of time.
The heartbeat that had gone silent in her chest began beating again. Her blood resumed flowing. Her eyelids trembled because of the violent rise and fall of her emotions, and even her breathing grew hurried and uneasy.
After an unknown amount of time, she began speaking as if in a dream.
“The library in my heart?”
“It should… have many floors, bright floor-to-ceiling windows, and sunlight from all four seasons should be able to shine in without obstruction…”
“The roof would be very high, and dense rows of books would be sorted by category on solid wood shelves that stretch as far as the eye can see…”
“All the desks would be by the windows, arranged neatly, with spacious seats. It would be best if there were warm yellow reading lamps too, so reading at night wouldn’t hurt my eyes…”
Gu Jianian spoke faster and faster, and the ends of her words began to lift.
“I want to go every day. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I’ll read literary novels. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, I’ll read professional books.”
“Sundays… On Sundays, I’ll let myself have a break. I’ll pick an easy magazine or ghost-story collection, listen to music, and casually flip through it until late at night, then go home under the moonlight.”
“Would that be okay?”
She finished speaking with a sob, opened her eyes, and her fragile yet stubborn gaze landed on his face.
“Can I?”
Chi Yan did not answer. He simply stood up suddenly and extended his hand to her.
“Do you want to go see it with me?”
“What?”
“The library in your heart.”
The clock continued walking through the deep night as if no one else existed. Gu Jianian lifted her head.
“Now?”
“Mm. Right now.”
As he spoke, he pulled her up.
Then he quickly went upstairs and fetched two coats. He put one on himself and tossed the other to her.
“We’ll walk to town and take the first night bus to Zhoushan at dawn.”
“I’ll take you to my alma mater and show you Zhoushan University’s library.”
“Okay.”
They left the house without any plan, setting off under the night sky, stepping over fallen leaves covering the mountain, listening to the wind.
One in front and one behind, they walked along the winding mountain road.
There were no vehicles on the road, much less pedestrians. There were only dense bamboo forests and green mountains all around them.
The night wind howled, and bamboo leaves across the mountain rustled loudly.
The night was quiet and strange, and the air was so cold it made one shrink back.
Chi Yan turned back to ask her, “Cold?”
Gu Jianian shook her head, tucked her chin into the wide collar of the coat, and looked up.
There were no streetlights along this entire road.
But—
She suddenly reached out and pointed at the sky above them.
“Chi Yan, there are so many stars tonight. They’re lighting the road so brightly.”
He stopped, followed her words, and raised his head. There was a lazy smile in his voice.
“Mm. It is very bright.”
Gu Jianian smiled along with him.
On the night Gu Jianian had just turned eighteen, the two of them walked one behind the other on an empty road, toward somewhere light-years away.
With green mountains beside them, and wild stars as their lamps.
**Nomad: This chapter was really heavy. This is a struggle that many students have gone through, and many others have yet to face.
Just a reminder from me: life is a journey full of ups and downs. For some people, it can feel like a constant downhill path. For others, it is an uphill climb — steep, exhausting, and full of obstacles. And for some, it may seem flat for a while before suddenly dropping.
If your journey is not smooth sailing, it is okay to pause. It is okay to go back, change direction, or choose a completely different path.
There is a saying I always think about: if something you planned for does not happen, no matter how hard you try, then perhaps it was not meant for you. Maybe that path had hidden dangers you could not see, and the path you are on now is actually the safest one for you.
The path I planned for did not go ahead either. But I would never regret it, because the path I ended up on allowed me to support my family in ways I never would have had the chance to before.
On a brighter note, I will be increasing the updates for this novel to every Friday!**
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