“There’s a festival at Water Lantern Pond tonight.”
A Zhu burst into Lin Yuanxi’s little courtyard, the silver-white little fish in her arms bobbing around in its glazed bowl. It seemed to have caught its owner’s excitement, too; its tail fin slapped the water again and again, sending up tiny splashes.
“A festival?” Lin Yuanxi was watering the calamus by the window. At that, she raised her head. “What kind of festival?”
“Whenever the moon passes the halfway point, Water Lantern Pond holds a lantern fair.” A Zhu explained eagerly, “Everyone makes water lanterns by hand, puts them in the pond, and makes wishes. There’s lots of good food, too—taro cakes, glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaves, and sweet wine brewed from wax apple juice. Too bad you can’t drink yet. You’ll have to wait a few more years.”
Lin Yuanxi laughed at that. “The Floating City even has age restrictions?”
“Of course.” A Zhu looked completely matter-of-fact. “The Floating City has plenty of rules, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know where to draw the line. Come on, come on. Don’t work today. Sister Zhiqing specifically sent me to get you. She said you absolutely had to go see it tonight.”
A Zhu half dragged and half pulled Lin Yuanxi to the edge of Water Lantern Pond. Before they even got close, music carried over from the distance—silk and bamboo instruments playing a winding, melodious tune. The timbre was unlike any instrument Lin Yuanxi had heard in her memory, its rhythm as soft and gently undulating as flowing water.
Water Lantern Pond had been decorated more brilliantly than usual tonight. Rows of long bamboo tables had been set up along the bank, covered with all kinds of foods she had never seen before. The air carried the mingled fragrance of wax apple’s fresh sweetness and the faint bitterness of mugwort. The naturally growing water lanterns that usually floated on the pond had been joined by new companions tonight: paper water lanterns that the girls had folded and painted by hand. One by one, they were gently set onto the water. Their candle flames swayed, reflecting shimmering light across the entire pond, as though someone had overturned a whole box of stars and scattered them over the water.
Lin Yuanxi followed A Zhu through the crowd, surrounded everywhere by lively scenes. Several girls sat together, colorful paper and slender bamboo strips in their hands, laughing and chatting as they folded water lanterns into all kinds of shapes. Some were made like lotus flowers, their petals layered one over another. Some were tiny fish, their scales carefully outlined in gold dust. A few girls with exceptional skill had even folded miniature versions of the Floating City, so exquisite that no one could bear to put them in the water.
The food spread across the long tables was just as dazzling. The taro cakes were steamed until soft and fluffy, their surfaces dusted with a thin layer of osmanthus sugar. The glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaves was mixed with diced cured meat and shiitake mushrooms, releasing wave after wave of fragrance when unwrapped. There was also a pale pink sweet wine Lin Yuanxi had never seen before, brewed from wax apple juice and served in petite celadon cups, with a faint fruity aroma.
“Try this.” A Zhu handed her a piece of taro cake. “It was made by the best cook in the Floating City. You can only have it on the day of the lantern fair each year. If you miss it, you’ll have to wait another year.”
Lin Yuanxi took a bite. Its dense, sweet texture melted across her tongue, and she couldn’t help exclaiming in delight. The girls around them gathered in groups of two and three, talking and laughing. Crisp laughter rang out now and then, weaving together with the distant, lilting music to create a lively, warm scene unlike anything she had ever experienced in her original world.
“Here, this one’s yours.” A Zhu pressed an unlit, blank water lantern into her hands along with a fine brush. “Write your wish on the lantern, then put it in the water. The water spirit will send your wish where it needs to go.”
Lin Yuanxi cradled the light paper lantern, unsure what to write. She held the brush suspended in the air and thought it over again and again, but the only things that kept surfacing in her mind were those golden eyes and the unfinished words he had spoken by Willow Bank Pond: “I’ve always…”
Most of the girls around her wrote quickly. One wrote, “May I choose the bond I long for this year.” Another wrote, “May the elders in my family remain safe and well.” Someone else kept her head bowed for a long time. When she finished, she carefully shielded the lantern’s surface so no one could see it, her face carrying a mixture of shyness and anticipation. Watching them, Lin Yuanxi suddenly realized that no matter which world they lived in, girls everywhere cherished their beautiful wishes in much the same way.
“Still haven’t decided what to write?”
A familiar voice came from behind her. Lin Yuanxi turned and saw Jiang Yingze standing beside her. She didn’t know when he had arrived. Tonight, he had finally changed out of his usual moon-white robes and was wearing a somewhat deeper indigo-blue long tunic, making his temperament seem even calmer and gentler. A few loose strands of hair had caught the warm light by the pond, edged in a soft golden glow.
“What brings you here?” Lin Yuanxi asked, pleasantly surprised.
“I never miss a festival in the Floating City.” He smiled faintly, his gaze falling to the blank water lantern in her hands. “What is it? You can’t think of a wish, or you have too many and don’t know where to begin?”
“The latter.” Lin Yuanxi admitted it with a wry smile.
Jiang Yingze sat down beside her and gazed at the pond filled with scattered points of lantern light. A trace of nostalgia colored his expression, something she couldn’t quite understand. He looked better tonight than he had at any other time she had seen him. The restrained stillness between his brows and eyes had eased, replaced by a rare sense of relaxation, as if the festival itself held a special meaning for him.
“You look especially happy tonight,” Lin Yuanxi couldn’t help saying.
“Do I?” Jiang Yingze let out a soft laugh. He didn’t deny it. “Maybe it’s because I could only watch from a distance during every lantern fair in the past. This year, I can truly take part, sitting here with you.”
“I used to…” he suddenly began, his voice very quiet. “Every year around this time, I would come here to watch the water lanterns.”
“Alone?”
He nodded. “Alone. I would watch other people write down their wishes and set them on the water, thinking that maybe one day I would have the chance to write down a wish I truly wanted to see fulfilled, instead of merely watching from afar.”
The loneliness hidden in those words made Lin Yuanxi’s heart tighten. She lowered her gaze to the water lantern in her hands, then suddenly had an idea. She picked up the brush and wrote a few words on the lantern. Afterward, she carefully covered them with her arm so Jiang Yingze couldn’t see.
“What did you write?” he asked curiously.
“Secret.” Lin Yuanxi gave him a sly smile. “You can’t tell anyone your water-lantern wish, or it won’t come true.”
Jiang Yingze laughed, but he didn’t press her. He only watched her quietly, the tenderness in his eyes nearly overflowing.
The two of them walked to the edge of the pond and gently set their water lanterns onto the surface. The moment Lin Yuanxi’s lantern touched the water, an invisible current gently lifted it and carried it slowly toward the center of the pond, where it joined the other scattered candle flames in a sea of light so beautiful she couldn’t look away.
As she watched her lantern gradually merge into the glowing sea across the pond, Lin Yuanxi suddenly remembered what A Zhu had said—the water spirit would send people’s wishes where they needed to go. She didn’t know where the few words she had just written would ultimately be sent. She could only gaze at the flowing candlelight as an almost reverent anticipation rose in her heart.
“What about yours?” Lin Yuanxi asked. “Did you write a wish tonight, too?”
Jiang Yingze watched his own water lantern drift slowly away, the corner of his lips lifting into a faint but utterly genuine smile.
“I did,” he said. “And for the first time in twelve years, I wrote down a wish that might truly come true.”
Lin Yuanxi’s heartbeat skipped. She wanted to ask what the wish was, but then she remembered telling him just moments ago that water-lantern wishes couldn’t be spoken aloud. She could only swallow the question on her lips and replace it with a knowing smile.
The two sat shoulder to shoulder on the stone steps by the pond, watching the water lanterns sway gently with the ripples. The distant music drifted over, mingling with the girls’ conversations and laughter to form a warm, fantastical scene unlike anything she had ever experienced in her original world.
“You used to spend festivals like this alone?” Lin Yuanxi couldn’t help asking again, a hint of heartache in her voice.
“Not entirely.” Jiang Yingze thought for a moment before answering honestly. “Liu Zhiqing would sit with me for a while, and there were…” He paused, as though weighing whether he should mention a certain name. In the end, he brushed past it lightly. “There were also some acquaintances who would occasionally come over to chat. But that kind of companionship is ultimately different from what we have right now.”
Lin Yuanxi didn’t miss that brief hesitation in his voice. She faintly guessed that the name he had almost mentioned, then deliberately avoided, might have been Shen Heyin. She didn’t call him out. She only moved a little closer, as if trying to make up in this silent way for all those lonely nights he had spent waiting in the past.
“What did you think about when you sat here before?” she asked again.
“I thought about a lot of things.” Jiang Yingze gazed at the shimmering light in the distance, a trace of melancholy in his voice. “I wondered whether you were doing well, whether you had grown up safe and sound, and whether one day you might suddenly remember that rainy afternoon twelve years ago. Sometimes I thought about it so much that the entire pond of lanterns seemed dimmer than those thoughts.”
His words warmed Lin Yuanxi’s heart, and her eyes grew slightly damp. She had never imagined that a small act of kindness she had long since forgotten could occupy such an important place in someone else’s heart for so many years.
Jiang Yingze seemed to sense her careful tenderness. He lowered his head and glanced at her, the emotions surging in his eyes too complicated for words. In the end, he merely reached out and very, very gently tucked a loose strand of hair the wind had tousled behind her ear.
The gesture was so gentle she almost didn’t notice it, yet it made her heartbeat miss a hard beat.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “Thank you for being willing to sit here and watch these water lanterns with me.”
“It’s nothing to thank me for.” Lin Yuanxi answered quietly, “From now on, I’ll watch the lantern fair with you every year.”
The moment the words left her mouth, she herself paused slightly, as if she hadn’t realized that she had already made a promise about the future deep in her heart.
Jiang Yingze gazed at her. The light he had kept suppressed for twelve years now burst into full bloom in his eyes, so beautiful it was almost impossible to look away. He said nothing more. He simply took her hand and laced their fingers together as they gazed out at the rippling water, carrying countless wishes.
Lin Yuanxi leaned against his shoulder and suddenly remembered the words she had written on her water lantern: “May I remember the forgotten past and cherish the person before me.” She hadn’t told him her wish. She only quietly savored the peace of this moment, silently hoping that the water spirit would truly carry the feelings in her heart where they needed to go.
As the night deepened, the music by Water Lantern Pond gradually softened into its closing notes. In the distance, the footsteps and laughter of girls leaving one after another drifted over. The water lanterns still floated quietly across the pond, their candle flames swaying without going out, like the countless wishes in the Floating City—some bright, some dim, some fulfilled, some broken—quietly waiting for their own answers in these gentle waters.
The food on the long tables was gradually cleared away. Several older women began gathering the scattered scraps of paper and bamboo strips, and the festival was nearing its end. At some point, A Zhu had taken her little fish and joined several familiar girls on the stone steps a little farther away. They whispered and laughed together, occasionally casting meaningful looks toward Lin Yuanxi and Jiang Yingze, but wisely refrained from coming over to interrupt them.
Leaning against Jiang Yingze’s shoulder, Lin Yuanxi watched the water lanterns across the pond gradually burn out. A sense of peace she had never known before welled up inside her. This unfamiliar Floating City had once left her feeling lost and out of place, but because of the person beside her, it was slowly beginning to feel something like home.
At the edge of the festival, where bustle and warmth intertwined, a slender figure watched the young couple sitting close together from far away. The unlit water lantern in her hands had already been squeezed slightly out of shape without her realizing it.
Shen Heyin stood at the edge of the crowd, watching Jiang Yingze tuck the loose strand of hair behind Lin Yuanxi’s ear. It felt as though someone had violently wrung her heart. She remembered imagining countless times what it would be like if, one day, he could arrange the hair by her temple with that same tenderness—what perfect happiness that scene would hold. But now, that scene belonged to someone else.
She lowered her head and looked at the water lantern in her hands. It remained unlit, its surface completely blank—not even a single word had been written on it. Over the years, she had attended too many lantern fairs like this and written too many similar wishes. Yet every time, those wishes had vanished without a trace and never truly come true, as if they had been cast into a bottomless lake where not even the faintest echo could be heard.
This time, she didn’t even have the courage to pick up the brush.
She stared at the water lantern she had squeezed slightly out of shape and suddenly found it bitterly ironic. Other people’s wishes rode the candlelight slowly toward the center of the pond, laden with their hopes, while her wish seemed to have lost even the right to be written down. All she could do was clutch it in her palm as it gradually, bit by bit, lost the shape it was meant to have.