Chapter 9 | I Only Remember Saving a Fish
Ever since her conversation with Shen Heyin at the lotus pond, the vague, inexplicable doubt in Lin Yuanxi's heart had never truly gone away. Several times, she considered telling Jiang Yingze about her unease, but she worried she might simply be overthinking things and only create unnecessary suspicion between them. After wavering back and forth, she ultimately kept those thoughts buried for the time being.
That evening, Jiang Yingze happened to finish his work early and came to see Lin Yuanxi. The two of them took a walk together along the path beside Willow Bank Pond.
The willow branches hung low, brushing the surface of the water and sending out rings of tiny ripples. A faint, fresh scent of water plants drifted on the evening breeze. As Lin Yuanxi walked, she suddenly remembered seeing that dark shadow beneath the water on her first night here. Unable to help herself, she stopped and looked toward that familiar stretch of water.
"It was here." Lin Yuanxi spoke softly, as if she were talking to Jiang Yingze, yet also as if she were speaking to herself. "This is where I first saw you." She firmly etched those words, together with that familiar stretch of water, into her heart.
Jiang Yingze stopped beside her and followed her gaze toward the water, the corners of his lips lifting into a gentle smile.
"You must have been scared out of your mind back then," he said, his tone carrying a hint of tender teasing. "A pair of eyes suddenly appearing in a stranger's home would scare anyone."
"I was definitely startled." Lin Yuanxi admitted it with a smile. "But more than fear, I was curious. The way those eyes looked at me wasn't like they were sizing up a stranger. It was more like..." She paused, searching for the right description. "More like they were looking at an old acquaintance they hadn't seen in a very long time."
Jiang Yingze's expression shifted slightly. The suppressed emotions in his eyes surfaced so clearly that he could barely hide them.
"Because to me, you really were one," he said softly.
Lin Yuanxi's heartbeat skipped. Looking at his serious profile, she summoned her courage and, for the first time, told him the entire fragment of memory she had kept hidden for so long.
"I've been trying hard to remember these past few days." Her voice was very soft, as though she were afraid of disturbing something fragile. "All I remember is that when I was little, I think I saved a fish. It was during a huge, huge rainstorm. I don't remember how old I was, and I don't remember where it happened. I only remember that the rain was coming down incredibly hard that day, and there was standing water everywhere. In some places, it had even flooded into little ditches."
Jiang Yingze said nothing. He only listened in silence, his focused gaze making her feel almost self-conscious.
"I remember that I was crouching beside a ditch," she continued, a trace of difficulty coloring her voice as she struggled to recall. "The water was rushing through it, and I saw a tiny, tiny fish being tossed and turned by the current, as if it was about to die. I don't know where I found the courage, but I reached out and scooped it up. My hands were already numb from the cold, and I was shivering, but I still held it in my palms, with no idea what to do."
"What happened after that?" Jiang Yingze's voice was slightly hoarse.
"I can't remember what happened after that." Lin Yuanxi frowned, struggling to seize more details from the memory, but her efforts remained fruitless. "I only remember feeling a very faint tremor in my palm, as if the fish was still struggling with all its strength, trying to stay alive. Other than that, I can't remember anything—whether it survived in the end, where I put it, all of it is a blank."
She closed her eyes and tried to dig deeper into her memories, but all she could see was a blur of grayish white. She couldn't even remember the color of the sky that day or whether anyone else had been beside her. The feeling of knowing something important existed but being unable to grasp it no matter how hard she tried filled her with a familiar sense of helplessness. She had experienced that feeling more than once over the past few days.
"Sometimes I wonder..." She opened her eyes and looked at Jiang Yingze, her tone carrying a hint of self-mockery. "If that memory really was important, why did I forget it so completely? It's almost as if what happened was nothing more than some insignificant little thing to me—something I did and immediately tossed to the back of my mind, never thinking of it again."
She looked up at Jiang Yingze, unmistakable disappointment in her eyes.
"The memory is so blurry," she said with a bitter smile. "Sometimes it's so blurry that I even wonder whether I just imagined it, instead of it being something that really happened."
Jiang Yingze remained silent for a long time, so long that Lin Yuanxi thought he would not answer. When he finally spoke, his voice held a solemnity so grave, almost trembling, that she had never heard from him before.
"You didn't imagine it," he said. "It really happened."
"How do you know?" Lin Yuanxi's heart jolted. "Do you... know something?"
Jiang Yingze looked at her, too many emotions roiling in his eyes—joy, bitterness, and a cherishing so full and profound it was almost like the feeling of someone who had narrowly survived a disaster. He opened his mouth, seemingly wanting to say something, but in the end, he swallowed those words back down once again.
"Actually..." He paused for a long time before slowly continuing. "It's perfectly normal that the memory seems insignificant to you. You were still a child back then. You did what seemed to you like a natural act of kindness, so of course you wouldn't have made a point of remembering it. But for... for the life you saved, it was something that could change an entire lifetime."
"You sound like you know exactly what happened." Lin Yuanxi couldn't help pressing him. "How much do you really know? Have you always known the whole story behind that memory?"
Jiang Yingze's expression froze for an instant, as if he realized he had said too much. He hurriedly added, "I just... heard Zhijing mention a similar story before. Encounters like that aren't actually uncommon in the Floating City."
The explanation sounded rather forced. Lin Yuanxi faintly sensed that something was wrong, but she did not continue questioning him. She only silently tucked that doubt away in her heart once more.
"One day, you'll know the whole answer." That was all he said. His voice was quiet, yet unusually firm. "But not now."
Though Lin Yuanxi was disappointed, she had gradually grown used to his hesitant silences. All she could do was nod and set her many questions aside for the time being.
"Whether that memory is complete or not," she said softly, looking into his eyes, "I'm glad I did it. Even if I can't remember anything now, the fact that I once saved a life that wanted to keep living, a long time ago, is enough to make me feel that the person I was back then did something wonderful. It's enough to make me proud of her."
As soon as she finished speaking, Jiang Yingze's eyes suddenly reddened. He turned his face away, as if he did not want her to see his emotions slipping out of control, but Lin Yuanxi still clearly saw his Adam's apple move with difficulty.
"Thank you." His voice was choked. "Thank you for being willing to reach out those hands back then."
A pang struck Lin Yuanxi's heart. Without thinking, she reached out and gently took his hand. His hand was cooler than she had imagined, with distinct knuckles, yet it felt startlingly real in hers. Little by little, it pulled her away from the melancholy born of her blurred memories and brought her back to this quiet, gentle night before her.
"From now on," she said softly, "whatever the truth behind that incident is, you can tell me bit by bit. I won't rush you."
Jiang Yingze turned to look at her. The turbulent emotions in his eyes gradually settled, transforming into a tenderness that was almost reverent. He tightened his fingers around hers, as if he wanted to burn the warmth of this moment permanently into his palm.
"Okay," he said. His voice was quiet, yet carried the weight of something almost like a vow. "I will."
The two of them stood side by side beside Willow Bank Pond without saying another word. Only the rustling of the evening wind through the willow branches and the rings of ripples spreading across the water quietly spoke of a bond that had crossed twelve years and finally brought them together again.
Neither of them noticed Shen Heyin standing in the shadows of a bamboo grove not far away. She had been there for a long time.
She had happened to be passing by. She had only intended to go to Water Lantern Pond to look at the newly born water lanterns, but the moment she turned onto the path, she came upon the scene before her. She should have turned and left immediately, yet her feet seemed to have been immobilized by a spell, nailed firmly to the ground and unable to move even a step.
She had heard Lin Yuanxi's vague memory of the rainstorm and the little fish.
She had also heard Jiang Yingze's "Thank you"—the words nearly breaking apart in his voice.
Twelve years. Shen Heyin had stayed at Jiang Yingze's side, accompanying him through countless full moons. She had watched him stand alone by the pond again and again, staring into the distance, lost in thought. The loneliness and determination hidden in that expression, things no one else could reach, had all been visible to her. She had thought that if she stayed with him long enough, one day his eyes might hold even the slightest trace of the tenderness that came from choosing her.
But the scene she witnessed with her own eyes shattered the fantasy she had so carefully protected all this time completely and in an instant.
This was not an affection that needed to be cultivated slowly. It was an obsession buried for twelve years, something even he could not easily put into words. And Lin Yuanxi did not need to do anything at all—not even remember clearly the small thing she had done back then—yet she could still draw from him such unreserved, almost vulnerable sincerity.
Standing in the bamboo shadows, Shen Heyin watched the two figures side by side. Her eyes gradually grew wet, while her heart felt as though someone had clenched it brutally tight. The ache and bitterness made it almost impossible to breathe.
She had once believed that she was open-minded enough about this relationship, that she could accept Jiang Yingze always keeping a place in his heart for someone else. Yet only now, after witnessing with her own eyes the moment that obsession was truly awakened, did she finally understand that the resentment and jealousy in her heart ran far deeper than she had imagined.
She remembered all the years she had spent with Jiang Yingze. Back then, he had only just learned to walk in a human body. Even the simplest verbal expressions were awkward and clumsy. It had been she who patiently stayed by his side time and time again, teaching him the names of every pond in the Floating City, teaching him how to maintain proper bearing during the full-moon-night rituals, and even teaching him how to answer when others asked, "Who are you waiting for?"—in a way that was neither impolite nor revealing too much of what he was thinking.
During that time, she had naively believed that her companionship would eventually leave an irreplaceable place in his heart. Even if it could not replace the obsession itself, she thought she could at least become someone he was willing to rely on.
But now, watching Lin Yuanxi casually speak of a memory she herself could not even recall clearly, only to effortlessly draw tears to Jiang Yingze's eyes and a choked response from his throat, she finally understood that everything she had painstakingly built over the years might have been a self-deceiving illusion from the very beginning.
She slowly backed away several steps, then turned and left along another path, her feet unsteady and barely able to support her. After leaving the bamboo grove, she stopped and leaned against a stone pillar. Only after taking several deep breaths did she manage to slightly calm her chaotic emotions, but her palm continued to tremble faintly despite her efforts.
The night deepened. Moonlight filtered through the sparse bamboo leaves, casting mottled, fragmented shadows across her face, eerily resembling the shattered state of her heart—broken apart, yet impossible to piece back together.
She lifted her head and looked toward the moon above the Floating City as it gradually filled out. Suddenly, she remembered something an older woman had told her when she first entered the Floating City: No relationship in the Floating City could escape the moon's gaze. The moon remembered who had given their heart sincerely, and it also remembered who would eventually receive their due reward. At the time, Shen Heyin had taken it for an ordinary word of comfort. Now, she felt that the cruelty hidden in those words far outweighed their tenderness.
The older woman had even smiled and added that the moon was perfectly fair, and that one day it would return to everyone the answer they deserved. Shen Heyin had been young then and believed those words without question. Looking back now, she found them nothing but bitterly ironic. If the moon really was fair, why had all the years of companionship she gave brought her an answer as cruel as this?
If the moon truly remembered everything, had it also seen how she had spent all these years beside Jiang Yingze, quietly yet futilely watering her feelings into a bond that had never belonged to her from the start?
Shen Heyin drew a deep breath and finally straightened up, forcibly pushing the moisture back from her eyes. She could not let anyone see her vulnerability now, least of all Jiang Yingze. She told herself this was only a temporary surge of emotion. Once the sun rose again tomorrow—if the Floating City had ever had a sun at all—everything would pass.
But she knew in her heart that once certain cracks appeared, they could never truly heal. They would only widen and spread little by little with time, until one day they finally split apart, making it impossible to keep pretending that everything was calm and unaffected.