CH 37

It suddenly occurred to me that Lee hadn’t contacted me for a while.

Ever since he had a new lover, his interactions with me faded. Until some time ago, he stopped replying to my messages for several days now. So, I stopped chatting with him.

This was also normal. There was a limit to what people had occupying their heart. When fate deemed that it was over, people would gradually forget about each other, similar to the passage of time of deep lakes or continuously flowing rivers.

While some would quietly leave, others would frequent by day and night.

The island trip continued onto the third day without Zhuo Wenyang. After lunch, I basked in the sun on the beach as usual, and fell asleep as a salted fish.

When I woke up dazedly from my afternoon nap, there was a tall and hazy straight figure in front of me. I looked at him sleepily, wondering if this was a dream again. Really now? I must be daydreaming.

The figure asked me softly, “Are you awake?”

I instantly woke up, trying to sit up from the recliner, “Wahh!”

“Mm?”

“How’d you return?”

“Should I not have returned?” he asked.

“You shouldn’t be here! You arrived at T City the night before and did you just flew here at 6AM this morning? Wouldn’t that be too tiring? And we have to return back the day after tomorrow. You’re running around too much!”

Zhuo Wenyang stared at me. I forced myself to complain but the corners of my mouth rose up uncontrollably.

Zhuo Wenyang smiled and said, “I said I would take you to go pick vegetables.”

I had never felt that such words, “pick vegetables,” would ever sound so beautiful, as if I was a little white rabbit who loved to eat radishes and vegetables all day.

Bouncing back to the villa, Zhuo Wenyang proposed again, “We can still have dinner at the vegetable garden restaurant. There’s an observatory right next to the restaurant there and you can see Jupiter and Saturn. But we need to make an appointment. Do you want to go?”

Without thinking about it, I nodded repeatedly, “Yes, yes!” Whatever you wanted; we could eat anything and watch anything.

From the side, Ke Luo said, “Hey, we already made reservations for the floating restaurant.”

I had to ask, “Uncle Chen, do you want to go to the vegetable garden restaurant together?”

Ke Luo meaningfully said, “Forget it. We don’t want to be vegetarians. You should go.”

Thus, I followed Zhuo Wenyang to experience the leisure of gathering in the vegetable garden.

Picking strawberries leisurely, holding dandelions in my hands, and watching little white rabbits jump everywhere… The gorgeous sunset would be dreamlike and cast its beauty upon the side of Zhuo Wenyang’s face.

Summer here seemed like an eternity.

The vegetable garden restaurant was built on top of the vegetable garden. We need to pass the suspension bridge and gingerly crossed it. It was surrounded by tropical forests and had a panoramic view. As far as my eyes allowed me, there was a vast blue ocean that stretched as far as I could see.

Although the restaurant was focused on freshly picked agricultural products, it was not really full of vegetables as Ke Luo complained of. It had an improved Mediterranean cuisine. In addition to fresh organic vegetables, there were also Kobe beef steak wrapped in thin crispy salmon meat, and fried until the skin was crispy. The inside of the Kobe steak was perfectly pink and the chocolate cream mousse was sprinkled with olive oil and sea salt.

The seat we booked was “Moonlight” and there was a group of seats next to it called “Starlight.” When night fell, I realized how appropriate the name was.

Overhead was a gorgeous starry sky. The sky was full of stars and the Milky Way was magnificent. The ocean of stars was reflected on Zhuo Wenyang’s cold-like beauty. In the soft starlight, his eyes were still better than all the stars and moon combined.

Seeing the awe expressed on my face, Zhuo Wenyang smiled and asked, “Isn’t this place beautiful?”

“Mmhm, beautiful!” I thought to myself that it still didn’t compare to one tenth of him. “It will be even more beautiful when we go to the observatory on the other side to see stars,” he said. “This is the largest private observatory in Asia. The location itself was also a rare stargazing resort. You’ll see many celestial spacial that are not seen in other places in the world.”

This was also the first time I ever used a telescope to look at the starry sky.

There was a professional interpreter next to him, but because of the language barrier, I didn’t understand what he spoke about. I could only pay attention to Zhuo Wenyang’s voice explaining to me.

Observing craters on the moon was exciting, but being able to see Jupiter’s rings was entirely different. I could only utter out “wow.”

The inner and outer rings were clearly visible, and the mysterious halo was mysteriously enchanting. Although it looked much darker than the clear and colorful Saturn rings, it was still mesmerizing.

Under this boundless sky, this telescope contained the all wisdom beyond understanding of human beings, and I, who was ever so small, was in complete awe of this vast universe.

The time dedicated to stargazing did not take long. I was still thinking about it until I got to ride the bicycle slowly back to the hotel villa.

Zhuo Wenyang was riding the bicycle, his back under the snow-white shirt was straight and he never bent over. I put my nose close to him, carefully and secretly sniffing the sweet orange fragrance that was seemingly emitted from him out of nowhere.

My heart was fluttering for some time, and I finally mustered the courage to call out, “Zhuo Wenyang.”

“Mm?”

I was a little nervous.

“I want to tell you something.”

“What?”

“I thought about it for a long time,” I spoke nervously, “I plan to change my major.”

“What?”

“I want to study astronomy.”

The bike made a low friction sound and stopped instantly. He stepped on the ground for support, turned around to look at me, and asked, “What?”

“I want to study astronomy instead.”

“Why are you thinking of this? There are restrictions on changing majors,” he said, “Your admission score cannot be lower than the admission criteria of the major.”

“I know. I checked already. The admission score for the Astronomy Department is not high at T University, and my score is enough.”

Astronomy was not a popular major for employment and it was relatively not as difficult to get into.

I glanced through the school forums and there were discussion posts referring to those who wanted to use the Astronomy Department as a stepping stone. After entering the Astronomy Department, they would attempt to transfer to more popular departments. As for those like me who wanted to transfer from another department into astronomy, I had not seen that occurrence yet.

Zhuo Wenyang got off the bicycle and I followed him to the side of the road. We stood facing each other and he looked at me.

“Astronomy is not that interesting. It is not as simple as looking at stars. It’s very boring in classes.”

“I know.”

“Academia is not child’s play. It’s a lifelong effort of study,” he solemnly said, “You can’t give up what you’re learning and go to learn for fun just because you think it is interesting. Such half-heartedness is a waste of your time.”

“I know,” I said, “I understand what you said. Uncle Chen and I picked several books on this subject and read them all. Of course, it’s not as interesting as playing games, but… I don’t know how to explain it, but you should understand.”

“…..”

“Besides, I never had anything I like to do myself. Now, I want to do what you like to do.”

He stared at me and after a while, he sighed and said, “Lin Jing, you don’t have to live my life for me. No one has the motivation to pursue ideals for others.

I looked him in the eye and countered, “You liked it and you made me like it. That’s enough motivation.”

Zhuo Wenyang stopped talking. He was slightly trembling and after a while, he said, “Lin Jing, you don’t have to do this for me.”

“Why?”

“It’s not worth it,” he whispered.

“How could that be.”

He didn’t say a word and stood firmly. Under the moonlight, he was so white, he almost blended in with the color of his shirt.

I continued, “By the way, after I checked my previous admission results, I found out that my Chinese and English are relatively average. However, my math and science scores are really high so I have talent in this area!”

I raised my head proudly. “Perhaps I’m actually a little genius. I think I can do it.”

He was involuntarily smiling. “Sure.”

“It’s a pity that I forgot everything I learned after my car accident,” I regretfully sighed. “If I could recover my memory, I think I’d probably be top-notch in math and science by now.”

He remained silent.

This was the last day we could spend on the island. We realized that there didn’t seem to be any serious travel arrangements for this trip. In addition to eating, drinking, and sleeping, we also continued to eat, drink, and sleep everyday. We didn’t even take photos. We would simply be disqualified as tourists.

In order to make amends and demonstrate the spirit of this trip, everyone organized a group to go snorkeling in the morning. Ke Luo, who had the most experience snorkeling, took a lot of underwater photos.

Afterwards, we had a lively lunch and in the afternoon, we went to the glass art workshop to watch others make glass handicrafts. The shape of this workshop was very cute and primitive, resembling a mushroom.

There were many Italian crafted glass products. Most were cups and jars and each were unique in its own way. At a glance, the transparent glass of various colors and shapes gave off a refreshing, aesthetic feeling akin to drinking ice water in the summer.

After admiring the artisan’s authentic glass craftsmanship from Venice, Italy for a while, the artisan said that we could try to make one ourselves.

I was touched but refused without hesitation. After all, the process looked hot and having a heatwave blowing in front of the glass kiln alone was very grueling. Not to mention, the process of wrapping, rolling, and blowing was extremely cumbersome and complicated.

I was pretty talented at breaking glass bottles so forget about making them.

In the end, Zhuo Wenyang and Lu Feng each made one.

There wasn’t much to say about the thing that Lu Feng made. It could barely be regarded as a bowl or basin. Only Cheng Yichen would praise it as “unique” with such a happy expression. Please, was it so ugly that it became unique?

Zhuo Wenyang made a dark blue cup. It had two dark blue glass beads and three additional glass decorations, in which looked a bit like fish fins and tails.

I asked, “Is this a whale?”

Zhuo Wenyang nodded, “It’s not made well.”

Ke Luo asked, “Can this be considered a whale?”

I said angrily, “This looks like a whale! Look at its graceful tail, sparkling sea waves, and soulful fish eyes, this-”

Ke Luo immediately cut in, “Okay, okay, you don’t have to be like this!”