Chapter Three: A Love Already Written

Gu Chenzhou appeared in the album nine times. Sometimes he stood beyond the airport glass, sometimes at the edge of a snowfield. In the last photograph, he watched through a bridal-shop window while Lin Wan tried on a veil. He did not look like a stranger caught by accident. He looked like someone barred from the story who had insisted on remaining at its edges. “Who took these?” Lin Wan asked. Xubai opened the cover. A note read: February 2024. Traveling with Tang Li. Tang Li arrived the next morning and studied the album in silence. “I remember it,” she finally said. “It was freezing. You two fought on the black-sand beach, and I talked you down half the night.” “You were home with a newborn in February 2024.”