Lunar Diary

“After all those twists and turns, she’d finally found the mint candy she’d been looking for.”

—Lunar Diary

—

Qin Sang really hadn’t been paying close attention. Guiltily, she averted her gaze, looking down as she lifted her glass and took a small sip, moistening her dry throat.

At some point during the meal, alcohol had been brought to the table. Zhou Yihong was the type to get drunk easily—his tolerance was terrible, and his speech was already starting to slur. “To be honest,” he said thickly, “I haven’t really respected many people in my life. But Junior Xie—you’re the only one who’s ever made me genuinely admire him.”

He let out a drunken burp. “I used to muddle through life, never knowing what I really wanted to do, what I was meant to do. I don’t have that noble spirit—to sacrifice everything for an invisible future and some ethereal universe.”

“So,” Zhou Yihong laughed bitterly, “I became a deserter. Isn’t it ironic? I didn’t want to do it—but you were the one who had no choice but to give it up.”

No matter how casually or breezily Zhou Yihong usually carried himself, there was always something weighing on his heart.

He’d let down his mentor’s painstaking efforts, and he’d betrayed his own years of hard work. After leaving the Aerospace Institute, his former teacher refused to see him—blocked him on WeChat, blocked his calls.

A while back, he’d run into an old colleague from the Institute. They exchanged only a few brief words before falling into silence.

Because they no longer belonged to the same world. Everything at the Institute was classified—there was nothing to talk about with an outsider. All that remained were polite pleasantries, kept brief and superficial.

That day, Zhou Yihong stood outside the restaurant smoking for a long time. Through the glass window, he could see his former colleagues sitting down to eat and chat. He stood there for a long while, until dusk deepened and the streetlights came on. Only then did he stub out his cigarette on the trash can lid and walk away without looking back.

Now, standing at another crossroads in life, he couldn’t convince himself to return to that lightless place, to stay in an obscure post and let the rest of his life pass by in quiet anonymity.

So he’d chosen another path—one with no turning back.

Shen Yi reminded him, “Senior Zhou, you’ve had too much.”

“I haven’t had too much,” Zhou Yihong waved him off, clearly drunk, still staring intently at Xie Yuncan. “I know you all look down on me.”

“But I couldn’t help it. I really couldn’t.”

Maybe it was guilt over his choices, amplified by the alcohol, that made Zhou Yihong’s regret and self-reproach spill out. He pounded his chest. “I’m thirty. I’m already thirty.”

He kept repeating that same line, his eyes reddening. “Two years ago, when I went back to my hometown for the ancestral rites, I saw my mother’s grave—the grass was up to my knees. My father and I took sickles and cut it back, stroke by stroke. That was when I realized—I wasn’t young anymore. And my father was getting old.”

The year Zhou Yihong started college, his mother had been in end-stage kidney failure. She passed away in the hospital before she could even see his acceptance letter.

On the day of her funeral, the eulogy recited by the clan elder was one he’d written himself.

Because he was the only college student in their family.

He knelt in front of the coffin, listening numbly.

Ironically, the acceptance letter arrived that same day.

Red envelope—celebrating a happy occasion.

White funeral paper—filled with grief.

Before leaving his hometown, he’d made a vow at her grave: he would make something of himself.

But after all the years had passed—a decade, a mere grain of sand in the vast ocean of time—he was still drifting aimlessly, unable to go home.

He hadn’t been back in five years. That year, he’d finally managed to make it home for New Year’s.

The stern, domineering father of his memory had become quiet and withdrawn, his hair streaked with gray, his once-straight back now stooped.

Knowing he was coming, Zhou’s father had slaughtered a chicken and a pig, and had gone to the market five kilometers away at dawn to buy his favorite cut of meat.

But that New Year’s Eve dinner hadn’t been just the two of them. The house was packed with relatives. In the village, the New Year was lively, with much more warmth and烟火气 than in the city.

Younger relatives offered flattering words to get red envelopes, running around the house, while fireworks exploded outside the yard.

The Zhou family had many relatives, but Zhou Yihong had been back so few times that most faces were only vaguely familiar.

There were plenty of younger cousins. Over dinner, relatives kept probing—asking about his job, his salary, his assets.

One cousin slammed his Mercedes key on the table. “Bought it before New Year’s. Mercedes S450. Not too expensive—just over a million. But that’s small change, nothing worth mentioning. Brother, you work in Jingcheng—your salary must be pretty good, right? By the way, did you drive back this time?”

Zhou Yihong’s car was a cheap BYD he’d bought right after graduation. Later, he’d waited two years for a license plate lottery, but he rarely got to drive—Jingcheng had license plate restrictions, and driving was less convenient than taking the subway.

He wasn’t stupid—he could tell the cousin was showing off. He smiled vaguely and brushed it off.

The cousin sighed. “These days, prices are soaring, housing prices are soaring, and it’s only business that’s tough. I worked my ass off all year and only made a few million. Now my son’s about to start elementary school, and my wife’s been nagging me to buy a school-district house—says we can’t let our son lose at the starting line. I gritted my teeth and bought one—over five million. When I paid, my heart was bleeding. But for my son’s future, it’s worth it.”

“If my son can turn out half as accomplished as you, brother—studying at the best university in the capital—I’ll be content.”

He paused, then suddenly shifted gears. “By the way, I heard from Uncle that you work in a classified unit and bought a house too. Jingcheng’s a great place—property isn’t cheap, and settling down there isn’t easy either. Where did you buy? In the city center? Full payment or mortgage? Must not have been cheap, right?”

Property in Jingcheng was expensive. Zhou Yihong’s annual income was only around two hundred thousand—buying a house in the city center was next to impossible.

His place was in the suburbs. When he’d bought it, a classmate had made the introduction—the classmate knew the real estate company’s boss, who gave him a discount, lowering the total price considerably. But the down payment was still steep. He hadn’t had that much cash on hand and had even borrowed money from Xie Yuncan.

He forced a smile. “It’s in the suburbs. Small place. Not expensive.”

That New Year’s Eve dinner tasted like nothing. Afterwards, he stepped out for some air. When he came back, he overheard relatives whispering.

“Didn’t they say his son was doing well? He hasn’t been back in years, and when he finally does come, he shows up empty-handed. No manners at all.”

“I’ve always said he’s book-smart but clueless. You all call him clever—look at him. A top university graduate, and he’s doing worse than Old Third’s kid—that one went into business and made a fortune.”

“Seems like all that studying was useless. They say he’s a civil servant, but he’s still broke. Not young anymore, no wife, no car, no house. Young girls these days are practical—with his situation, who’d want him? And he’s supposed to be our village’s first college student. If I were him, I’d be too ashamed to come back.”

Zhou Yihong stood at the doorway for a long time. At some point, his father had come up beside him and patted his shoulder.

“Day after tomorrow, you have to leave,” his father said. “Tomorrow, come with me to visit your mother. It’s been years—she misses you too.”

Zhou Yihong was stunned for a moment, then nodded.

He’d been away so long that he’d forgotten the way home—even forgotten how to get to his mother’s grave.

His father was getting old. The grave was in a remote gully, far away. In recent years, his father had injured his lower back while working and was no longer as strong as before, so he rarely visited the grave.

On New Year’s Day, Zhou Yihong accompanied his father to clear the weeds around the grave. Watching his father bend over—each time needing to rest a long while, rubbing his back to recover—made Zhou Yihong’s heart ache more and more.

Like most father-son relationships, theirs was defined mostly by silence.

They wanted to care, but didn’t know how to say it.

After sweeping the grave, his father went home and cooked a farewell meal himself. That night, it was just the two of them. Zhou Yihong had a few drinks with his father.

After the baijiu went down, his father suddenly said: “Do whatever you want to do. Don’t worry about me. I’ve lived my whole life in this gully—I’ve seen too little. Back then, I didn’t ask what you wanted; I heard civil engineering was good and made you study it. Now you’re thirty. You’ve spent thirty years being an obedient son. It’s time to live for yourself.”

“Don’t worry about me. When I die, bury me next to your mother. And don’t feel pressured. At my age, gold, silver, fame, fortune—they’re all external things. They don’t matter anymore.”

Later, Zhou Yihong returned to Jingcheng.

He thought it over for a long time, then made up his mind and submitted his resignation.

To others, he’d gone mad—middle-aged, giving up a stable job to plunge headlong into another abyss, betting everything he’d accumulated over thirty years on a losing gamble.

Zhou Yihong said drunkenly, “Junior Xie, you don’t know how much I envy you. You’re good-looking, smart, popular wherever you go. You have a safety net, a family to catch you. Even if you do nothing with your life, you’ll never want for anything. But me—I have nothing. When I see my father’s clouded eyes, I can’t convince myself to be selfish for once. From then till now, I’ve never fought for anything for myself. I’ve drifted along, saying and doing what others expected of me.”

“I really envy you—free as the wind, master of your own life.”

“I can’t afford to lose.”

Zhou Yihong laughed bitterly. “If I had even a fraction of your intelligence, maybe I could convince myself to let ideals illuminate this bleak reality, to let faith carry me through every dark, lightless night.”

He’d once loved aerospace—truly.

He’d given it his all, harbored passionate hopes.

But he wasn’t Xie Yuncan.

Sometimes, he really was jealous of Xie Yuncan—jealous that he had every advantage yet still charged forward without hesitation, focused on what he loved.

“You’re a golden child. I’m just an ordinary man.”

“Our starting points are different. And our destinations were destined to diverge.”

Zhou Yihong had drunk way too much. Shen Yi helped put him in the back seat. Before leaving, he took off his glasses and said, “Senior Zhou’s had too much—he’s rambling. Don’t take what he said to heart.”

Xie Yuncan smiled lazily, looking unbothered.

All of them had been drinking and couldn’t drive, so they called for designated drivers. As for Qin Sang, she’d called Sister Wen—her driver would be a bit late.

Shen Yi’s driver arrived first. After he left, only Xie Yuncan and Qin Sang were left waiting by the river. Zhou Yihong was already passed out drunk.

Xie Yuncan felt the urge for a cigarette. He held it between his long fingers but didn’t light it, mindful of Qin Sang’s presence.

Suddenly, a slender, pale hand extended toward him.

Qin Sang smiled and suggested, “Try this. When you have a candy to suck on, your mouth won’t feel so lonely.”

In her open palm lay a clear glass-wrapped candy—white body with a blue-green filling.

Xie Yuncan raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Mint?”

Qin Sang nodded. “Try it. It should taste about the same as the mints you used to like.”

Xie Yuncan took it, unwrapped the glassy paper, and the sharp, cool flavor spread across his tongue. He hadn’t bought mint candies in a long time, but this taste was surprisingly familiar.

Qin Sang pressed, “How is it? Is it exactly the same?”

Xie Yuncan paused, then hummed in agreement.

“I always thought that factory had closed down,” she said. “Then when I went to Shaoming Mountain for a promotional tour, I unexpectedly met the factory owner. What a coincidence—turns out he’s been running the candy factory all along, just on a smaller scale. That’s why you couldn’t find that brand in stores anymore.”

Back then, when she couldn’t find that particular brand of mints, she’d bought every mint on the market—but something was always missing.

Mint candies weren’t complicated to make, and the flavors were mostly similar. But she always felt that the taste in her memory couldn’t be replicated.

Later, when she was on a film promotional tour, the factory owner brought his daughter to the premiere. During the lucky draw, his daughter was chosen.

She was only six, so a guardian had to go up with her. During the brief interaction, Qin Sang happened to learn that he was the owner of that factory. Due to poor management, traditional manufacturing techniques had been slowly phased out, so production had been drastically cut. Plus, many people couldn’t handle the taste of mint, so the candy gradually disappeared from stores.

Now, he still ran a small candy factory in Shaoming Mountain.

But distribution was limited—his candies were only sold in Shaoming Mountain’s local shops.

So Qin Sang felt that though she wasn’t a particularly lucky person, she was still grateful.

After all those twists and turns, she’d finally found the mint candy she’d been looking for.

“See? The mint candy you thought was discontinued was still out there, waiting in some corner of the world to be discovered. Maybe it changed its name, got a new package—but—”

“Its taste never changed.”

When she looked at him, her eyes were clear, bright, focused. “It’s because so many people give up, because giving up is so easy, that persistence becomes all the more precious. Don’t you think?”