"I can't think of anything, no matter what, I can't think of anything..."
Anna bit her pillow and thought seriously for a while, but her head remained completely empty. So, she quickly grew discouraged and rolled around on the bed hugging her pillow.
For a sixteen-year-old girl who had just started high school, there was only one goal in life: to one day taste all the delicious food in the world.
As for a goal to strive for... she was sorry, she had completely never considered it.
"Oh right, there's the diary." Anna's gaze suddenly caught a glimpse of the black diary on her bedside table, and her eyes quickly lit up. "Although my future self is very embarrassing, I must have been very rich to be able to keep binge-eating, right?"
Clap!
Anna pressed her hands together and prayed devoutly.
"Please, Future Diary! Please give me some hints!"
"..."
Meanwhile.
Because he ate dinner very late today, Sora didn't go to grab a half-price bento. Instead, he walked straight home.
Just as he was about to reach his door, a dazzling color fluttering in the wind suddenly caught his eye.
Sora stopped walking and looked towards the small park at the street corner.
It was already past nine o'clock at night. The small park was exceptionally deserted, completely devoid of the daytime's liveliness and clamor.
At this very moment.
Under the dim streetlights.
Angel-sama, with her long flaxen hair, sat alone on the swings. Her frail figure looked as if she might be carried away by the wind at any moment.
"...Mahiru-san, how is your body?"
Sora stepped into the small park and approached Angel-sama.
"I feel alright." Mahiru looked up. Perhaps because they were already familiar with each other, she didn't wear her trademark angelic smile on her delicate, cute small face. She just replied softly, "This time it seems my sense of touch has failed."
"Sense of touch, huh?"
Sora nodded slightly, not entirely surprised.
Just now at the intersection, Mahiru had been able to chat with him and Anna, so clearly, her vision and hearing had not encountered any issues.
"Do you need my help?"
Sora asked softly.
"No need." Mahiru gently shook her head, the girl's voice cool and clear. "If it's just my sense of touch, it doesn't seem to affect my life much."
"Then send me a message if you need anything." Naturally, Sora wouldn't force the issue, but he did comment, "Someone clearly stated yesterday that she would never use the Time Stop ability again, yet she broke her vow today."
Hearing Sora complain about her, Mahiru's pink cheeks puffed up slightly, and she couldn't help but glare at him affectionately.
"In that kind of situation, there was no way I could just sit back and watch, right?"
"Yes, yes."
Although she always wore an angel mask to hide her true feelings, there was no doubt that Shiina Mahiru truly possessed an angelic, kind personality.
"Since you don't need help, you should head home early," Sora reminded her. "It's already past 9 PM. Being outside alone this late is inevitably a bit unsafe."
Mahiru looked down at the ground, her long flaxen hair fluttering gently in the evening breeze.
"Sora-kun, you go back first. I'll sit for a while longer before going back."
"Alright, then I'll head back first."
Sora nodded and agreed, without the slightest bit of pestering.
The other party seemingly had something on her mind, but clearly had no intention of voicing it. Naturally, he wouldn't press the issue; they weren't familiar enough for that.
After taking a few steps, Sora's gaze fell on the shadows cast on the ground. A phrase suddenly surfaced in his mind:
"'The courtyard below was bright and clear as accumulated water, with intertwining algae and watergrass, which were actually the shadows of bamboo and cypress.'"
At this very moment, the text and the imagery perfectly merged together.
"Eh?" Hearing this, Mahiru tilted her pretty face up, her tone slightly surprised. "Sora-kun has also read 'Night Stroll to Chengtian Temple'?"
Sora nodded. "I had the privilege of reading it, so I memorized it."
Su Dongpo was actually very popular in Japan. For example, "Ode to the Red Cliff" was included in Japanese literature textbooks. However, very few people in Japan knew of "Night Stroll to Chengtian Temple."
"To think you could recite the full name in one breath..." Sora couldn't help but be a bit curious. "Mahiru-san, do you like this piece very much?"
"That's right, I like it very much." For once, Mahiru didn't hold back her feelings. Her pretty face suddenly glowed, and her caramel-colored eyes sparkled in the night. "When I was very little, my dad took me for a walk in the courtyard one day and recited this piece to me..."
Halfway through speaking, Mahiru didn't know what she remembered, but the glow in her eyes suddenly dimmed.
"Phew..."
Mahiru softly exhaled. Looking down at the various lights and shadows on the ground, her tone was low.
"Thinking about it now, waking someone up in the middle of the night just to chat would cause trouble for them... Loneliness is something one should endure alone after all..."
At that moment, Sora's voice suddenly rang out.
"Mahiru-san is wrong."
"Eh?"
Mahiru tilted her pretty face up in confusion.
"To understand a piece of literature, you must start with the author's life and the historical background," Sora softly explained. "At that time, Zhang Huaimin had just been demoted. The place he lived wasn't his own home, but a state-designated temple where he was forced to reside temporarily. He was thousands of miles away from home, completely alone. One can imagine the sorrow in his heart."
"Su Dongpo, on the other hand, was an 'old-timer' who had been demoted there several years earlier, so he naturally understood the bitterness of it all."
"So it wasn't that Su Dongpo deliberately disturbed someone's peaceful sleep. It was because he saw that the light in Zhang Huaimin's room hadn't gone out, and he knew the other was depressed and unable to sleep, that he got up to invite him for a night stroll to comfort him."
Those memes online about "Night Stroll to Chengtian Temple: Get Up and Party" and "Huaimin, how can you sleep at your age" were thousands of miles away from the truth!
Comrade Huaimin not only wasn't angry, but after this incident, the two became close friends. A month later, Zhang Huaimin moved out of Chengtian Temple to live on his own, and even invited Su Shi to help write a poem, leading to the immortal lines: "A speck of righteous spirit, a thousand miles of exhilarating wind." So he really didn't disturb anyone's sleep!
Mahiru widened her bright eyes in astonishment. "So that is the truth?"
"That's right." Sora's expression was calm. "If Mahiru-san is interested, you can go back and look up the information."
"So I've been misunderstanding Scholar Su all along..."
Mahiru's mood was complex and subtle.
Buzz buzz.
His phone suddenly vibrated.
Sora took his phone out of his pocket. It was a message from Anna:
"Has Sora gotten home?"
"...Almost there."
Sora silently replied to the message, then said:
"Mahiru-san, I'm heading back."
Hearing this, Mahiru stood up. "It's very late. Let's walk back together."
The two left the small park on the street corner together and walked home.
The moonlight was like water.
Its glow illuminated a thousand miles.
The world had quietly fallen silent, leaving only the faint chirping of insects.
Watching their shadows walking side-by-side on the ground, Mahiru felt an unexpected peace in her heart at this moment.
(How strange...)
(If it were any other boy beside me, I would definitely be secretly on guard right now, wouldn't I?)