The school gate was much livelier than usual, with students carrying luggage everywhere, simple and happy smiles on their faces. Mason Scott thought of her own student days, when she would often be excited and happy for a long time just because of the holidays. Looking back now, it all feels like a distant dream.

With both hands in her pockets, strolling along the tree-lined avenue of the school, Mason Scott’s mood was no longer as turbulent as it had been the last time she came here with Ian Mitchell; instead, she felt a deeper sense of emptiness beneath the calm. It seemed as if her life had started to go wrong the moment she left this school, but now, at this point, how should she move forward to make things right?

“Do you want to come back to me now?” Ian Mitchell’s deep voice echoed in her mind again. Mason Scott stopped walking, closed her eyes, and waited for the ache in her heart to subside.

Returning to his side—the scene she had imagined countless times. When she was abroad, she would often drift off and start fantasizing about reuniting with Ian Mitchell, imagining the two of them happily together. That was her only comfort, her only happiness during those long, lonely days. All her strength and perseverance came from that imagined happiness. Yet, after returning home, when Ian Mitchell tried to turn her fantasy into reality with a rational and cold attitude, she shrank back.

He and she were no longer the innocent boy and girl in her memories. The cracks caused by seven years of separation constantly reminded them of their pain—perhaps just tiny wounds, but still unbearably painful.

Because they cared too much, they couldn’t bear the hurt.

Between them, everything had actually been settled seven years ago.

Unconsciously, she had walked to the edge of the sports field, where many people were jogging on the rubber track.

She wondered how long it would take her to run 800 meters now.

Mason Scott crouched down and slipped through the railing, stood on the track, tiptoed to draw a starting line, silently counted “one, two, three,” and dashed out at the speed she used to run the 800 meters.

With her eyes closed, she ran through the night breeze to the finish line.

“Four minutes and twenty-five seconds, too slow.” Someone knocked her on the head.

“Slower than yesterday.” She muttered in frustration, then looked up at him, her eyes shining. “Ian Mitchell, how about you run in front of me during the exam and I’ll chase after you? I’m sure I’ll run much faster that way!”

After being glared at by him, Mason Scott felt a little dejected at not being appreciated. It was clearly a good idea. “Or maybe you could dangle your photo in front of me…”

“Mason Morgan, have you no shame!” Ian Mitchell finally couldn’t help but scold her, though his ears quietly turned a little red.

…

Smiling, she opened her eyes. The finish line was empty.

A sudden dull pain struck her heart. The clearer the details, the sharper the pain. Tears began to fall, one by one, without warning, and then she couldn’t hold them back anymore. Mason Scott sat on the ground, buried her head, and cried her heart out.

From now on, at any finish line, there would never be Ian Mitchell again.

The train’s final stop was Y City.

After returning from C University last night, Mason Scott went to bed early. She woke up around four in the morning and couldn’t fall back asleep. She stared at the ceiling for a while, got up to pack, and went to the train station.

This was her first time returning to Y City since coming back to China.

The train was scheduled to arrive in Y City at 11 a.m. It was raining in Y City, much cooler than A City, and the cold wind made people shiver.

Standing on the steps of the train station, fingers pulling her thin clothes tighter, Mason Scott looked up at the city that had raised her, feeling a vague, bittersweet emotion in her heart. She wondered if this was what people called “nervousness upon returning home.”

“Miss, are you here for sightseeing? Need a place to stay? Lowest prices in the city.”

“Miss, need a tour guide? National Day discounts…”

She encountered quite a few people soliciting business as she crossed the square. Maybe the searching look on her face made her seem like an outsider, more like a stranger than a local. Mason Scott couldn’t help but mock herself bitterly.

Fortunately, the bus stop was still in the same place, and the bus routes hadn’t changed. She found it easily.

Someone once said that to truly understand a city, you just need to ride the bus a few times, because it will take you through all the vibrant parts of the city. Mason Scott looked out the window at the pedestrians, vehicles, streets, and shops. In the drizzling rain, this small southern city was blurry, just like her current mood.

“Qinghe New Village, next stop. Passengers getting off, please prepare.”

She jumped off the bus, and a cluster of old buildings appeared before her. Qinghe New Village had been around for more than ten years now, and Mason Scott had grown up here, bit by bit, in a daze. She had never thought that one day, standing downstairs in this familiar place, her heart would be filled with such sorrow at how things had changed.

This time, she had come to find her mother. Mason Scott hadn’t been in touch with her for more than seven years and didn’t know if she still lived here.

The rain outside grew heavier. Mason Scott dashed into the building, soaking wet, and knocked on the door, but no one came to open it.

Had she gone out? Or already moved away?

She waited at the door for more than an hour, but still no one returned. Her clothes clung to her wet body, and her toes were frozen numb.

Mason Scott suddenly remembered that when she was little, there had been a time like this too—she ran home from school in the rain, but no one was home. She waited at the door for more than two hours before her father came back carrying his briefcase.

She still remembered how distressed her father had looked, hugging her tightly and saying over and over, “Daddy’s sorry, Daddy’s sorry, Xiaosheng, you can spank Daddy’s bottom!”

Whenever he was with her, her middle-aged father was like a mischievous child, taking her everywhere to play pranks, showing none of Mayor Morgan’s official authority. But he was always so busy, and the time he could spare for his daughter was very limited. Many of Mason Scott’s classmates envied her for having a father who was an official, but little Mason Scott wrote in her essay: My wish is for Daddy to come home from work on time every day, and for no uncles to come to our house to talk to Daddy.

But whenever he had time, her official father would spoil Mason Scott to the skies, completely unlike her mother… In her memory, her mother was always cold and distant, rarely smiling at her daughter…

“Xiaosheng!”

A surprised voice pulled Mason Scott out of her memories. “Aunt Helen.”

The middle-aged woman standing before her was the neighbor of Mason Scott’s family. Her husband had been a colleague of her father’s at the city government, and their families were quite close.

“Xiaosheng, when did you get back? Come in, come in, look at you, soaked to the bone.” Aunt Helen opened the door and ushered her in.

After drying off with a towel, Mason Scott finally felt much better. She asked a little uneasily, “Aunt Helen, does my mother still live here?”

“She’s still here. Where else could she go? You child, you’ve been away for so many years without a word, leaving your mother here all alone.”

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to get in touch. Mason Scott felt a little downcast. Seven years ago, when she was abroad and had just learned of her father’s death, she immediately called home. Her mother, however, spoke to her with utter calm: “Don’t call again, and don’t come back. Your father ruined half my life. Now I can finally live in peace. I don’t want to see anything related to him anymore.”

Then she hung up. After that, the number was disconnected. Later, she learned some secrets she could hardly believe from her father’s old friend Uncle Carter in America…

Mason Scott didn’t respond to Aunt Helen’s reproach. “How is my mother’s health?”

“I haven’t heard of any problems. You just came back at a bad time—she left today with the neighborhood’s tour group and won’t be back for five days. Stay here with Aunt Helen for now.”

She went on a trip? Mason Scott hadn’t expected that answer. It seemed her mother was really doing well. Mason Scott lowered her eyes, smiled faintly, and stood up. “Aunt Helen, I’m going to go.”

“You’re not waiting for your mother to come back?” Aunt Helen said in surprise.

“No, I just wanted to see if she was doing well, and there were some things I wanted to ask her.” Mason Scott paused. “Now that I know she’s doing fine, I suddenly don’t want to ask anymore.”

Since the ending was already set, the reasons no longer mattered.

“Aunt Helen, thank you. Please don’t tell her I was here.”

Before leaving, she asked Aunt Helen for her father’s cemetery address: Jinji Mountain, Area A, Plot 157—almost like a residential address.

It wasn’t the time of year for tomb-sweeping, so Jinji Mountain was almost deserted. Mason Scott sat beside her father’s tombstone, resting her head against it, just like when they used to chat when he was alive.

Now, Mason Scott was chatting with her father: “Dad, it’s been so long since I came to see you. You won’t blame me, will you? Actually, I never wanted to come back…”

“I guess I’m too cowardly, I just can’t accept it. Why is it that when I left, you were still a person, but now you’re just a stone?”

“I always felt that as long as I didn’t come back, you’d still be alive. I still remember the cheese crackers you bought me before I got on the plane… You lied and said I could go to America and come back if I didn’t like it, but I didn’t like it at all, and I couldn’t come back…”

In the photo on the tombstone, the young man who resembled Mason Scott smiled kindly, just as he always had. Mason Scott wiped the photo with her sleeve. “Dad, this photo must be from your college days, right? Don’t think you can pretend to be a young ghost just by using such a young photo.”