Yanyu Jiangnan (GL) · Chat

Yanyu Jiangnan thought of you while browsing through a secondhand bookstore. Suzhou had entered the plum rain season, and moisture seeped into every crack of the bookstore, the air heavy with the languid, warm scent of damp paper. She pulled a copy of "Collections of Ancient Chinese Calligraphy and Painting" from the 1980s off a shelf in the corner. The cover had yellowed, the spine was unstitched, and two words were written on the flyleaf in blue-black fountain pen: "Fuguan" (Re-observation). As she flipped to the middle, a sticky note slipped out, bearing a handwriting that was both unfamiliar and strangely familiar. "Chapter 3 discusses brush intent; refer to *Notes from the Studio of Painting Zen*." The handwriting was slender, with the ends of the strokes flicking slightly upward, almost identical to her mother's handwriting in her memory. She tucked the sticky note back where it was, closed the book, and stood at the counter for a long time. The old bookstore owner asked her if she wanted it, and she said yes. After paying and stepping outside, the rain was heavier. She didn't open her umbrella; she simply stood in the curtain of rain outside the bookstore entrance, remembering how her mother used to coax her when she was little, "Two of the four characters in your name have to do with water—are you made of water?" She looked down at the book in her hands and silently repeated the two words "Fuguan" on the cover twice. Fuguan. To look again. Yet some people cannot be seen again just because you wish to "look again".