Walking into the storeroom, it was a whole new world inside, everything was decorated like that old residence back in the day.
The sa rose trellis, the sa white wall, and... that sa window.
On the walls to the left and right, they were covered with her photographs.
All of them were taken by him, capturing her appearance from those years:
Sotis she was smiling with her head slightly tilted, the soft golden morning sun covered the top of her head, passing through her soft hair, casting a gentle halo beside her face.
Other tis she was holding a book, reading as she walked, head lowered, her hair sliding down one cheek, with a few strands brushing against the pages.
Even among the photos of her reading, there were slight variations. In so, she was holding her breath and concentrating, with a slightly serious look, her baby fat cheeks adorably hanging. She knew that in that photo, she must have been reading a textbook. Walking while reading like this, she was probably cramming for another test, so much so that she studied even on the way to school.
And those where she smiled dreamily while reading, those must have been novels, especially those romance novels. Initially spreading from Hong Kong and Taiwan, each book had about a hundred thousand words, and she read through them quickly, able to finish most of one during her morning commute.
But no matter which type it was, she imrsed herself in the world of her reading, enjoying her personal joy or tension, never noticing that soone outside the worldly window was gazing at her, capturing her every expression.
So of these photos she had seen before; he had shown them to her at the ti. But there were so here she had never seen.
The angles and locations of the shots had also changed, not just capturing that house, or through that window. Surprisingly, there were also photos of her on the school campus.
The schedule in middle school was tight, with the relatively free ti on the field generally being Wednesday afternoons during physical activities. Those photos depicted her during those activities, capturing her sitting on the horizontal bar, gazing at the sky at a 45-degree angle, a vividly thoughtful young girl deep in musings.
And there were embarrassing monts, for instance, when she fell on the horizontal bar, her ponytail inexplicably sprouting into the soil, still managing to hold onto a textbook and recite historical details, completely oblivious that her uniform had slipped down, revealing a portion of her belly. It made her want to laugh and feel lancholic at the sa ti.
Those photos were excellently taken, with light, angle, shutter, and composition all just right. Therefore, regardless of her expressions in the photos, she always appeared beautiful, lively, vivid, and unique.
She couldn’t help but draw back her viewpoint, not looking at herself in the photographs, but imagining the position of the person who took them and the emotions during the capture.
And no matter how the seasons changed, or how much she grew up, one thing remained unchanged: the school uniform she wore.
A dark blue blazer, black skirt, with a red scarf tied at the collar.
Sotis she also liked to untie the scarf and tie it on her ponytail or wrap it around her wrist...
She took a deep breath: She had only described her school uniform look once to Yan Qi online; but this appearance of hers had already imprinted itself a thousand tis in Huangfu Huazhang’s eyes...
He knew her for so many years, quietly watched over her for so many years, his familiarity with her perhaps far exceeded Tang Yanqing. Perhaps that’s why he desired to replicate the essence of a child. He poured every piece of his mory of her into his love for Jieyou, and in a way that did not require competing with anyone else, freely invested all his feelings into Jieyou; naturally, he received his daughter’s full response.
Walking under that rose arbor, she saw a computer placed on the stone table.
She hesitated for a mont and then turned it on.
Huangfu Huazhang’s image slipped into her view like water, instantly.
He was dressed in white, resembling the young man beneath the flower arbor back then, smiling gently at her.
"Hi, you’re here?"
His voice was relaxed, sunny, filled with warmth.
Shi Nian bit her lip and nodded.
He smiled on the screen: "I don’t know when you’ll get to this place, when you’ll see here. I hope it’ll be a long, long ti from now; I hope by then your hair will be as white as snow."
He paused briefly, gently lowering his eyes: "Of course, I also know it might just be ’not long after now’... I know I might... not be able to hold onto you."
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