The winter night’s arrival felt exceptionally swift, with the ink-blue night spreading and the starlight faint.
Grace Winter sent a ssage to Hayes Edwards and had just walked out of the library when she encountered a strange man.
A light rain was falling from the sky. The man held an umbrella, dressed in a suit that made him appear exceptionally mature and composed, yet his face was surprisingly young. His gaze on her made her feel sowhat uncomfortable.
It was as though he was looking through her at soone else.
Grace Winter hugged the books in her arms tightly, no longer looking at him, and stood under the eaves to take shelter from the rain, waiting for Hayes Edwards to pick her up.
About half a minute later, the man walked over.
Grace Winter instinctively beca alert, but the man only wanted directions.
She breathed a sigh of relief and pointed in a direction, "Go straight and then turn left."
The man nodded slightly, politely thanked her, and his gaze briefly lingered on Grace Winter’s face before shifting away.
Amidst the sound of rain, Grace Winter heard the man’s driver call him "Mr. River."
She didn’t know him and therefore didn’t think much of it.
Soon after, Hayes Edwards arrived with his car, took the umbrella, stepped over the puddles, and then took Grace Winter’s backpack, shielding her with his presence. The umbrella tilted towards her, "Next ti, wait for inside. Co out when I call you."
"Inside is too stuffy. I wanted to get so fresh air."
"Next ti, I’ll co earlier. Let’s go for dinner. What do you feel like eating?"
"I want to go to the place we went last ti..."
The two got into the car.
The rainy night seed to make the darkness even lonelier.
In the days that followed, when Grace Winter had already forgotten about the man who had asked for directions, he appeared again.
The man knew one of her classmates, and they happened to et at a gathering.
Afterwards, they ran into each other several more tis, each ti a very coincidental "chance encounter."
Even if Grace Winter was slow, she still sensed that the man’s gaze towards her was different.
Once, during a casual chat among friends, they ntioned the man, and she learned that Mr. River had a first love who had gone abroad and had never forgotten her all these years.
The friends jokingly said, "I’ve seen the picture of that girl, and she seems to look a bit like you, Grace."
Grace Winter was slow, but not stupid. She quickly understood the aning behind the man’s gaze.
She didn’t like it.
During their next encounter, it was an even more coincidental "hero saving the beauty."
Yet this ti, Grace Winter knew she wasn’t the Cinderella in a fairy tale, and the man wasn’t any prince. If there was to be one, it had to be Hayes Edwards.
She politely thanked the man and created distance between them.
But the man didn’t retreat because of it; he even said so strange things, like talking about substitutes... contracts... mutual needs.
He was like soone stuck in a channel of his own, his words and behavior were entirely irrational.
Grace Winter hesitated for a mont, then decided to help the man call a car, leaving him a tactful comnt, "Sir, if you have ti, you might want to consult a ntal health professional."
Man: "..."
Later, Grace Winter told Hayes Edwards about this incident. Young and spirited, before twenty and after twenty, he was labeled the "big shot" of the campus for a reason.
However, the man "disappeared."
The butterfly flaps its wings, and perhaps with just a tiny change, a series of events can unfold.
Erging from soone else’s story, a few words here and there make for a scattered supporting role in life. Now, eting again is the beginning of our new story.
On the day of the proposal, Hayes Edwards made a new wish.
What he said when he was five doesn’t count. From now on, he wants to always be Grace Winter’s sidekick, following her, walking through the decades of future together.
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