Zhou Huanan alighted from the taxi, arriving near the coordinates Liu Li had sent, anxiously scanning his surroundings.
Soon, he spotted Liu Li, who was sitting on the curb with his knees hugged to his chest.
He looked utterly forlorn, as if only a cardboard box were missing to complete the picture of destitution.
Nevertheless, having at least found him, Zhou Huanan felt a wave of relief wash over him.
“How can you sit here?”
Hearing the familiar voice, Liu Li looked up to see the familiar face of the person who had rushed over within ten minutes of his message.
Sitting alone in the lonely, cold night, the sudden warmth of being cared for struck him deeply.
Liu Li’s nose stung, and tears, having already reddened his eyelids, began to flow anew.
It was as if a small raft, adrift on the vast ocean, had finally found its anchor point.
A choked sob escaped Liu Li’s lips.
Seeing this, Zhou Huanan’s face registered his distress.
Not understanding the cause of Liu Li’s tears, he quickly knelt down, lowering his head to meet Liu Li’s gaze.
“What’s wrong, what’s wrong? Don’t just cry; tell me what happened!”
Liu Li tried to gather his thoughts and form words.
However, he realized there were many things he simply couldn’t articulate.
Matters concerning Magical Girls, the bullying by Scarlet Magical Girl, the online harassment he had endured, and the fact that he had been trying so hard.
Yet, no one acknowledged him, no one offered praise, only attracting more attacks.
All the accumulated grievances converged in Liu Li’s heart.
But when he opened his mouth and lowered his head, only one thing could be uttered.
“I got fired…”
“Fired? Well, if you’re fired, you’re fired. That manager at the store wasn’t treating you well anyway, right? It’s fine.”
With a sigh, Zhou Huanan plopped down directly on the road opposite Liu Li.
Liu Li shot him a fierce glare, seemingly accusing him of speaking without understanding his pain.
Zhou Huanan met Liu Li’s aggressive gaze with a gentle smile.
Liu Li hastily averted his eyes.
Zhou Huanan mused that if there were ever a staring contest, Liu Li’s skills wouldn’t even rank higher than a minnow.
“What else? Are you hungry? How about we go grab something to eat first? You’ll have more energy to cry once you’re full.”
“Get… get lost…”
Zhou Huanan raised an eyebrow, surprised that his usual method for cheering Liu Li up had failed.
This truly seemed to be a significant event.
“Alright, alright, you’re the boss. Watch your humble servant roll for you.”
With that, Zhou Huanan dramatically sprawled across the road.
Usually meticulous about cleanliness, he deliberately rolled on the dirty asphalt.
Liu Li watched, a flicker of alarm in his eyes.
“Wh-what are you doing!?”
Staring back, Zhou Huanan returned a puzzled look.
‘Didn’t you tell me to get lost?’ he seemed to convey.
Liu Li immediately averted his gaze, feeling guilty, and stared dejectedly at his shoelaces.
At this point, Zhou Huanan also stood up, realizing his playful antics had failed.
He sighed silently, then settled down beside Liu Li.
The two of them sat together, letting the evening breeze wash over them.
After a long silence, the person beside Liu Li finally spoke.
“Can you tell me why now?”
“Mmm…” Liu Li squeezed a sound from his throat.
All those words that were difficult to utter, those things he hadn’t planned on revealing, suddenly, for some unknown reason.
They all surged to his lips, and speaking them aloud brought a measure of relief to his heart.
From small incidents, like losing his steamed bun that day, to larger ones, like being wrongly accused and losing his job.
Though he couldn’t directly speak of Magical Girls, Liu Li spoke about the events that transpired during his transformation, cleverly disguising them as work-related incidents.
Reaching the most recent events, the immense pressure he felt, Liu Li spoke until he saw a melted ice cream on the roadside and burst into tears once more.
“Finally, I… I thought, ‘I’m already like this, so having an ice cream isn’t asking too much.’ So I bought a really, really expensive one, but I didn’t even get a single bite before…”
“Alright, alright…”
Zhou Huanan watched, his heart aching, as Liu Li broke down in tears.
This time, he didn’t interrupt him.
Instead, he sat by his side, fulfilling his role as a listener, quietly absorbing all of Liu Li’s grievances and sorrow as they poured out.
As Zhou Huanan saw Liu Li crying so fiercely, offering a few words of comfort now and then, a profound realization stirred within him.
He knew Liu Li’s character quite well.
From childhood, he had always been strong-willed, disliked owing others, and preferred to bottle up his problems rather than speak of them.
For him to seek him out and cry like this.
It truly meant he had suffered a deep injustice.
Crying so intensely.
It was just like that day a year or two ago, the day Liu Li’s stepmother had thrown him out of the house.
Like someone who had lost his home, he had cried just as fiercely then.
And it was from that day onward.
The optimistic and cheerful Liu Li, who had always been an excellent student, whose future was brimming with promise, simply vanished.
The childhood playmate who had always smiled in his memories, the “child from another family” his parents often praised, had been, in a sense, murdered.
His grades began to plummet, teachers grew disappointed, he started growing his hair long, and his personality softened, becoming fearful of others’ gazes.
Yet, even so, to survive, even having to work late into the night at such a young age, he could still find a way to smile amidst a darkness Zhou Huanan could scarcely imagine.
Whether as a childhood friend they had grown up with, or something more.
Zhou Huanan simply couldn’t stand by idly when it came to Liu Li.
Liu Li’s sobs gradually subsided, transforming into faint, almost imperceptible whimpers, like the buzzing of a fly.
At this moment, Zhou Huanan was drawn back from his memories.
His lips twitched as he pressed them together, and he feigned blowing his nose, suppressing the urge to cry himself.
With his lips forced into a slight upward curve and his eyes a little red, he gently asked Liu Li from the side if he could stand up.
Hearing him, Liu Li nodded softly.
The two of them rose to their feet.
Having cried his fill, Liu Li now felt almost recovered.
Liu Li tried to look up at Zhou Huanan, who was walking ahead.
However, he found that his eyes, swollen from crying, couldn’t discern anything; the entire world had dissolved into large, blurry mosaics.
An ordinary person would undoubtedly fall into a panic in such a situation.
“What’s wrong?”
Zhou Huanan noticed Liu Li standing motionless and asked with concern in his voice.
But Liu Li merely shook his head, forcing a smile that was uglier than crying, all to prevent Zhou Huanan from worrying too much.
“…It’s nothing, really. It’s just that my… my eyes are blurry from crying, and I can’t see the road.”
Darkness enveloped their surroundings.
The moon above cast a faint glow, yet that light seemed entirely absorbed by the river, failing to touch the ground.
Only the occasional silver glint reflected by the flowing water beneath the bridge was discernible.
Beneath the weak illumination of a convenience store sign.
Zhou Huanan saw Liu Li’s attempt at a strong smile.
His own expression, however, wavered, and his pupils contracted to tiny pinpricks.
Liu Li’s so-called strength was nothing but a fragile facade, clumsily yet adeptly concealing a heart full of wounds from others.
Though he presented it as resilience, it was riddled with flaws, serving only to cause pain to anyone who truly saw it.
Zhou Huanan gritted his teeth, wanting to say something, to tell him to stop hurting himself like this.
But then, he wasn’t Liu Li’s parent or family member.
He had no standing to utter such preachy words.
Yet, if he said nothing now, if he did nothing.
Liu Li’s inner wounds wouldn’t disappear, wouldn’t heal, wouldn’t be mended.
They would merely be skillfully hidden away, allowing him to continue pretending that nothing was wrong in his daily life.
It was foreseeable that in Liu Li’s future.
Such disguises would become even more practiced, perhaps to the point where even Zhou Huanan himself would no longer be able to see through them, mistakenly believing Liu Li truly didn’t care anymore.
And then, allowing the festering wounds in Liu Li’s heart to rot and decay, he would say nothing more, falling alone until he reached an irreparable state before anyone would notice with alarm.
Zhou Huanan.
He refused to watch his friend die a second time before his very eyes.
Zhou Huanan’s thoughts at that moment were a chaotic tangle, like a long black thread wound into an impenetrable knot.
He couldn’t untangle it, couldn’t straighten it, and finding the loose end to unravel it seemed an insurmountable task.
“Liu Li, wait here for a moment.”
To buy himself some time, Zhou Huanan dashed into the convenience store.
He frantically grabbed two ice creams from the freezer, paid for them, and rushed back out, relieved to see Liu Li still waiting in the same spot.
A partial sigh of relief escaped him.
Zhou Huanan pressed the ice creams firmly into Liu Li’s arms.
Seeing this, Liu Li offered a faint smile.
Liu Li spoke in a seemingly light tone, his gaze not lingering long on the ice cream wrappers: “How did you know I wanted to eat this right now?”
No, that wasn’t right.
His smile was fake, his gentle expression was fake, and his lighthearted tone was also fake.
Liu Li was not feeling well right now; he had no appetite whatsoever.
Zhou Huanan saw through it all.
His mind was consumed with the thought that he had to save him, he had to save him.
Yet, the black tangle of threads within his heart only tightened further.
But the thread that could unravel this deadlock, seemed lost, as if swallowed by a seemingly vibrant, yet deadly, swamp.
Zhou Huanan was so desperate he felt like crying.
[Even if the actual probability is less than one in ten thousand]
Zhou Huanan remembered Dr. Zhuge’s words of caution, and his eyes widened.
At that very moment, the dark clouds obscuring the moon parted in the sky.
The black tangle of threads in Zhou Huanan’s mind seemed to unravel on its own, revealing a strange, star-like key within.
Even if it was far-fetched and ridiculous.
He had to seize and try this less than one-in-ten-thousand possibility.
Suddenly, Zhou Huanan grabbed Liu Li’s shoulders with both hands, startling Liu Li, who had been in the midst of tearing open an ice cream wrapper and hadn’t anticipated this.
The moment Liu Li looked up, his gaze met Zhou Huanan’s intensely serious, inexplicably red-rimmed eyes.
This time, unusually, he did not shy away from another’s gaze.
“Liu Li, there’s something I’ve been keeping from you, mainly because I’ve always felt a bit embarrassed to say it.”
“And that is…”
“No matter what happens.”
“I will always love Magical Girl Grey Moon the most.”