Chapter Two: The Story Begins, An Encounter

This beam of light, as if cast from the boundless cosmos, left Lin Shenlu barely daring to breathe. It felt as though even a careless exhale might send her drifting away.

“Excuse me, are you Miss An?” The elegant flight attendant crouched slightly in the aisle, addressing the woman beside Lin Shenlu.

The woman nodded gently, a faint, almost imperceptible smile on her lips. As she did, the attendant handed her a bottle of water. Just as she was about to continue, she seemed to sense Lin Shenlu’s gaze and glanced over at her.

Then she went on, “Miss An, this flight will last only an hour and a half. We won’t be serving any meals or… slippers.”

Lin Shenlu flushed with embarrassment.

The woman named An instinctively threw Lin Shenlu a glance as well. There was a hint of curiosity in her eyes, but she quickly seemed to understand. It must have been something about airplane meals and slippers that had prompted this brief exchange between the attendant and her neighbor.

“That’s fine, thank you,” Miss An replied, her voice as melodious as her face, carrying a resonance that seemed to penetrate the heart while remaining remote and untouchable.

With the news that there would be no meal, it was as if the expectation had vanished. The woman beside Lin Shenlu quietly retrieved a pale yellow sleep mask from her bag and slipped her phone into the seat pocket in front of her, where the flight information and magazines were kept.

Ordinarily, Lin Shenlu’s own seat pocket held nothing but a water bottle and bits of trash. She always feared leaving something valuable behind in the rush to disembark.

The girl placed the mask over her eyes, leaned back into the seat, and gradually drifted into sleep.

Lin Shenlu steadied her own mood. Some encounters are destined to last only an hour and thirty-two minutes; there’s no point in forcing fate. She turned away, gazing once more out the window.

“Airplanes soar across the sky, the city in the clouds…”

The melody in her headphones was a version of “Castle in the Sky” no longer found online. The lyrics echoed her feelings—dusk beneath the rain, the two of them growing dim and indistinct.

As the plane rocked gently, Lin Shenlu too fell asleep.

An hour and a half passed both quickly and slowly. When she awoke, the flight had already landed smoothly at Dali Airport. The girl beside her had stood up, ready to disembark, waiting with the other passengers lined up behind the curtain.

Lin Shenlu stretched lazily and silently bid farewell to the tall girl, who was at least five-foot-seven. Then, as always, she became the subject of curious glances from the economy class passengers passing by.

She began to check her belongings: Bluetooth earphones, phone, backpack, ID card—all accounted for. Green health code, travel code, local health code, nucleic acid test report—safe and sound.

All right, time to go.

As she passed by the seat pocket where the girl had been sitting, she felt a solid weight inside. Instinctively, Lin Shenlu reached in.

Sure enough, it was a phone—the latest model in an alluring blue. There was no protective case on the back, and instead of a selfie, the screen displayed four bold characters on a red background: “Peace and Joy.”

“I knew it—never leave your phone in the seat pocket; it’s too easy to forget in a rush,” Lin Shenlu muttered to herself.

She glanced instinctively around the crowd. The girl was already nowhere to be seen.

“Well, I’ll just have to wait,” Lin Shenlu sighed, slinging her backpack over her shoulder and bidding farewell to the flight attendant as she left the plane.

At least, she thought, they were both in Dali. The girl would surely find a way to call her own phone and track Lin Shenlu down.

In a way, this was a new thread of fate—an extension beyond their hour and thirty-two minutes together. Fate, after all, is always full of delightful surprises.

Standing in the airport hall, Lin Shenlu waited for a while, but the girl was lost in the sea of people.

Outside, Lin Shenlu borrowed a lighter and smoked a cigarette, pulling out the blue phone. After half an hour had passed, she wondered—had the girl still not noticed her phone was missing? Why hadn’t anyone called?

Then she realized the phone was still in airplane mode.

She chuckled awkwardly. The girl’s phone had no password or facial recognition—one swipe and it unlocked.

As she got into the car, Lin Shenlu switched off airplane mode.

After about half an hour, she could already see the scenery along the shore of Erhai Lake. Finally, the blue phone rang.

The ringtone was an unusual, captivating tune—distinctive, with a peculiar appeal. Lin Shenlu savored it, thinking the girl’s taste was quite unique. Even she couldn’t place the song.

It was beautiful, though.

Time to answer.

This was the kind of song you’d listen to quietly with a glass of wine. Lin Shenlu pressed answer.

On the other end, the girl’s voice was tinged with surprise—cool and penetrating as before.

“Hello, did you happen to find my phone?”

“Yes, that’s me,” Lin Shenlu replied, nodding to herself. Had she not found it, the girl’s next encounter would likely have been with a flight attendant, a pilot, or perhaps an airport staffer.

“Thank you… I was just wondering where I’d lost it.”

“It was in the seat pocket in front of you, with the magazines,” Lin Shenlu said, smiling.

“So… you were my neighbor? Thank you so much, I was a bit flustered when I woke up…”

“Just tell me where you are, and I’ll bring it to you,” Lin Shenlu said simply.

The girl hesitated for a moment on the phone, then said, “Are you a tourist too? I’ve booked a guesthouse by the S-bend road in Panxi Village, by Erhai Lake. Let’s meet there.”

Lin Shenlu hung up. “Driver, to the S-bend road in Panxi Village.”

“Oh, and could I borrow your lighter?”

She turned the phone over in her hand and lit another cigarette. Sunlight shimmered on the rippling surface of Erhai Lake outside the car window. Lin Shenlu loved losing herself in this quiet world.

She gazed at the scenery in silence, her mind adrift. She remembered reading an essay about Yunnan years ago, written by a traveler who’d visited the province many times.

Yunnan, he said, was a gathering place for those in the throes of first love, passionate love, or heartbreak. Whether in Dali or Lijiang, every journey began as a blank slate, but each one inevitably spawned its own story.

Was this her own story, one that had begun the moment she boarded the plane? In this magical place, she had stumbled into an unexpected encounter.

Lost in thought, the car came to a stop.

“We’re here, buddy—this is the famous S-bend,” the driver, a genial man from the northeast, announced.

For some reason, Yunnan was always home to people from other cities, settling down and making a living.

“Thank you,” Lin Shenlu said, paying the fare. At the curve of the S-bend, she spotted a familiar yet distant figure standing by the edge of Erhai Lake.

Waves crashed against the rocks. A girl in a baseball cap jogged past. A group of boys on bicycles rode by on the other side.

The sky was clear, the lake swelling with energy. In this beautiful place, her silhouette appeared so calm, so natural.