When Bright Moon Encounter the Dark Clouds

I have lived in a disorganized manner lately and was definitely not up to the ‘Enjoy our lives and not waste it on sorrows’ post.

That was why, on this day, I felt extremely depressed. In fact, I began to despise everything sorrowful, even love. After taking a hot shower, I changed into a cooling dress, put on some makeup, and went to find Zhuang Yu for dinner.

This was probably what Lu Xun meant when he said that if a person did not explode silently, they would become perverted.

Zhuang Yu and I met up at her school's front gate.

She was pretty out of luck recently. It was her summer vacation, but she still had a mountain of projects to finish. I had asked her out several times, but on multiple occasions, she replied, “I’m very busy with all the tests that've been going on.”

Finally, she took some time out to have dinner with me, but she had a haggard appearance. Wearing a black T-shirt, hair as messy as a bird’s nest, with a pile of paperwork in her arms. Originally, I had wanted to vent to her about all the sad things in my life, but when I saw her drained appearance, I did not feel like it anymore.

The two of us sat down and immediately ordered some food, seeing how pathetic the two of us seemed.

While waiting for the food to come, Zhuang Yu continued with her work. Of course, I did not forget about the main thing I wanted to talk to her about: that strange event that seemed like a deep well in my life now. Looking at the friends I had, only Zhuang Yu seemed to be someone I could rely on. She was knowledgeable about Sci-Fi, time travel, and stuff like quantum mechanics.

Lowering my voice, I told her, “I need to talk to you about something really strange.”

Zhuang Yu gave me a glance and lowered her voice as well. “Okay, let me finish this paper.”

A sense of panic suddenly filled me as I became unsure whether it was a good idea to talk about such a strange matter.

When the food arrived, Zhuang Yu put her work aside and said, “Finally done with that shit.” Her timing could not be more perfect. The two of us grabbed some food and opened a bottle of beer. “Come, let it out. Let’s see if that strange thing you want to talk about will stimulate this numbed and tired heart of mine.”

“Zhuang Yu, I’m serious about this. Do you believe in time travel?”

Spitting out a piece of bone, she replied without looking up, “Of course, I do. Time travel occurs when an object travels beyond the speed of light. Even though we don’t have the capability on Earth, I believe it does exist in this universe.”

I felt a sense of comfort at that moment. This was the first time I felt proud and a sense of security from having a friend like her.

“Strictly speaking, it wasn’t time travel. It’s more like going back to a certain time point and staying there for a few hours before coming back to present again.”

“Oh, then what happened?”

I looked around at the other people, making sure that no one was listening. Then I said in a lowered but clear voice, “Something like that happened to me.” Immediately after saying that, I felt my heart rate increase.

Zhuang Yu’s whole person paused for a good second or two before she spat out a mouthful of beer onto my face.

“What the hell!” I exclaimed while frantically grabbing tissue to wipe my face. Zhuang Yu held back her laughter and said, “I’m terribly sorry! It’s just that the way you spoke just now made you look like some… some nutjob…”

“...”

When I finally cleaned my face of beer, I saw the difficult to describe expression she had while looking at me. The two of us fell into an awkward lull before I said, “Zhuang Yu, I’m not trying to be funny, nor am I going insane. My mind is sound, and I’m sure this happened to me.”

I was not sure if my expression seemed bad, but I was sure that my hands felt extremely cold right now. After a moment of silence, Zhuang Yu said, “You sure you weren’t dreaming? Or maybe you were mistaken because it felt like deja vu?”

“Absolutely not. Do you recall the cruise I signed up for a year ago? I returned to that ship and stayed there for a few hours before returning to the present. I was not dreaming, really. There was even someone else who had the same experience.”

A frown appeared on Zhuang Yu’s forehead. “Who was it?”

“Wu Yu.”

Perhaps the restaurant was too loud, and she did not hear me, but she asked, “Who?” again.

“I said Wu Yu. He signed up for the cruise as well. I told you this before. The guy I met the first day on that cruise but we parted on bad terms. This time around, the two of us returned to the second day after that.”

Zhuang Yu looked surprised and said, “Oh, the two of you seem to share a certain fate.”