Timeless Happiness

Author: Selected and compiled by the editorial team of "Contemporary Literary Anthology"
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-01
Features: Elegant words, simple narration, warm memories, moving stories, eternal aspirations—telling love stories that touch every heart. First love with no experience unforgettable first love that has withstood the test worth cherishing Time often feels empty, life a bit monotonous, and it seems we can only live this way. Fortunately, in the vast sea of people, we met. Though we had to endure beautiful misunderstandings, the longing for parting, and even more hardships, all the pain and joy were engraved in the time that would never fade. Every drop was warmth, tenderness, and hope.
Preface: She couldn’t remember what her student looked like, nor how he had silently loved her for a decade. Ten years—it was such a long time. That year, he was still young, in his tender years, yet he fell in love with a woman older than him. She was his Chinese teacher, and at 17, he was infatuated with a 22-year-old woman. During her classes, he felt dizzy, as if the person before him was the one he had searched for endlessly. He listened to her voice, watched her smile, and even blushed at the thought of her. He read The Sorrows of Young Werther and realized he was in love with her, and that she liked tea—Biluochun. So, he saved up his pocket money to buy the expensive Biluochun at a tea shop. When buying it, he asked, "How can tea have such a beautiful name?" The old tea seller told him there was a touching legend about Biluochun: Once, there was a girl named Biluo who lived by Taihu Lake. She was beautiful and kind, but a fierce dragon in the lake fell in love with her and wanted to forcibly take her. A young man who had always loved Biluo bravely stepped forward and fought the dragon for seven days and nights. He defeated the dragon but fell to his death in a pool of blood. Biluo came to their battlefield and found a tea seedling. To thank the young man, she took both the seedling and his remains back. Later, the seedling sprouted buds, but it feared the cold. To keep it alive, Biluo would lick all its leaves every morning. One day, she picked the tea leaves to brew a cup for the young man. To her surprise, the tea was fragrant and aromatic, and the young man recovered quickly. But Biluo grew weaker day by day, as her vitality had been given to the tiny tea leaves. Once the tea was picked, her vitality could never return. Later, Biluo passed away, and people named this tea Biluochun in her honor to remember the beautiful and kind girl.
After hearing the story, tears filled her eyes. She never knew the tea had such a moving love story! No wonder she loved it so much. She carefully examined the Biluochun—thin leaves, spiraling like a screw, covered in fuzz. The brewed tea was fragrant, truly a superior drink. But she didn’t know that her student had secretly bought it for her, always slipping it into her desk when no one was looking. It was his secret. The next year, he went to university and left, but still sent her tea in April—still Biluochun. By then, she had just gotten married and often wore the sweetness of a newlywed on her face. She didn’t know of a young man’s secret love or how many flavors of love were in that bag of Biluochun.
For ten years, he sent her Biluochun every year, from his youth to adulthood. During those ten years, he also fell in love and went out with girls, laughing and playing, but she remained a knot in his heart. Meanwhile, she went through too much—she stopped teaching, became a wealthy woman’s wife, then divorced and abandoned. She lived alone with her child, sustained by the annual Biluochun he sent. Though she always wondered who was so devoted to sending her his love, she never found out. But she knew there were eyes watching her, a heart loving her—otherwise, how could the fragrant Biluochun be sent to her every year!
When she was happy, he didn’t disturb her. Later, after hearing about her divorce, his first thought was to buy a plane ticket and fly to her side. This time, he wanted to personally deliver the Biluochun to her. But misfortune struck. As he was about to leave, after waiting for ten years, he contracted SARS. It was April 2003, the very month he was about to deliver the newly released Biluochun to her, when the boy collapsed in the hospital. He remembered the story, the legend of Biluochun’s love, and couldn’t help but burst into tears. At that moment, he and she were separated by thousands of miles of clouds and moon. The path ahead was fraught with obstacles, and his own fate was uncertain—what future could he promise her? Yet, he still asked his friend to send the Biluochun he had bought to her.
Subconsciously, she must have sensed something, so she ignored the urgent situation of SARS and came looking for the address. It was the only time he left his address, because his friend didn’t know the story behind it. But she arrived too late. Even then, she couldn’t remember what her student looked like, or how he could have silently loved her for a decade. Ten years—it was such a long time!
On the flight back, she flipped through his photo album. The smiling young man stood in the sunlight, his hair fluttering in the breeze, with a cup of exquisite Biluochun before him. It was the love between them, the love that had never been spoken, the love she didn’t know, but the Biluochun did—because they had once boiled in her cup from afar. In an instant, her tears flowed freely, and love once again flooded her like a rushing river.