We ordinary people also need to fall in love.

After leaving the bookstore, Li Mubai headed towards the subway station.

He put two copies of "Pride and Prejudice" into his schoolbag.

drop!drop!

Two crisp car horn blasts broke the silence of the street as a white sedan slowly drove by, bringing with it a summer breeze.

The branches and leaves of the plane trees on both sides of the road rustled in the wind, making a sound like countless hands turning the pages of a book at the same time.

"Let's go straight to the study room on the first floor later." Two people walked past me quickly, one of them saying to the other, their steps hurried, as if they were rushing to reserve seats.

Li Mubai glanced to the side and realized that he had unknowingly arrived at the entrance of Pingyang City Library.

Compared to the bustling provincial library, the city library was much quieter and more peaceful. There were no long queues of readers, no college students dragging their suitcases to study, and even only two or three shared bicycles were parked at the entrance.

Even if it weren't for the chance encounter with Mei Yulu here, he used to always come to this library to study on weekends.

Back in his third year of junior high, he would show up here every Saturday morning, carrying his schoolbag and water bottle, and sit there from the time the door opened until noon. He would eat lunch outside and then come back in the afternoon.

He gradually stopped coming when he entered his second year of high school.

This library holds traces of his journey.

He took out his phone and glanced at it. It was 2:14 PM. He still had plenty of time. He had finished all his homework for the day. All he needed to do was take a picture and upload it to DingTalk. No new messages popped up on his phone.

After putting his phone back in his pocket, Li Mubai hesitated for a few seconds at the library entrance.

Let's go in and take a look.

He stepped into the city library.

The lobby on the first floor was spacious and quiet, with the white light from the overhead fluorescent lights reflecting off the tiled floor. A huge landscape painting hung on the wall directly opposite, and below it were two pots of nearly withered green ivy.

He didn't take the elevator, but slowly walked up the stairs. The stairwell was quiet, with only the sound of his own footsteps. On the walls were some famous quotes and event posters, some of which were yellowed and curled at the edges, with dates from the year before last.

He walked to the familiar fourth floor and skillfully stored his backpack in the locker by the door.

The fourth floor isn't very big; the city library isn't even as big as the two teaching buildings of their school combined. Standing on the railing on the fourth floor and looking down, you can see the rockery and pond in the courtyard on the first floor, surrounded by greenery.

The pond water was no longer very clean, with a few fallen leaves floating on it, and weeds growing in the crevices of the artificial rockery, but overall it was still the same as he remembered.

Li Mubai entered the reading room.

The staff member was sitting behind the lending desk at the entrance. Hearing the noise, she looked up and glanced at him, her gaze moving from his face to his shoulder, then to his hands. Only after confirming that he didn't have a bag or a drink did she lower her head with relief and continue playing on her phone.

The reading room was almost empty, with rows of dark brown wooden bookshelves neatly arranged against the window.

Li Mubai slowly strolled among the bookshelves.

His fingers slid over the spines of the books: "If You Are Well, It Is a Sunny Day," "Blank," "Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk"... He had read these books before.

As Li Mubai continued walking, he suddenly stopped, his gaze falling on a book: Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

He reached out and pulled it from the bookshelf. The cover was dark red with a gold-stamped title. The edges were frayed, and the glue on the spine was cracked. It was exactly the same as the version he had seen before.

No, he examined the yellowing of the paper and the seal on the title page closely; it should be the same book from back then.

He also found a bookmark in the book.

I remember Li Mubai casually slipped this bookmark into the library one of his visits. He just put it on whichever page he saw, thinking he'd read it again next time he came.

As he neared the end of the book, he forgot about it because he hadn't visited for several weeks. The bookmark remained quietly in the book for several years.

Several years have passed, and no one has taken it away.

Li Mubai took the book to the windowsill and casually flipped through it.

His ears twitched.

There were footsteps, very light, as if someone had entered the bookshelf area. The footsteps paused for a moment in front of a certain row of bookshelves before moving on.

Li Mubai didn't look up, continuing to read the book in his hands. It was perfectly normal for people to move around in the reading room; there was no need for him to make a fuss.

The footsteps gradually faded away.

The bookshelves fell silent again, with only the occasional chirping of cicadas from outside the window and the sound of him turning the pages of a book.

He read very quickly. He still had a few pages left to read. A few minutes later, he closed the book, rubbed his sore eyes with his fingers, picked up the book, and prepared to put it back in its place.

The raised hand suddenly paused; a pink sticky note lay quietly in the original spot where the book had been.

He didn't see the sticky note when he picked up the book just now. It was only a few minutes ago. When did it appear here?

Li Mubai looked around. There was no one around. He pulled the sticky note off the bookshelf and silently put it in his pocket, along with the old bookmark.

Stepping out of the bookshelves, he took a deep look at the reading room, as if trying to imprint the space in his mind. Li Mubai then withdrew his gaze and left the reading room.

A figure slowly emerged from behind the bookshelf next to Li Mubai. Her hair was a little longer than before. She quietly watched the person leave, holding a pen and a stack of blank sticky notes in her hand.

Only after Li Mubai's figure disappeared into the corridor did she leave the reading room to return to the study room on the first floor to continue studying.

Once on the highway, Li Mubai slowed his pace.

He took out the sticky note again, which had only one sentence on it: Thank you for the encounter. I wish you peace and joy. Good luck on your college entrance exam.

The signatory is Mei Yulu.

When he saw the sticky note, he knew the person was in the reading room. Since it was all in the past, he figured he probably wouldn't come to the city library again.

His relationship with Mei Yulu didn't have a dramatic beginning or a heart-wrenching ending. It just ended like a cloud, blown by the wind, scattering into two separate groups, each going its own way.

Li Mubai stared at the sticky note for a few seconds, then crumpled the pink sticky note into a tight little ball.

He walked to the trash can by the roadside and threw the crumpled paper in.

Without glancing at it a second time, Li Mu Bai boarded the subway, took out "Pride and Prejudice," and began to read:

"It is a universally acknowledged truth that every wealthy bachelor desires a wife... and therefore people always regard him as an inheritance rightfully belonging to one of their daughters."