Letters From the Moon

4

When I heard the date, I couldn't control myself anymore. My eyes felt quite sore.

The date was different.

He was in 2018, but I was in 2021.

The time difference was three years.

"Laurant, will you believe me if I tell you I'm in 2021?"

I heard a beeping sound on the phone. The call was hung up.

I looked at the quiet chat frame with mixed feelings. He must have thought I was a lunatic.

After all, who would believe something so absurd?

Ten minutes later, Laurant sent me a humorous message: [Sorry, the signal is weak in the coffin.]

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

As far as I could remember, Laurant was totally a gentleman in front of other people. But when he was with me, he always inadvertently behaved in a mischievous way.

There was a hint of humor in his mischievous behavior, so I always felt that he treated me a little differently.

Later on, I found that behind his casual style was utter indifference.

Suppressing the sad feeling in my heart, I asked: [Do you believe it?]

Laurant: [Yes.]

I: [Why?]

The chat frame showed that Laurant was typing, but there was no message from him for a long time.

I thought that the physicist, Professor Sherwood, was writing a long speech to explain the principle behind the conversation across time to me.

Unexpectedly, he sent me a short message after a long time.

[I believe everything Miss Frost says.]

I stared at this sentence over and over again, and my words carried a sting: [Well, you actually believed the words of a disabled person.]

Laurant did not reply again.

Just as I thought he would not reply to me, he changed the subject: [Is the 27-year-old Miranda Frost doing well?]

I replied to him angrily: [Very well. I have achieved academic success. I was not only introduced back to my alma mater as a talent, but I have also occupied your office.]

Laurant: [Well, very promising.]

My fingers tapped back and forth on the screen. In the end, I couldn't hold the words back.

I typed out some words with resentment: [Laurant, look, a disabled person can also shine, and some people will like her.]

He was typing again for a long time. He seemed to have something to tell me but held it back on second thought.

In the end, Laurant replied: [Excuse me, what's the winning number of the next round of lottery?]

I: [...]

Such a man!

Bastard, only in his dreams.

I cursed angrily: [Laurant, you're such a jerk!]

5

In the evening, I got drunk with my bestie Jasmine Browning.

I cried while drinking. "He asked me for the winning number of the lottery when I was so sad!"

I was truly sad. Tears streamed down my face. "What made me angrier was that although I had cursed him, I regretted it after that. I was worried that he might be really out of pocket."

Knowing that I had chatted with Laurant across time, Jasmine recovered from her shock and nodded, saying, "Well, it seems that you were letting yourself down."

"What's the use of not letting myself down? He can't see it."

In 2018, Laurant should not know that he would die over a year later.

All these years, I had been obsessed with an idea. I tried my best to become a better person and catch up with his achievements, hoping that one day he would personally admit that his judgment of me was wrong.

However, he died.

Jasmine sighed helplessly. After thinking for a while, she said, "Wasn't he hospitalized when he was ill? Perhaps when he was bent on doing research, he was really short of money."

Holding the wine bottle, I was stunned.

"If, I mean, if you can ask Laurant to receive treatment four years ago and everything goes smoothly, can he still be living?

"In that case, you will have a chance to meet him again?"

Jasmine's words shocked me. Under the influence of alcohol, my mind was so chaotic that I couldn't think about anything clearly.

"Of course, if you change the past by force, it might trigger a butterfly effect. No one knows how the future will be." She continued, "It's hard to say whether you can meet again."

Suddenly, I seemed to see a ray of light in the midst of the chaos.

I was overjoyed. I cried and laughed as I swiped my phone. "I don't care. I will tell him the winning number of the lottery."

I found the winning number of the lottery online and sent it to Laurant.

It was late at night. I was afraid that he couldn't see it in time, so I anxiously gave him a voice call.

Fortunately, he answered it.

Before he could speak, I said loudly in a crying voice, "Laurant, I've told you the winning number of the lottery. Hurry up and buy it."

Laurant was speechless.

I was so drunk that I felt like I was floating in the air. I cared about nothing and cried even harder.

"When you get the money, you should get treatment."

At the thought that he would die, my heart was broken. I begged him in a feeble voice. "Don't die, okay?"

The cool breeze of early autumn blew through the tall buildings, and the lights and shadows were swaying in the distance.

It was quiet all around. Only I kept crying out loud.

Laurant sighed in a low voice. "You are a fool."

"I am a fool. I was so foolish that I couldn't see that you disdained me so much. I foolishly had a crush on you for so many years."

In fact, I was not a great talker. I was a person of so few words that I was even a little dull.

Only when I got drunk would I dare to get the load off my chest.

I covered my chest and sobbed. "Laurant, I beg you, don't die!"

Even if he really looked down upon me, a disabled person, I wanted him to live and be fine.

Laurant must have moved his phone away. I heard him trying to suppress his coughs.

When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse as if his throat had been torn apart by pain.

But his tone was too gentle. "Don't cry. You made me feel more pain."

My heart was in my throat as I asked anxiously, "Where does it hurt?"

"My heart aches for you."

6

When I woke up the next day, I looked at the chat history on Skype and vaguely remembered part of what happened last night. I was so annoyed that I wanted to slap myself in the face.

When I thought of his words "My heart aches for you", I had mixed feelings.

I found it more and more difficult to understand this man.

I calmed myself down. I didn't know why, but I asked Laurant: [Did you buy the lottery ticket?]

He replied very quickly: [Well? Do you want to share the money?]

The ambiguous feeling between us from last night disappeared in an instant. I was extremely speechless.

Such a man!

He gave me an ambiguous hint last night, but he teased me today as if nothing had happened. It was as if what happened last night was just a dream.

I was really pissed off. I did not contact him for days.

Laurant certainly wouldn't take the initiative to contact me. My Skype was quiet.

One evening, when the class was over, I took the materials for teaching and prepared to leave.

A student came up and asked curiously, "Professor Frost, I heard that you were Professor Sherwood's student. Is that true?"

My hands paused and I said, "Yes, I went to his class several times."

Laurant was a distinguished visiting professor. He didn't have many classes, but each class was extremely crowded.

At that time, taking Professor Sherwood's class even became a trend. Every time, the campus network was congested.

"Can I ask you a private question?" She was a little shy and hemmed and hawed for a long while before she said, "Everyone is talking about it. They said that the new professor Miss Frost and Professor Sherwood were lovers. Is that true?"

Well, I understood.

It turned out that these brats were here to sip tea.

I simmered with laughter. Shaking my head, I said, "We were not."

The girl obviously didn't believe it. "Well? That's impossible."

I laughed in spite of myself. "Miss, you look quite disappointed?"

Since I came back, I had indeed heard a lot of students secretly speculate about my relationship with Laurant.

I didn't take it seriously, but they really dared to ask me about it.

She eagerly tried to convince me with a piece of evidence. "You must be lying to me. My seniors all said that it was because of you that the living regenerative cochlea had become Professor Sherwood's last research.

"What's more, it was named after you."

The students in the classroom left one after another, and the place suddenly became spacious. The wind was blowing through the window, making my mood swing.

I was at a loss as I asked, "What is its name?"

"Sound of Miranda. Don't you know it?"

"There was a post about you and Professor Sherwood on the campus BBS. The title seemed to be 'Life Sacrifice—Sound of Miranda'."

She chattered on and on, and I felt as if there were the sharp sounds of electric currents in the cochlear implant, causing a terrible headache.

My headache lasted for a long time. When I got home, I felt very weak.

After sitting in a daze for a long time, I clicked on Laurant's Skype account. I hesitantly typed something with my fingertip and deleted it several times.

In the end, I didn't know what to say to him.

It seemed that there were many things hidden in that unknown period of time, which had left no trace. No one knew how to tell the stories about them.

What was magical was that before I could send a message to Laurant, he sent one to me.

He was still teasing me. [It's so difficult for you to send me a message. Do you really want to share the money?]