Song Ran hadn't adjusted to the time difference and was wide awake at three in the morning.

Outside the window, the night was endless, and the rain pattered down.

She sat by the wooden window, turned on a desk lamp, and began organizing her travel journal and sticker scrapbook from her trip. She was filling in the entry for June 3rd: the day she flew from Gamma to Guangzhou, then transferred to a flight back to Liang City. When they landed at Tianhe Airport, the people on the plane burst into cheers.

She recorded the experience in reverse chronological order. When she got to the part about the man named "Ah Zan," she paused her pen.

In the quiet night, she looked up and out the window.

It was an old-fashioned casement window, its wooden mullions dividing it into neat little squares, with square panes of glass set in with white putty and nails.

At that moment, the night rain tapped against the wooden window, leaving winding streaks of water on the glass.

She wanted to find some words to describe his appearance, but when she put pen to paper, she only wrote one sentence:

"He has a pair of pitch-black eyes."

She tried hard to remember, wanting to write something else about him, when the sound of a glass shattering came from downstairs.

She went downstairs to check. After returning home, she had opened the windows for ventilation but had missed one before the storm hit that night. The wind and rain had knocked over a glass of water-grown moneywort by the window. She closed the window, got a bowl, filled it with water, put the small plant inside, and cleaned up the mess on the floor.

Those few months in Dongguo had been too dry. Returning to Liang City, she arrived just in time for the plum rain season, and the air was as humid as if it were submerged in water.

Due to the dampness, the floors, walls, and furniture were all slick with moisture.

Song Ran thought, 'After the rainy season passes, I'll have to find a renovation company to add a moisture barrier to this old house.'

This was a typical local-style old house in Liang City, a two-story building constructed with red bricks and cement. The exterior walls revealed the red brick; the interior walls were painted white with a green, meter-high skirting board at the bottom; the contrasting white and green was clean and fresh. The house faced south, with large windows and doors for ventilation from front to back. There was a separate kitchen house in the backyard and a front yard filled with flowers and trees. On the second floor, there was an open-air staircase and a large balcony that took up half the space.

This was her maternal grandmother's house. The old woman had passed away a few months ago, and Song Ran had moved here from her father's home.

Her father lived in a corridor-style apartment building provided by his work unit. It was an old and small two-bedroom, one-living-room apartment. She and her half-sister, Song Yang, had squeezed into a room of just over ten square meters for more than twenty years.

Her family was of ordinary means. Her father's salary supported a family of four. By the time they had a bit more money to spare, Liang City's economy was booming, and housing prices had skyrocketed. The average price per square meter had surpassed thirty thousand, far beyond the reach of an ordinary family.

When Song Ran got into bed, the wind and rain outside grew stronger. 'At this rate, all the flowers in the yard will be beaten down.'

She slept until noon the next day. The sun was shining brightly outside; the orange tree leaves, washed clean by the water, were a tender green. Pushing open the window, the fresh scent of post-rain earth rushed in; yet, there wasn't a single trace of rain on the roof beams or treetops.

Beyond the wall was a bluestone alley. A few women, just off work, walked past carrying groceries and chatting idly. The children from the nearby school had also been let out and were walking with their heads down, playing games on their phones.

Song Ran leaned against the window, reading the news on her phone. The Anti-government Armed Forces in Dongguo had captured two-thirds of Haru City, and the Government Army had retreated to the south of the city.

And from the day before yesterday until now, 24,376 Chinese nationals had successfully returned to the country through various channels by sea, land, and air. The military officers and soldiers responsible for the evacuation mission would also be returning soon.

She looked at the rows of camouflage uniforms in the news photos and sighed wistfully.

Books say that a meeting between two people is a chance of one in seven billion.

She wondered if she and he still had that subtle fate to meet again.

She had no heart to make lunch, so she made a bowl of instant noodles to fill her stomach and went to the television station.

After graduating from university, Song Ran joined the news department of Liang City TV as a reporter. This September would mark her two-year anniversary.

She had just returned from abroad and was supposed to be resting until tomorrow. But these were special times, and the war in Dongguo was the current hot topic.

Liang City TV had previously deployed the most reporters to Dongguo out of any network in the country, providing timely, detailed, and wide-ranging coverage. At this moment, "The Forefront of War," a rolling live broadcast co-produced by the television and web stations, had already secured the number one national viewership rating for its daytime weekday slot.

In the studio, the host, experts, guests, and reporters on the front line were all carrying out their work in an orderly manner; behind the scenes, the director, producers, editors, and copywriters were busy as bees.

As soon as Song Ran arrived at the station, she was told that the program team needed to create a closing segment showing a glimpse of Dongguo's cities before the war, and she was asked to provide material. This wasn't difficult. She quickly cut a few 20-second-long short clips from her footage and submitted them for the producers to choose from.

While editing the footage, seeing the scenery and faces flash across the computer screen, that faint melancholy she had felt that morning while standing at the window overlooking Ale City crept back into her heart.

Many stories stored on her computer were now being annihilated, unknown to the world.

Near the end of the workday, Supervisor Liu Yufei called everyone for a meeting. The ratings and reputation of "The Forefront of War" were continuously rising, and the department wanted to add a small supplementary program after it to attract viewers and advertisements.

If it weren't for these special circumstances, a group of new reporters like Song Ran would have no say in program planning. Therefore, everyone took this opportunity very seriously.

Her colleague, Shen Bei, proposed adding some predictions about the future of the war. She had studied international relations, so this was her strong suit. Shen Bei's father was a leader in the provincial propaganda department. As soon as she spoke, the others at her level fell silent.

Although Liu Yufei thought it was a good idea, he felt it wasn't enough and asked, "Any other suggestions?"

Song Ran thought for a moment and said, "I think we could talk about the lives of ordinary people in pre-war Dongguo."

Liu Yufei and Shen Bei both looked over at her.

Song Ran said, "When most people see war in the news, they feel it's very distant from them. If they see the lives of ordinary people, it might close that distance."

Liu Yufei found her idea more interesting. "I'm just worried it'll turn out too tragic," he said.

"It won't be tragic, nor will it be melodramatic. It'll be like a short documentary, just recording their daily lives, including times of laughter and joy."

Her colleague Xiao Dong praised, "If it's like that, it'll be very classy."

Shen Bei said, "That would set a high bar for the footage. It would require in-depth interviews. The reports you all did out there have already been used in previous broadcasts. We have to consider freshness and perspective. The amount of footage would also be hard to meet."

Song Ran said, "I have 837 hours of video footage, including 269 hours of interviews, plus over four thousand photos, and seventy to eighty thousand words of written material."

Everyone in the room was stunned into silence.

Her colleague Xiao Qiu said, "Heavens, Ran Ran, are you even human? You were only there for less than three months, right?"

Her colleague Xiao Xia added, "The nickname 'Recording Maniac' is no exaggeration."

Liu Yufei laughed. "Alright, I'll discuss it with the higher-ups."

As they were packing up to leave the conference room, Shen Bei passed by her and said, "Congratulations."

Song Ran replied, "The higher-ups might not approve it."

Shen Bei smiled and walked away in her high heels.

Her colleague Xiao Chun asked, "Hey, if this new program doesn't happen, what will you do with all that material?"

Song Ran smiled and said, "I plan to write a book and compile it into a documentary myself. It won't go to waste."

Her colleagues—Xiao Chun, Xiao Xia, Xiao Qiu, and Xiao Dong—were speechless.

This must be the difference between true passion and just a job.

The results came in that evening. Liu Yufei notified her to write a detailed proposal.

Song Ran worked at her desk late into the night. Another storm began to rage, and the air was so humid that even the paper felt soft and damp. She wrote in detail her ideas and opinions on the program's setup, duration, style, and character stories, listed a series of vivid stories of ordinary people, and filled a full ten pages. Finally, she added a title to the proposal: "Chronicles of Dongguo."

The next afternoon, Song Ran still had dark circles under her eyes. The news came: her proposal had been approved. However, the leadership felt the title "Chronicles of Dongguo" was too artistic and not direct enough, so they changed it to "Pre-war? A Record of Dongguo."

'Hmm,' Song Ran thought, 'it's certainly direct. Couldn't be more direct.'

Two weeks later, Liang City TV's "Pre-war? A Record of Dongguo" went on air, broadcast as a supplementary program to "The Forefront of War." No one, including Song Ran, expected how popular it would become.

At that time, the Dongguo Government Army announced the fall of two major central-northern cities, Surei City and Haru City. Ale City was also in peril. Once the Anti-government Armed Forces captured Ale, the country would be split in two, and the militarily weak northern regions would be in critical danger.

News of civilian casualties in the fighting constantly poured in, and the number of displaced refugees who had fled their homes was countless. It was against this backdrop, with all the nation's television news media bombarding the public with reports on the war in Dongguo, that Liang City TV's "Pre-war? A Record of Dongguo" became a breath of fresh air—

The show depicted the peaceful life in pre-war Dongguo, the surging undercurrents, and the choices ordinary people faced for their future. A series of short stories attracted widespread attention and discussion. Less than two weeks after its premiere, its ratings, reputation, and buzz continued to climb.

Its objective and calm, documentary-like narrative style also received widespread praise.

A few short videos from the show, featuring a street performer with bells and a bickering barbecue-stand couple, even made it onto the trending lists of various forums and websites.

Song Ran's name also began appearing in new media, and she accepted several interviews; she even received an offer from a best-selling book planner.

But more than her professional success, Song Ran was preoccupied by the rain that had fallen for the entire month of June. Perhaps because of the long plum rain season, her mood had been unusually low lately. She was fine at work, but the moment she got off, her spirits would sink. This was especially true at night, when she would sit alone by the window, staring out at the rain for long periods.

Fortunately, the show's popularity led to a sharp increase in overtime, leaving her with little time to manage the suffocating gloom that felt like the plum rains.

A supplementary spin-off program had stolen the spotlight and achieved such an effect; "Song Ran" became a name frequently mentioned by the station's leadership. With the show being so successful, her colleagues urged Song Ran to treat them to a meal.

Song Ran hadn't received any tangible benefits from her work, but she still splurged and treated everyone to spicy crawfish by the river.

It was just after seven when they got off work. Ten colleagues squeezed into two cars.

Halfway there, it started raining again. It came down thick and fast right from the start, with bean-sized raindrops drumming against the car roof.

Xiao Dong, who was from the north, complained, "I give up. There hasn't been a single day without rain this month. All the clothes and blankets at my place are damp."

Xiao Qiu sighed, "And the key is the temperature doesn't drop. It's deadly hot during the day."

There were a few more complaints in the car at first, but then they died down. The rain was so fierce that sitting in the car felt like being inside a tin box that was being constantly beaten. The sound was deafening, and they couldn't even hear each other speak.

Song Ran, however, found this world very quiet. Even the harsh honking of other cars was drowned out by the sound of the rain.

The car got stuck in a traffic jam at an intersection. Horns blared.

They were stuck for a long time without moving. Song Ran rested her arms on the steering wheel, watching the wipers sweep back and forth. The raindrops were dense on the windshield; she felt like a fish in an aquarium.

As she watched, she suddenly thought of him.

Sitting in the car, she felt as if she were sinking to the bottom of the sea. For no reason at all, her mood became heavy, damp, and she found it hard to breathe.

It was strange.

The day she met him, it clearly wasn't raining.

Clearly, the climate was so dry. The sun was strong, and there wasn't even any wind.