So what exactly is the ending of the story?
Perhaps, no matter what kind of ending it is, it always brings a hollow emptiness to the body.
An Jing turned the novel titled <Sunset Sword> to its final page.
Here, the female lead of the story finally reached her final chapter.
She was never a real person.
But rather a fantasy within every male lead’s heart.
But in the end, all those male leads were rejected by their own fantasies.
The author wrote the ending very subtly.
Without revealing what was in those characters’ hearts.
Only writing that the famous stage actress went abroad, heading to a broader stage, yet instead of becoming a more famous actress, she gradually faded into obscurity until she completely disappeared from everyone’s sight.
No one knows where she ultimately went, or what kind of ending she walked toward. Only those men who had been in love with her would still think of her from time to time.
But… she had never performed in the countryside, nor had she ever lived there.
“If you can’t belong to me completely, then I’d rather have nothing at all… Perhaps.”
This was what Mother had written at the end, surprisingly brief.
The handwriting here was noticeably different from before—cleaner and more decisive, already showing the beginnings of her current penmanship.
“Mm…” An Jing stared at that line for a long time, then finally shook her head. She felt like she understood something, but couldn’t quite put into words what it was she understood.
That vague feeling of near-enlightenment was rather pleasant.
But the ringing phone at that moment interrupted her thinking, which only looked like thinking.
It was a number she had no memory of.
And of course, there was no caller ID either.
“Uh… hello?”
“Guess who I am?” A light, cheerful voice came through the phone, completely different from the atmosphere the book had just created. The quiet of this bustling night was instantly broken, transforming from under a bridge crowded with people passing by into a playground where balloons kept rising. “Huh? Eh? Uhh… Xiao Ying?!”
“Hehe, it’s me!”
“What is this number…?”
“I just bought a new number at the newsstand! The plan’s super cheap—every day from 11 PM to 7 AM, I get a free hour of talk time! And it works nationwide!”
“Isn’t that a bit restrictive?”
“Well, nothing special about the rest of it, but it’s super cheap—only nineteen yuan a month!” “Ohh—”
“I’m just gonna use it for calls. When I don’t want it anymore, I’ll just toss it.”
“Don’t go changing numbers so casually…”
“It’s just temporary! Only you and I know it!”
“Ah, okay…” An Jing snapped the book shut with a “thump,” then rustled it open again with a “swish.”
She always liked doing something while on the phone; otherwise, she’d feel oddly uncomfortable.
Zhu Ying’s voice on the other end drew a little closer, then rang out like thunder: “Silly Xiao Jing!”
“Whoa!” An Jing hurriedly held the phone away from her ear, covering it with her hand as she grumbled, “What was that for? You scared me…”
“Heehee, what are you doing? About to fall asleep?”
“Not yet. I was just reading—a book from my mom’s bookshelf. It even has her thoughts and annotations from when she was young.”
“Wow, that must be so interesting! What’s it like? Tell me?”
“Uh… well, it’s just…” An Jing started, but got stuck halfway. She tried to describe the story simply, but after thinking for a while, she realized she couldn’t make it simple—because it was really quite complicated, especially after reaching the end. The content of the book alone wasn’t enough; you had to have your own interpretation, but she didn’t know if her interpretation was even right.
“Hm? It’s just what?” Zhu Ying’s voice seemed to drift a little further away.
“It’s just a strange story. In the end, it says the female lead was just a fantasy of each male lead, or something like that. I can’t really explain it.”
“Ohh, sounds pretty interesting?”
“Yeah, something like that. Uh, what’s that noise on your end? It’s really loud…”
“Huh? What did you say?”
“I said—what’s that noise? It’s so loud!!”
“Ohh—” Zhu Ying raised her voice on the other end, “I’m blow-drying my hair!”
“Then maybe we should hang up?”
“No need—we’ve got a whole free hour anyway!”
“Oh…!”
The whooshing noise continued. An Jing simply turned her phone’s volume all the way up, switched it to speakerphone, and set it on the upper right corner of her desk.
It felt almost like Zhu Ying was right beside her, blow-drying her hair.
She absentmindedly continued flipping through the book, as if searching for an answer hidden by the author.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t a reading comprehension test—there was neither an answer from the author nor a reference answer from the exam teacher.
“Plop.” Just as she decided to give up her pointless endeavor, a bookmark suddenly fell out.
It was a New Year bookmark for the Year of the Tiger, tucked away in the gap between the cover and the back page.
Only then did An Jing notice there was another page here.
Of course… it was blank.
Whether it was a printing error that added an extra page, or it was originally designed that way, she couldn’t tell.
It was practically glued to the back cover, so much so that even with a small bookmark tucked inside, no one had ever noticed its existence.
The bookmark was an ordinary little one, about the size of a thumb, but on the back of this white paper, there were small words written in pencil.
The handwriting was sharp and elegant, a cursive script written with neatness in mind.
That was clearly not Mother’s style from her youth.
But it didn’t quite match her handwriting from recent years either.
An Jing looked at it, feeling a sense of strangeness mixed with a hint of familiarity.
“If you can’t belong to me completely, then I’d rather have nothing at all.”
“This is… hmm… Mom didn’t write this, right? Did someone write it when they borrowed the book?” An Jing muttered and read it a few more times, confirming it wasn’t her mother’s handwriting, “It definitely isn’t Mom’s…”
“What is it?” The noise on the other end finally stopped, and Zhu Ying’s voice came through clearly again—well, not exactly clearly, probably because she was a bit far from the phone. It sounded like she was speaking into a microphone at a KTV. “Nothing, I just saw a strange line. It doesn’t look like it was written by my mom.”
“What line?”
“Ah… it’s nothing, just something a bit nonsensical.”
“Let me see it next time, then.”
“Then come to my grandfather’s place and see. There are plenty more—I only got through one book tonight… Speaking of which, it’s already past eleven. Time really flies.”
“Yeah, tomorrow’s almost here. Then the day after, I’m flying out—heading to the capital for a month~”
“Would the capital be cool this time of year? It’s up north, after all.”
“I don’t know. But my mom said it’s actually pretty hot.” Zhu Ying’s voice grew closer again, followed by the “pitter-patter” of wet slippers on the floor.
“The north has summers too?”
“Mm… it must, right? But maybe here it’s forty degrees, and there it’s only twenty-something?”
“Ahh, the north sounds so nice.”
“Right? And in winter, you can play in the snow!”
“Let’s go north in winter sometime.”
“Sure! When?”
“Mm… how about… after we’re adults?”
“Okay!” A “bang” came from the other end of the phone, sounding like a door being shut. “Ahh~” That lazy voice immediately painted a picture in An Jing’s mind—she could almost see Zhu Ying sprawled out on her bed, completely relaxed.
“Lying in bed already?” So An Jing twirled the book in her hand and asked casually, feigning nonchalance.
“Huh? How did Xiao Jing know? Are you using mind reading?”
“I can’t read that far, can I…”
“But I… hmm, I guess I can’t read yours either.”
“Distance limits and all.”
“If there weren’t any, could we just stay on the phone forever?”
“I don’t want to be running to the bathroom all day long.” An Jing curled her lip, using her other hand to catch the book still spinning between her fingers and put it back on the shelf.
There were still many books here, but today was about done. If she kept reading, she wouldn’t be able to sleep until three or four in the morning.
An Jing had a quirk: if she had a full book in front of her and got into it after the opening, she had to finish it in one sitting.
Otherwise, she couldn’t sleep.
If the book was part of a series, it was even worse—she had to read the whole series.
But reading e-books online didn’t trigger this quirk. She could stop at any time without issue. Even with the same book, reading the digital version and reading the physical copy put her in completely different states.
“You made it to your grandfather’s place today, right?”
An Jing listened to the “creak, creak” sounds on the other end, wondering what Zhu Ying was up to: “Yeah, I arrived in the evening. Today my grandfather even bought me a bunch of clothes, plus all kinds of snacks and drinks.”
“Wow, that’s so nice! So are you sleeping in a room by yourself tonight?”
“Yeah, I’ve got the whole second floor to myself. The entire second floor is basically all mine now. It’s awesome.” An Jing said, leaning back hard into her chair, “I haven’t felt this in so long. It’s just… I don’t know how to describe it.”
“I get it~ It’s like there’s a secret base in the world that’s completely yours, and it’s super big and super free, right?”
“You could say that, but it’s a little different…”
“Thump!”
An Jing flinched: “Jeez, you scared me. What happened?”
There was no voice from the other end, just the sound of something blowing into the microphone.
The “whoosh” started out soft, then grew louder and louder, until even with the speakerphone on, it made An Jing’s ear tickle.
“Whoosh, whoosh—Xiao Jing? Xiao Jing? Whoosh… Can you hear me?”
“I can hear you.”
“Okay, no problem then.”
“What just happened?”
“I accidentally knocked the phone off the desk while moving my keyboard.”
“You idiot. Be careful.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine! Just a few scuffs! Where were we… oh right, when your grandfather took you shopping today… how did that feel? Huh?”
“Cough… it was a bit awkward, honestly. Especially when the saleslady was holding up that… that bra and measuring it against me…”