I asked you to write a light novel, but you wrote about living?

Xiacheng District.

The woman sat in front of the old holographic screen.

I have finished reading the second part.

Her hand hovered at the edge of the page, and she didn't scroll down for a long time.

To be honest, this book was nothing like the stories she had seen before.

There were no intense conflicts, nor any breathtaking twists or turns.

The second part largely consists of the mundane, trivial matters within a single family.

The things husband and wife said to each other, the jokes father and daughter made, the names the family of three casually called each other, and those days that, after they've passed, probably even they themselves won't remember them.

Even in truly heavy situations, the writing remains understated.

Writing about the past gently is like an old man sitting there, recounting events that happened many years ago, one by one.

It's less of a novel and more like a diary.

But the woman was completely absorbed in watching.

She didn't skip any of the less dramatic parts.

Sometimes, when she sees a family of three making fun of each other, she will even stop and watch them again.

After looking at them for a while, the three strangers in front of me gradually became less unfamiliar.

In a daze, she even felt that she had seen such days before.

A not-so-spacious home.

three people.

There are always endless things to do and worries to keep me occupied every day.

Occasionally, they would bicker over a few meaningless words, but then they would turn around and sit down to eat together again.

Back then, no one would have thought that such a life was anything worth remembering.

It's just life.

Day after day.

But now, looking back, the woman suddenly realized that what she most wanted to see again were precisely these things.

She once had a "three of us".

The woman's fingers twitched slightly.

The page flipped over.

Part Three: I'm the One Who Misses the Three of Us

Time seemed to rewind to many years ago.

At that time, I was still young.

Qian Zhongshu was still young.

The two met, stayed together, and later went to study in a faraway place.

Later, they had a daughter.

The original two people became three.

The third part is longer than the first two parts combined.

But once she actually read it, the woman realized that there weren't many earth-shattering events in such a long book.

What I write about most is life.

The young Qian Zhongshu would get into trouble and do things that left his wife both amused and exasperated.

As A-Yuan grew from a child, the family's life changed from the playful banter between the couple to a lively atmosphere where the three of them could "reunite" at any moment.

They have been to some places.

Several years have passed.

I've moved, worked, and experienced many things that belong to that era.

In the end, what actually remains on paper are always some very small things.

A casual remark.

A term of address used only by family members.

A trivial matter that caused you a headache at the time, but which makes you laugh when you think about it many years later.

The woman read slower and slower.

She doesn't understand literature.

I had never researched why a book was written the way it was before.

But upon reading this, she realized for the first time how heavy the word "memories" truly was.

Memories are not just about remembering what happened.

What people truly remember for decades are often those things that didn't seem important at the time.

An action.

In a word.

a meal.

One argument.

A term that no one uses anymore.

They were just ordinary days back then, and no one would have given them a second glance.

Many years later, when only one person remained in that family, those seemingly insignificant little things began to surface one by one.

The woman suddenly realized that the "I" who wrote these words was already very old.

The book rarely makes a point of reminding her of this.

But that sense of aging is hidden in every memory.

It's like someone who has traveled far in life, looking back and picking up the things left behind along the way.

This person already knows that there's not much room for them to go any further.

So she started looking back.

She looked back at her husband.

I looked back at my daughter.

Looking back at that once bustling home, which later became empty except for her.

She wrote down what she remembered.

Write down as much as you can remember.

The woman stared at the screen and suddenly had a strange feeling.

She felt as if the old man in the book was talking to her.

A long period of time has passed.

They are also separated by two completely different worlds.

They had never met each other.

But they all once had a home for three people.

They all watched as that family lost someone.

Then, one less person was lost.

In the end, he was left alone in the same place.

The woman had no answer to the old man in the book.

She could only keep watching.

One page.

Another page.

Until the decades of life gradually came to an end.

Until that young wife grew old, and that newborn child had also lived out his life.

Until the endings she already knew in the book slowly approached once again.

This time, the woman no longer felt that the book was about parting.

She suddenly understood.

What truly remains in these 40,000-plus words is their time together.

They laughed.

We argued.

We used to dislike each other.

We also spent time together.

Three living, breathing people spent decades together living so many seemingly meaningless days.

That's why those days became so heavy in the end.

This is no longer a simple record.

It's more like an old man saying his final goodbye to the most precious things in his life as he approaches the end.

She couldn't bear to part with it.

So I'm rewriting it.

After she finished writing, those who had been gone for a long time lived with her once again on paper.

The woman's hand stopped.

She looked at the book title:

"We Three".

After a long time, she finally understood why Yu Huashi would write such a book at this time.

He finally understood his daughter.

Her daughter asked her to find Yu Huashi, not just because she liked the author.

That letter was never just something a child wanted to give to his idol before leaving.

Her daughter left her with one thing.

It's something that requires leaving home, finding someone, and living to accomplish.

After she finally found Yu Huashi, the young man placed the book in front of her again.

The woman sat there, motionless for a long time.

My daughter's last wish was never what was written in that letter.

It was the letter itself that mattered.

It wasn't until she read about another woman who had lost her daughter and used the rest of her life to write her own "The Three of Us" that she finally understood this last wish.

It turns out that continuing to move forward doesn't mean leaving behind those who have already left.

Even though some people are gone, they can still be carried on in the days to come.

As long as I am alive, the home that once existed has never truly disappeared.

The woman slowly leaned back in her chair.

She thought of her home.

That home hadn't been on her mind for a long time.

At least, it has never appeared in such a complete form as it does today.

When she thinks about the past, she always thinks of the most difficult days first.

But this time is different.

What she remembered was something from an even earlier time.

It was when all three of them were still alive.

They were some trivial things that seem rather ridiculous now.

Back then, I would still find it annoying, get angry, and feel that tomorrow would probably be no different from today.

It turned out that was the thing she was most reluctant to part with in her life.

The woman looked at the last page she had turned to, as if she had remembered something.

The corners of her mouth suddenly curved slightly upwards.

The smile was faint.

It was a smile she hadn't shown in a long time.

Almost at the same time, tears slowly slid down her cheeks.

She just sat there, a slight smile on her face, looking at the three words on the screen.

"We Three".

The old woman in the book is alone, longing for her "the three of us".

In another world, separated by countless years.

The other woman finally remembered what belonged to her—

The three of us.