The night rain is like a thin gray thread, weaving the alleys of Taipei into something damp and blurry.
Lin Jingyi's high heels step into the puddles, making a small and lonely sound.
She has just walked out of the company basement, and her phone still holds her ex-boyfriend's last message: 'We are still friends, right?'
That sentence is like a thin thorn, quietly piercing into her chest.
She wants to laugh, but feels her throat blocked by something soft and heavy.
That thing is called memory, cold and sticky, like a mist that never dissipates.
The street is almost empty.
The streetlights stretch her shadow long and faint, like a piece of paper that could be blown away by the wind at any time.
No one is waiting for her to come home, no one will ask if she cried today.
She suddenly realizes that she has always lived in a quiet yet enormous loneliness—as if trapped in a slowly shrinking glass house, where people around can see her but can never touch the part of her that is truly rotting.
The rain is getting heavier.
She should head to the MRT station, but at a corner she never noticed before, she inexplicably turns in.
The alley is narrow and deep, with old apartment walls on both sides covered in moss, the air mixed with rain, soil, and a faint sweet scent of osmanthus.
At the alley entrance hangs an old lantern, its light a dim apricot yellow, illuminating a mottled wooden sign—
Forget River Tea Pharmacy
The words on the sign are blurred like ink wash, as if just lightly touched by tears.
She pushes the door.
The bell rings softly, very faintly, like someone sighing suppressed in the distance.
The shop is much deeper than imagined.
Wooden shelves extend from the floor to the ceiling, filled with blue and white porcelain jars, thick glass bottles, and clay pots with fine cracks on the surface.
Each container is labeled with yellowed paper, the handwriting elegant and aged—
'Summer night in 2011, that embrace with no ending'
'Mother's last disappointed look in 2019'
'April 2024, waking up alone in the morning'
Those words glow slightly under the light, as if containing small, still-breathing memories.
Lin Jingyi stands at the door, suddenly feeling her heart is like one of those bottles, quietly labeled and forever displayed.
'First time here?'
The voice floats from the depths of the counter, low and hoarse, with a slight Southern accent at the end.
The owner sits in a rattan chair, slowly stirring a bowl of steaming black herbal soup with a fine silver spoon.
She wears a deep blue cheongsam, with a very faint white mandala embroidered at the collar.
Her hair is loosely tied in a bun, with a few strands of silver hair hanging by her ears.
Her face is beautiful, yet beautifully weary as if she has seen all of life and death—her eyebrows long and eyes slightly drooping at the corners, as if forever gazing at some unreachable distance.
That kind of loneliness is not from lacking a lover or friends, but has transcended these words, like an entire ancient city slowly submerged by time, with only her breathing quietly at the bottom.
Lin Jingyi's nose stings.
She has never seen such a quiet yet heavy woman.
'I... just passing by.'
'People passing by don't push this door.'
A Meng lifts her eyes, her pupils deep like two ancient wells.
'Something in your heart is slowly rotting, isn't it? It's not noisy or troublesome, it just follows you every day like a shadow you can't shake off, making it hard to breathe.'
That sentence, like an extremely thin knife, gently cuts open the already fragile skin on her chest.
Lin Jingyi's tears fall just like that.
She doesn't cry out loud, just slowly squats down, hugging her knees.
Loneliness is like fine rain, silently soaking her entire body—she thinks of countless nights, lying in bed staring at the ceiling, feeling the whole world is just herself; thinks of her mother's light sigh on the phone; thinks of her ex-boyfriend leaving with that sentence 'You need me too much,' like a dull knife slowly scraping away her last bit of dignity.
A Meng doesn't comfort her, just pushes that bowl of herbal soup to the edge of the counter.
'Drink it. One bowl, forget one segment.'
'What will I forget?'
'The part you most want to forget.' A Meng smiles, her smile carrying a nearly compassionate weariness.
'I don't sell happiness here, only 'not caring'.
After drinking, that memory won't bite you anymore.
It will be locked in a bottle by me, forever silent.'
Lin Jingyi stands up, her legs a bit weak.
She stares at the soup in the bowl.
The soup is as black as a midnight river, with a few tiny white petals floating on it, like snow or scattered ashes blown by the wind.
'What if I regret it?'
'No one has regretted it.' A Meng says softly, 'At least... up to now. In the end, they all feel that a lighter version of themselves is easier to keep going in this city.'
She reaches out, her fingertips cool yet with a strange gentleness, supporting Lin Jingyi's nape.
'Drink.'
The herbal soup is extremely bitter at first, bitter enough to numb the tip of the tongue; then comes a faint sweetness, like the red bean soup her mother made when she was young; finally, a complete emptiness—dry, clean, nearly compassionate emptiness.
Lin Jingyi thinks of her ex-boyfriend's face.
That face is like ink washed away by rain, the outline still there, but the features quickly blurring. Those arguments, those tears, those repeatedly played conversations in the middle of the night, all drawn away, leaving only a quiet blank.
She shivers, yet feels the stone that has been heavy in her chest for so long finally loosening a bit.
A Meng is already behind her, holding a small glass bottle in her hand.
The bottle emits a soft blue light, with a faint mist floating inside, like an unfinished rain.
'This is yours.'
She gently lifts it high, 'Very beautiful, isn't it? Like all the grievances you once had, condensed into a small cloud.'
Lin Jingyi reaches out to touch it, but is gently avoided.
'Can't touch. If you touch it, you'll remember.'
She puts the bottle back on the shelf.
Hundreds of bottles vibrate slightly under the light, like a group of imprisoned, still-breathing memories.
Some are pink like a girl's dreams, some gray-blue like a middle-aged person's exhaustion, and one is a very faint gold, like someone's entire youth that once burned.
Not a single bottle has been redeemed.
Lin Jingyi pays—not with cash, but a small lock of her own hair.
A Meng says this is the rule: exchange the least important thing on your body for the heaviest part in your heart.
She cuts off a lock and places it in A Meng's palm.
That lock of hair turns into fine ash in the air, disappearing silently.
When walking out of Forget River Tea Pharmacy, the rain has stopped.
Lin Jingyi stands at the alley entrance, taking a deep breath. The air is clean and cool.
She tries to recall her ex-boyfriend's smile, but only a blurry outline remains.
She laughs lightly, the laughter sounding especially crisp in the empty alley, yet with a hint of hollow echo.
And in the shop, A Meng sits alone in the rattan chair, slowly rocking that new bottle.
The blue light reflects on her face, like a thin layer of frost.
She closes her eyes, feeling the aftertaste of that memory still lingering on her tongue—a faint bitterness, a faint saltiness, like all the tears Lin Jingyi once shed.
She thinks of her long years by the Yellow Springs.
Watching countless souls line up to drink the soup, each face carrying the same hollowed-out loneliness.
She suddenly feels tired of it.
So she comes to the human world.
Opens this shop that only appears before the most desperate people.
She thinks, if pain is destined to be forgotten, then it's better to let it rest while it's still alive in the heart.
At least, that way, people can continue walking in this vast city with a lighter soul.
The bell outside the shop rings lightly again.
A Meng doesn't open her eyes, just says in a very low, very gentle voice:
'Welcome to Forget River Tea Pharmacy. Tonight... what do you want to forget?'
(Chapter One End)
Afterword..
The Lovers Protection Plan has been stalled for a long time at a hard-to-pass checkpoint---weariness
I've been writing it all along but didn't want to go back and revise, finally today I started revising the entire direction and main body, anyway, it's like a revised version of something I wrote myself... Hope I can continue revising to give it a complete soul!