During the last evening study hall before our college entrance exams, she leaned on the windowsill, pointed at the moon, and said,

"On graduation day, let’s go see the stars at the beach. Just the two of us."

"What are you spacing out for?"

She dropped her hands and skipped over to spin in front of me.

Beneath the cool Moonlight, she was still in that impossibly simple, plain white dress. The sea breeze teased the ends of her hair, and she even wore the same light-blue tie I’d given her all those years ago.

Without me noticing, she’d snatched the photo from my hand. She held it up, waving it teasingly as she stepped barefoot into the frigid seawater. The surf instantly washed over her ankles.

"You’re the one who promised to teach me how to find the Big Dipper, oh, Mr. To~p~Stu~dent~"

I scrambled to raise the camera and follow her, the lens shaking violently.

The sea breeze lifted the hem of her dress, making it look like a butterfly about to take wing.

The beam from the distant lighthouse swept over, illuminating her face as she turned, and the image slowly merged with a memory of a summer dusk.

The tide suddenly surged, rising past our knees. She reached out and grabbed my hand, the warmth of her fingertips spreading through my palm.

"Run! Let’s run together! Into this gentle sea!"

She pulled me charging into the surf. Salty water shot up my nose. All I could hear was the endless crash of the waves and her light, bell-like laughter.

"We, who never learned to be tender, thought dying for love was just a tale of old—"

The background music swelled abruptly as the camera frame began to distort and shake.

Suddenly, her hand slipped from mine. In the churning tide, her dress became a blurry white shadow.

The final shot: she stood atop a wave’s crest, looking back over her shoulder. The Moonlight cast a cool halo around her, but her smile slowly dissolved into the swirling sea fog.

The screen suddenly cut to black, and subtitles slowly faded in:

"This summer, we all drowned in a tide from four years ago—in a future that never came to be."

——The End——

——

CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!

When Lin Shen finished explaining the scene he’d just shot and the final part of the story he’d conceived, Jiang Wan, his listener, couldn’t help but burst into applause.

"Yes! That’s the exact feeling it needs!"

"You don’t think the ending will get taken down after complaints for being a bad influence, do you?"

Lin Shen looked a little worried, but Jiang Wan just grinned.

"We never said the heroine is a ghost at the end. For all we know, she didn’t die. It’s a HAPPY END!"

’That’s just so *happy*,’ Lin Shen grumbled to himself, then asked for Jiang Wan’s opinion.

"So? Are we calling it a day?"

"It’s a wrap!"

Jiang Wan excitedly high-fived Lin Shen, letting out a silent sigh of relief.

The past few days of filming had left her Spirit feeling utterly exhausted. She was especially worried that not many people would like the final cut.

After all, TikTok is still dominated by short-form videos. Very few viewers would finish a long-form video, so the completion rate probably wouldn’t be very high.

But Jiang Wan had chosen to go through with it anyway, all to fulfill a childhood dream of becoming an actress.

And it was largely thanks to Lin Shen’s help. She was deeply moved, her eyes filled with endless tenderness and warmth.

"So, should we hang out on the beach for a bit now?"

"Yeah, sure."

Lin Shen gave a long, lazy stretch.

"I heard you can also go beachcombing at night. I wonder if we can find anything good."

"Okay, I’m gonna take my clothes off then."

"Um... Huh!?"

Jiang Wan’s words stunned Lin Shen. When he saw her actually start to lift the hem of her dress, he was so startled he immediately rushed forward to stop her.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Senior, calm down!"

"I am perfectly calm."

Jiang Wan leaned close to Lin Shen’s ear, her voice a soft, smiling whisper.

"What do you think is the best thing to wear to the beach?"

?

While Lin Shen was still staring in a daze, Jiang Wan had already slowly lifted her dress, revealing a pair of full, jade-white legs and the white bikini beneath.

Hmm?

Lin Shen’s eyes suddenly lit up.

"Senior, don’t tell me you’re wearing a swimsuit under your dress?"

"Congratulations, Junior Lin Shen. You. Are. Cor. Rect!"

With the answer revealed, Jiang Wan stopped teasing and simply slipped the white dress off.

In the next instant, her fair, delicate skin was exposed to the cool, damp night air.

Lin Shen stared, his gaze fixed.

The straps of her white bikini traced the delicate, curving lines of her collarbones.

Lin Shen could tell at a glance that the swimsuit wasn’t hers. It was just too small for her!

’Bikinis are skimpy by nature, but this was ridiculous!’

Below her bust was her waist, made to look impossibly slender in comparison.

In truth, Jiang Wan’s waist wasn’t as toned as Qin Yuenan’s, who exercised regularly; there was even a hint of softness around her stomach.

But because her chest was so disproportionately large, her waist looked exceptionally slender—an illusion created purely by contrast.

The same was true for her hips. As they curved outwards, the strings of her white bikini bottoms became the perfect finishing touch.

Combined with the gentle lines of her legs, they formed an incredibly alluring, sexy figure.

"Is it... okay?"

Jiang Wan tucked a windswept strand of hair behind her ear. Clasping her hands behind her back, she shifted her weight, a hint of nervousness on her face.

’After all, it was her first time wearing a bikini. She had no idea if Lin Shen would like the big surprise she’d prepared just for him.’

It was obvious he was. The surprise had left his head spinning; it felt unreal, like something straight out of a comic or a movie brought to life.

’Could someone in the real world, without any tech or artificial enhancements, really possess such a... magnificent spectacle?’

Lin Shen was too stunned to speak. But, trusting Jiang Wan, he slowly accepted this new reality. A look of profound admiration and desire filled his eyes.

"Amazing! It looks amazing! Senior, bikinis were made for you!"