Chapter 43: Aesthetic Perception

The next day was Spring Festival.

At dawn, Bai Lengci still woke up on time.

Outside the window, the sky was still dark, but the air was already filled with a restless and festive atmosphere.

She changed into her sportswear and went out for a morning run.

The usually quiet sidewalks now had many temporary stalls set up.

Red Spring Festival couplets, “Fu” characters, and lanterns filled the racks.

Crowds gathered in front of the stalls selling dried fruits and roasted seeds, while the air carried the sweet fragrance of sugar-fried chestnuts and sunflower seeds.

Bai Lengci slowed her pace, weaving through the bustling crowd.

Her gaze, involuntarily, fell on the children holding their parents’ hands, their faces alight with excitement as they pointed at all the New Year goods.

Once upon a time, she had been one of them.

In the courtyard of the Beicheng Orphanage, the most anticipated days of the year, apart from birthdays, were Spring Festival.

Not because of a particularly sumptuous New Year’s Eve dinner.

Although at that time, the old orphanage would always try to find a way to add a few extra dishes to the kitchen.

It was because, on the morning of the first day of the new year, every child would receive from the old orphanage a red envelope that actually contained money.

Not much, perhaps only ten or twenty yuan.

But for orphans who almost never had pocket money, it was a fortune they could freely spend.

They could save it up to buy a long-desired second-hand book, or exchange it for candies too precious to buy otherwise.

She still remembered the subtle sensation of touching the crisp banknotes.

And the joy of being treated with such solemnity.

After finishing her run, a thin sheen of sweat covered her body.

When the cold wind blew against her, it brought with it a chill that cleared her mind.

Passing by a market, she heard the deafening buzz of voices inside.

She hesitated at the entrance for a few seconds, then walked in.

Bai Lengci bought a small bunch of vegetables, a few shiitake mushrooms, a small piece of lean meat with good texture, and one chilled sea bass.

These were all dishes commonly found on New Year’s Eve dinner tables in her memory.

She even bought a small bag of glutinous rice flour and black sesame filling for making tangyuan.

When she came out carrying these few simple things, she herself found it somewhat absurd.

Most likely, the final destination of these things would still be the trash can.

But she bought them anyway.

A sense of ritual.

That was what she told herself.

Even if they just sat there, just looking at them still counted as a form of participating in, and saying farewell to, the concept of the New Year.

Back home, her phone screen lit up.

The class group chat was already flooded with messages.

“Happy New Year!!!”

“May we all land safely in the new year!!”

Such blessings were mixed with countless stickers and emojis.

Then came the boasting and sharing:

“[Image] Red envelopes from Dad! A thick stack! Love you!”

“[Location: Sanya Phoenix International Airport] Escaping the cold, sunshine and beaches, here I come!”

“[Image] The whole family making dumplings together.

Mine look hideous, hahaha!”

“Preparing New Year’s Eve dinner! [Image][Image][Image]”

Bai Lengci scrolled with an expressionless face.

She also had two private messages.

One was from Zhou Zheng:

“Aria, Happy New Year.

The bar is closed during the holiday, we reopen on the fifth.

Red envelope [Transfer 888 yuan], for good luck.”

The other was from Yan Junzhu:

“Student Bai, Happy New Year. Today… are you alone? If you don’t mind, you can come to my home for New Year’s Eve dinner. My parents are very easygoing.”

At the end was a warm smiling emoji.

Bai Lengci first opened Zhou Zheng’s transfer and accepted it.

She replied: “Thanks, Brother Zheng. Happy New Year.”

Then she opened Yan Junzhu’s message, her finger pausing on the screen for a moment.

“Thank you, Miss Yan. No need, I’m used to spending it alone. Happy New Year.”

......

At dusk.

Bai Lengci took out the ingredients she had prepared at noon, lit the stove, and cooked.

Soon, a small plate of stir-fried greens, a small bowl of shiitake mushroom and pork soup, and a steamed sea bass were placed on the table.

They looked simple, but were steaming hot.

She scooped a small bowl of rice, sat at the table, and ate in small bites.

It was tasteless.

A familiar resistance came from her stomach.

Forcing down a few bites, she set down her chopsticks and ate no more.

By a little past eight in the evening, the sky outside was already pitch black, and the cold had grown sharper.

Bai Lengci put on her coat and stepped out the door.

As she closed it, she could still see the untouched New Year’s Eve dinner on the table.

She was heading to the nearby Wanda Plaza, where there was said to be a fireworks show at nine o’clock.

The weather was frigid, her breath turning white in the air.

But the plaza was already packed with people, bustling with noise and excitement.

Bai Lengci avoided the most crowded areas and found a stone bench at the edge of the plaza to sit on.

She felt like a ghost seated in the audience.

Quietly watching this grand drama titled “Human Reunion.”

That was a joke.

In truth, Bai Lengci quite liked fireworks.

This fondness stretched back to a long time ago, even before she had read those books.

At the orphanage, aside from red envelopes, another fixed activity during the New Year was watching fireworks.

The old orphanage would organize the children to climb onto the roof of the activity room (with safety ensured) to watch them.

At that moment, all the children would fall silent, tilting up their little faces.

Their eyes reflected the colorful lights as they let out a collective—

“Wow——”

Later, she read Einstein’s biography.

The great physicist had once said:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”

Fireworks, to the young Bai Lengci, were the most direct embodiment of that mystery.

A sudden aesthetic explosion of light and color, transforming chemical energy in an instant.

It defied the banality of daily life, tearing through darkness with resolute brilliance.

At the highest point, it bloomed in full glory, then fell without hesitation, leaving only smoke and a lingering afterimage in memory.

This beauty, extreme and fleeting, carried a cruel yet pure poetry.

Later, she read Kant.

That philosopher who lived by strict routines, scarcely ever leaving his hometown.

At the end of Critique of Practical Reason, he wrote that famous line:

“Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”

The starry sky was eternal, silent, and unreachable.

But fireworks were man-made, fleeting, and noisy stars.

They too shone in the darkness, stirring the same awe and longing in the human heart.

For orphans in the city who could not see the stars.

Fireworks were a humble substitute for that vast starry sky.

Each bloom was a brief transcendence of ordinary life, a salute to mystery and the sublime.

At exactly nine o’clock.

“Whiz—Bang!”

The first firework soared with a sharp whistle into the sky, then burst at its peak, golden light illuminating countless upturned faces below.

Then came the second, the third… more and more lights ascended, bursting into bloom.

The deafening explosions rolled endlessly, as the sky staged a short-lived yet extravagant feast of light.

Bai Lengci tilted her head slightly, her face bathed in the ever-shifting glow of color.

Fireworks were beautiful, yes.

That resolute blooming and extinguishing in an instant, that brilliance paid for with destruction, still aligned with her aesthetic perception.

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