I've had three and a half cups, and there's still half of a new one left in front of me—half a story that remains untold.

When I was a child, I always wanted to leave, but I didn't know where "leaving" meant. The first time I went to town, I pointed to the only road wedged between two mountains and asked my mother where it led.

"To Citou." "And further?" "To Long'an." "And further than that?" "I don't know any further than that. I don't think anyone in the village knows." "Don't the people who go out to work know?" "Who would care about such things?"

I thought the world was an ellipse, and that the village and I were its two foci. As long as I kept running along this road, the world would keep getting bigger. Every time we went to the market after that, I would stand in front of that road, staring at the crooked tree at the edge of my vision. That was the place where I had once made the world reach its greatest size. I would only walk back slowly once my mother started looking for me, muttering to myself, "I'm not coming back, I'm never coming back."

Once, a traveler came to our house to ask for water. While chatting, he mentioned he had come along that very road. I hurriedly asked him where it led.

"Citou." "And further?" "Long'an." "And further than that?" "Ouwu." "And then?" "There is no 'then.' The road ends at Ouwu." "How can it end? It must connect to other roads, right?" "There are no other roads. There's just a big river." "There must be a bridge over the river!" "No, just a ferry boat." "That counts as a road too!" "It used to, but the old man who ran the ferry died a few days ago." "He... how could he die?!" "Ha, you're a strange little girl. People die when they get old. Thanks for the water."

After he left, I suddenly felt anxious. The world had an end—Ouwu. Why was the end such a strange name? By the time I reached high school, I could finally go to town alone and look at that road by myself. It always lay there so coldly, yet it held a mysterious attraction for me.

"Hey, homesick?"

My new deskmate asked in perfect Mandarin. I wasn't used to speaking Mandarin, so I just shook my head slightly.

"Liar. Then why do you keep staring at the road home?" "That... that's not my home."

I suddenly turned to look at him.

"You came from this road, didn't you?" "Yeah, why?" "Do you know where the end of this road is?" "Ouwu. It's super beautiful there." "I... I want to go see it." "I think there's only a bus on Sundays." "I want to walk there slowly." "It's very far." "But I still have to go. I want to see the end, slowly." "The end?" "You know? This world is an ellipse. This place is a focus, and any point on this road can be a focus. Ouwu is just the furthest one." "You want to go to the end of the world?" "Yeah." "But even if you get there, you won't reach the end. It's just a focus."

He drew an ellipse on the paper as he spoke. I smiled.

"The world is biggest there." "The world is huge!" "I know. It might take me many days to get there." "That's not what I mean. It's much, much bigger than that. Do you know Shanghai? From here to Ouwu, and then another hundred Ouwus, you might still not reach it. And there are many places even further than Shanghai."

A hundred... I suddenly felt a bit dizzy, then subconsciously sat a little further away. He looked puzzled.

"It's your world. I'm talking about my world now." "Isn't it all the same world?" "No."

He suddenly grabbed my shoulders and stared into my eyes.

"It is one world. Your world and my world both have Ouwu. Not just Ouwu, but Shanghai too. Do you want to go see Ouwu this weekend? I can take you. If you want to go to Shanghai, I can take you there too."

I looked at him, nodded, then shook my head.

In the end, it got dark and we didn't see the river that blocked my world. We didn't even make it to Citou.

"See? The world is huge. Your world is big, and the real world is much bigger. Even if this were Ouwu."

He ran to a small ditch.

"You thought this was the end, but you can still take another step forward, and the world gets a little bigger." "That's the river." "There's a bridge!" "There's no bridge." "Then there must be a ferry." "There used to be, but the old man died." "There will be a new old man. The world won't stop growing just because of one ferry. You know, your world will be very, very big."

I felt a bit dizzy and closed my eyes. Then I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him cautiously.

A sudden downpour pressed down on us, and his heavy breathing left me breathless.

We didn't go back that night. In a dim room, he held me and said that when he went back, he would definitely take me to the best hotel, get the best room, and use the best protection.

But he didn't take me when he went back. The way he ran away like a dog when I told him I was pregnant.

The man frowned.

"Is that why you came to Shanghai?"

I looked at the nearly empty glass.

"Not entirely. Actually, I didn't know anywhere else. Maybe the name 'Shanghai' was just more familiar. He probably said those things to a lot of people. I never thought about taking them seriously. It's just that I felt like he was there to help me—to help me see that the world was larger than I had ever imagined. It made me want to push forward even harder. Maybe it was mostly gratitude, maybe I liked him, or maybe I didn't."

"No hatred?" "Hatred? No."

The glass was filled again. I watched his face, which had moved closer, turn into two, four, eight. His hand was already around my shoulder. I pulled away from him and downed the rest of the wine in one gulp.

When I was a child, I thought the world grew as I grew. But that's not true; the world has always been this big.

He smiled and said something else, but I didn't hear it.

I woke up with a hangover headache. Beside me was the man I had met just the night before. My phone had already received a message from my boss. I walked to the window barefoot, gently pulled back the curtains, and brushed the messy hair stuck to my face behind my ears.