For a long time thereafter, Hoffa did not appear to anyone again, and after a friendly separation from Miller in London, he disappeared into England with Aglaia, where he was missing.

After their first day together, life falls into simple travel mode. They had breakfast at the street market, the cement tables of the stalls were polished smooth like polished marble, and they read the newspaper by the stalls after eating, and the sun was warm in the intersection of sweet orange and weak tea.

They went for a swim at the beach in the morning, playing in the water until the sun drove them back to the cool rooms of the hotel, isolated from the outside world, where they slept in the slowly rotating wooden ceiling fan.

In the afternoon, they explore the labyrinth of narrow side streets behind City Avenue or go hiking in the mountains. Lying on the beach at sunset, calling each other by name. In the evenings, they eat dinner at a restaurant facing the beach and drink in the courtyard of a white-walled inn with the moonlight wrapping around the edge of the waves.

Sometimes Hoffa would speak, without a long speech on the subject, and nagging like an old woman. But Aglaia said very little, she always held him and listened to him. But Hoffa had learned to value the few words she spoke.

There are fewer and fewer people in the world who can talk, and many times, those foreign cities are like falling asleep, although they are still operating as usual, but sometimes they don't meet a single person who talks for a day.

The whole world was silent, as if there were only two of them left.

But there's nothing wrong with that.

They sat in Vienna's empty concert halls, watching the stage where there was no performance, trying every instrument they had seen or had never seen, and making all sorts of noises with them.

They would go to the Louvre in France, where Aglaia would paint two small turtles on the marble chest of the broken-arm Venus, attach the head of the Sphinx to the head of the Statue of Victory, or draw a few circles around the face of the Mona Lisa.

One afternoon, he took a camera and took her to the largest clothing center in Milan, Italy, and watched her change every piece of clothing in the window, literary, intellectual, pure, sexy, fashionable, retro...... One by one, Hoffa also took pictures one by one, and filmed a whole album.

Eventually, they rushed them out of an underground printing workshop in Berlin, but they didn't take them with them.

A week passed, then another week, and then another week..... They traveled all over Europe and finally returned to England.

Early one morning, Hoffa suggested going for a walk.

So they walked along the River Thames to the subway line, where there was a coffee shop that had been open since night.

A few capital words on the concrete arch of a coffee shop that spell out childlike handwriting out of shells – Romanticism

"Romanticism..."

Aglaia looked at the sign of the coffee shop and suddenly smiled and asked, "Do you drink coffee?"

"Okay. ”

Hoffa nodded, and took Aglaia's arm and entered the café.

In the café in the early morning, the cashier was quietly cleaning the white porcelain cups, and the radio under the spider plant was playing quiet music, the sound was only three degrees, and the song Hoffa was very familiar, but he couldn't name it, but he didn't care.

Aglaia offered Hoffa a window seat, sat down, put her hand in his hand, and asked with concern, "You almost finished drinking a bottle of horseshoe tequila by yourself last night." What's on your mind?"

Hoffa nodded. Her hand was in his, warm and dry. He looked at her palms, the pink glaze on his nails transparent as glass.

"Can you tell me?"

Aglaia palmed down and grasped the back of his hand.

At this time, the waiter brought the menu, interrupting Aglaia's inquiry.

Aglaia let go of her hand and looked down at the menu, the morning sun shining through the hardwood panes into the café, painting her slender arms a few shades of gold.

Hoffa looked at the girl across the table without blinking, the various faces he had seen during his adventures in the world were like God's logos.

The faces of those men and women were the same and lonely, and they faced nothingness naked and meaningless in front of him. But this face is different.

He could clearly feel that he had some meaning to connect with it.

meaning, but also names, and identities.

After Aglaia finished ordering her coffee.

Hoffa slowly sat up straight and said seriously, "Aglaia, I'll tell you a story." ”

"You've learned to tell stories?"

The silver-haired girl cupped her cheeks and tapped her fingers on his chest coquettishly.

Hoffa smiled and pointed to his head, "It's here, don't you listen." ”

"Okay, you say. What's the story?"

The silver-haired girl looked at him with her cheeks on her cheeks, as if she couldn't look at it enough.

Hoffa tilted his head and thought, "I think, this story is called - Arrow of Time." ”

"Arrow of Time?"

Aglaia wondered, "What's that?"

"Arrow of Time ....."

Hoffa turned his head sideways, fiddling with the cup in front of him, looking out the window, the coffee shop's wooden shutters were unglazed and strung together with green plastic rope. Looking out between the hardwood slats, there are dry fountains, flower-style tiles and a Volkswagen mini Beetle in the early morning sun.

"A long, long time ago, when I was in Paris, one day I felt someone watching me from behind......"

He sits in a café and slowly narrates his adventures through time and space—whether it is his confusion to sell arms, his encounter with a magical nun, or his crazy dreams, the cold-blooded officer, the blood-sucking city, her father who has fallen into the abyss, and the terrifying opponent in the shadows.

The sun gradually rose, the sky was cloudy, and the shadows of the two gradually lengthened.

Hofa's tone didn't fluctuate much, and Aglaia remained calm at first, but gradually, she was drawn to the story, and finally she couldn't cry.

After Hofa finished speaking, he picked up the coffee on the table and took a sip, waiting quietly.

"Is the past irrevocable?" she asked, choking in a low voice.

"I'm sorry, Aglaia, I can't save Fatil, his soul is devoured by mistletoe. Hoffa said lightly.

"I don't blame you," Aglaia sobbed as she covered her face, "I just... I just can't help you. ”

Hoffa reached out and grabbed her palm, did not let go, did not say words of comfort, just sat calmly, like a Buddha statue. When she choked up, he began to speak smoothly again.

He spoke of the relentless flare of time, of the death of the elderly Hoffa. He talked about his cooperation with Voldemort, about his compromise, about Grindelwald's plan, about his destiny at Hogwarts, about his six thousand reincarnations in the underworld, about the death of Barty and his son, and about his rebellion against fate.

Until outside the café window, a subway rumbles in, Hoffa is silent, and the story comes to an abrupt end.

After listening to the second half of the story, Aglaia wiped her eyes and couldn't help but show an uplifting smile, "You haven't told me the end of this story yet?"

"Then leave it to others to guess. ”

Hoffa stretched and stood up: "Still, I guess this story isn't over yet. ”

Aglaia looked at Hoffa who stood up blankly, paid attention to the subway coming in the distance, and suddenly understood everything, her face suddenly lost all her blood, and those beautiful, sweet, and gentle things passed away like a bubble, and her voice trembled slightly.

"You put... You brought me here intending to... Intended, and I.... Say goodbye?"

"Ahh ”

Hoffa sighed lightly, as if spitting out his own soul, "yes." ”

"Back in time? Fifty years ago?

"yes. ”

Hoffa shrugged, swiped his fingertips across the tabletop, and smiled, "I still have a few small problems left, leave them in the past, waiting for me to solve them." ”

Aglaia clenched her fists and closed her eyes, which were desolate when she opened them again, "But do you know your definite fate? What if you don't come back? What if your life stays forever in these fifty years?"

Hoffa said calmly, and he had already thought of the answer: "Then just like a normal person, continue to live." Eat, study, sleep. ”

"What about us, what about us?"

Aglaia stood up desperately as she held on to the table, "Are you tired of it?"

Hoffa shook his head: "I love you, Aglaia, more than anyone. ”

"Why?"

She jerked up and hugged Hoffa, her palms clenching his waist like steel.

"Why can't you stay on this plane!? We're together, shopping together, eating ice cream together, watching movies together, ...... together Do something that is very fun. As she spoke, she was already choked up: "Why must it be you, can't you let others go?"

Hoffa lovingly wiped her tears, and there wasn't much expression on his face, except for the sunlight flowing in his obsidian pupils, like the Milky Way.

"When I was in third grade, I once asked you what life is. At that time, I didn't understand anything, but now, I do. Life is the game of the brave, and the sorrow of the cowardly.

There are too many original sins in this world, there are too many original sins in human beings, ugliness, poverty, loneliness, inadequacy, death, how much courage it takes to face this cold original sin, maybe few people can do it, but I think I can, because that's what my existence is for. ”

"Then take me with you. ”

Aglaia grabbed his arm, fingers almost digging deep into his flesh.

Hoffa shook his head: "I can't do it, can you understand me?" ”

"I can understand you, but I can't accept it. If so, why do you save me, why do you go to the underworld to find me? And why leave me in a strange time and space that is empty. ”

"And a lot of good things......"

"Don't reason with me, I just want you. ”

"I've been, always been. ”

"Will you come back?"

"Yes. ”

"Can you guarantee it?"

Looking at her red eyes, Hoffa thought of the past, of the future, of his former self, of his mysterious smile, of the past, of his strange life, of the future, of his unpredictable fate.

Eventually, he lowered his head and kissed Aglaia on the lips.

"I promise. ”

Aglaia burst into tears and laughed, grabbed Hoffa by the neck, and hugged him.

The subway heading for the unknown came to a brief stop from far and near.

Hoffa let go of the girl in his arms, the car door opened in front of him, and Hoffa, like an ordinary office worker, followed the bustling crowd, walked into the crowd, and became one with them.

He looked back one last time before the door closed, only to see Aglaia standing at the station, waving at him with tears in her eyes, her waist-length silver hair fluttering in the air, bleached by the sun, just like they had when they first met.

And he waved at her calmly.

The doors close and the subway starts.

The carriage swayed, and the people around him went up and down, coming and going from Hoffa's side. He found a place by the window.

The subway went underground and fell into total darkness, with only the occasional bright light or two, or a street sign waiting to be repaired, and the black glass reflected his own face, face to face. Before he could see his own appearance, the darkness had disappeared again, and he was given endless bright sunshine.

Red double-decker buses rush past on the wide, smooth asphalt pavement, pedestrians chatter, colorful balloons flutter in the air, bright designer shops on the side of the road, teenagers slide down the steps on skateboards, and couples kiss on the street.

The view from the window is etched on Hoffa's face through the windows of the subway, whether it's a deep, dark underground corridor or a sun-drenched city park. He watched quietly.

Before he knew it, he was quietly crying.

Those intense and surging emotions turned into relief, and the unforgettable loneliness turned into deep affection, he knew that it was the calmness of facing fate alone, and that was the ultimate romance that God gave him.

"Why are you crying?"

There was a soft, curious question beside him, an ignorant little boy, who handed Hoffa a piece of paper.

"Because I'm so happy. ”

Hoffa choked up and took the paper.

"Why do you cry when you're happy? The little boy asked him.

"How about happiness?"

"If you're happy, you can laugh. The little boy comforted him.

"Yes. ”

Hoffa wiped away his tears and smiled, "Take me away." ”

When the train arrived, countless well-dressed men and women carrying briefcases flocked to the subway. Some of their expressions are numb, and some have empty eyes, as if they are sleepwalking.

But among them, there was a teenager and a middle-aged man, who seemed out of place with the crowd around them.

The boy had messy hair, round glasses, and a lightning-like scar on his forehead, looking a little melancholy and uneasy. The middle-aged man, wearing pinstriped pants and an old short jacket, touched the rings on the subway with a curious expression.

"Mr. Weasley, if convicted, will I be imprisoned in Azkaban?" asked the bespectacled teenager uneasily.

"What are you thinking? The middle-aged man couldn't help but laugh, "How can there be so lawlessness in wizarding society. ”

"What will be the worst possible outcome?"

"Well, maybe being expelled from Hogwarts, that's the worst way to go. Arthur Weasley thought for a moment and comforted, "Don't worry, that won't happen......"

Harry still couldn't help but turn his head, Arthur's words didn't comfort him, it was a trial of the Ministry of Magic, a few people have experienced it, and a few people can really carry it, he doesn't think Arthur can really understand his current mood.

But then, in the crowd, Harry felt someone watching him again, and he turned his head away. Seeing the slightly older boy with his head resting on the glass in the corner, the boy nodded at him in the sun, smiling slightly, quiet and easy-going.

Harry froze. The boy looked ordinary, but his smile seemed to have a strange healing power, which made those who saw it can't help but feel good. The bright black eyes were like birds in the sky—free and unrestrained. It seems that just looking at him, the subsequent trial has become less terrifying.

"Mr. Weasley, look. ”

Harry tugged at the middle-aged man's clothes beside him, trying to get him a glimpse of the peculiar boy.

But when he looked again, the seat was empty. The peculiar boy was nowhere to be found.

(End of Arrow of Time)