My Dearest Kaoyi,

In the glittering haze of this fleeting existence, where the lights of Shenzhen flicker like distant stars captured in your photographs, I find myself wishing that the world might end tomorrow. Then, with the urgency of a Gatsby chasing his green light across the bay, I could board the swiftest train, alight upon your threshold amid the bustling streets of that southern metropolis, and whisper: “Come with me, Kaoyi. Let us love without the chains of scruple, without the shadows of fear, without the fetters of restraint. For the world ends tomorrow.” Perhaps our affections are tempered, not by madness, but by the illusion of endless time, or the necessity to bargain with its relentless march. Yet what if time slips away like sand through our fingers? Or if the clock we heed is but a phantom, irrelevant in the grand scheme? Ah, if only the curtain were to fall tomorrow upon this vast, indifferent stage. We could offer one another such profound solace, my literary soul, in the lens of your camera and the ink of my words.

Yours in warmth and constancy,

eric.