On Wednesday afternoon, Lin En came home from work and found two packages at her doorstep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She had only ordered one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One was the coffee beans she\u2019d ordered last week; the other had no sender\u2019s information, just her name and address. She crouched down to take a closer look. The box wasn\u2019t very big\u2014about the size of a shoebox\u2014and was neatly sealed with tape, as if it had been carefully packed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She didn\u2019t rush to open it. First, she washed her hands, brewed a cup of tea, and sat down on the couch before slowly peeling off the tape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inside was a dark blue cashmere scarf, neatly folded, along with a small card bearing just one sentence: \u201cWinter is coming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was no signature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lin En took out the scarf and ran her fingers over it\u2014it was soft, like a cloud. She recognized the texture; her mother used to have one just like it, a gift from her father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She examined it from every angle, but couldn\u2019t recall anyone who might have given her a gift recently. A friend? A coworker? Or was it sent to the wrong address?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She tried looking up the tracking number; the system showed \u201cDelivered,\u201d but the sender\u2019s information was blank. She checked her phone\u2019s purchase history again, but there was no record of this order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next day, she wore the scarf to work. Her colleague Anna noticed it and said, \u201cThat\u2019s such a beautiful color\u2014it\u2019s like the sea at midnight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lin En smiled. \u201cI don\u2019t know who sent it either.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCould it be someone with a secret crush on you?\u201d Anna asked with a wink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lin En shook her head. She was thirty-two, lived alone, and her life ran as regularly as clockwork. She had no romantic interests, nor any exes who would suddenly send her things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She began checking the mailbox downstairs for new mail. She also kept an eye out for notifications from the delivery company, but there was nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A week later, she received another package.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This time it was an old book with a slightly worn cover\u2014an English edition of The Little Prince<\/em>. On the title page was a line written in pencil: \u201cTo the one who still looks at the stars.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lin En sat by the window and flipped through a few pages. The book was old but well-preserved\u2014no dog-eared pages, no markings. She suddenly remembered that she\u2019d had one just like it when she was a child; her grandmother had given it to her. She\u2019d lost it later when they moved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She didn\u2019t ask who had sent it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Life went on. She went to work, bought groceries, and walked her dog as usual. Only occasionally, when she returned home in the evening, would she glance at her front door one extra time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes, there would be an extra package waiting for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes it was a box of homemade cookies; other times, a postcard that read, \u201cThe sun is shining beautifully today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She never asked who sent them. Nor was she afraid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was as if someone had quietly placed a lamp in her life\u2014one that wasn\u2019t bright, but was always on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She began to grow accustomed to this quiet companionship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Until one day, she received the last package.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Inside was an old key and a note: \u201cThe door is in its usual place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lin En stared at it for a long time. Then she smiled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She didn\u2019t go to open the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She put the key in a drawer, next to her copy of The Little Prince<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some things don\u2019t need an answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just as winter will come and the sun will shine, some people simply pass by\u2014leaving a little warmth behind is enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She brewed a cup of tea, sat by the window, and watched the streetlights below come on one by one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Life was still the same as ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only now, there was a little more of that indescribable tenderness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An Extra Package That Wasn\u2019t Mine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[23,18],"class_list":["post-667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feeling","tag-feeling","tag-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":669,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions\/669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}