Four college classmates came to Shanghai to play. I accompanied them for 6 days and spent 56,000. When they left, all I got was a thank you. Seven days later, I received a package.

The moment I opened it, my hands trembled. During those 6 days, I took annual leave to accompany them the whole time. I booked a hotel by the Bund with a river view, arranged local cuisine, Japanese food, and seafood banquets for every meal, took them to Disneyland during the day, climbed the Oriental Pearl at night, and went to bars and enjoyed the night view, making sure not to let these brothers who slept in bunk beds feel neglected. They kept saying 'what a waste of money,' but they were not polite at all, casually handing me the bill when buying souvenirs and saying, 'I'll deduct it from my living expenses when I go back.' I just smiled and waved my hand, saying, 'Are you going to settle this with me?'

The day I sent them to the airport, traffic almost made us miss the flight, rushing all the way, we only had ten minutes left at the waiting area. The leader patted my shoulder: “Thanks, next time when you come to our place, we’ll definitely treat you well.” The other three echoed a couple of words and hurried past security, not even turning back. I stood in the hall, looking at the 56,000 bill on my phone, feeling indescribable, not that I was heartbroken over the money, just that the word “thank you” felt as light as a gust of wind passing by.

On the evening of the seventh day, the courier knocked on the door and delivered a box half my height. I opened it and my hands trembled instantly—inside was packed with things: walnuts from the leader's hometown, he said the fruit from the trees his dad planted is the most fragrant; handmade insoles sent by the second one, tightly stitched, his mom took half a month to make, saying it’s damp in Shanghai during winter, and these keep warm; the box of white liquor moved by the third one, bought with his six months' salary, the kind we always secretly drank in the dorm; the fourth one was the most thoughtful, he developed a whole album full of photos from these six days, the back covered with his writing: “Under Disney fireworks you said, ‘it’s still the best when we’re all together,’ captured it” “You rushed to pay for the fried dumplings, with vinegar sauce on your lips, just like when you snatched the last piece of braised pork back in the day”...

At the bottom of the box was a card pressed down, attached was a note in the leader's handwriting: “The card password is our dormitory room number. I know you’re trying to put on a brave face, this money is pulled together by the four of us, it’s not much, enough for you to pay off your credit card. Don’t scold us for being mundane, next time if we do this again, we’ll just stay at your place and sleep on the floor—anyway, that sofa of yours can fit all four of us if we squeeze.”

I held the card, looking at the photo album with my smiling face that had wrinkles, suddenly recalling when I was sick with a fever in college, they took turns skipping class to bring me food; at the graduation farewell dinner, the leader hugged me and cried, saying, “No one will steal the egg from your instant noodles anymore.” It turns out that some feelings don’t need to be spoken, just like the walnuts, insoles, and photo albums in this box, heavy with the intentions they hide behind “thank you.”