December 19, 2019.
Much of the country had officially entered winter, and continuous heavy snow had begun to fall in the north… After three consecutive days of snowfall, Songbei Ski Resort in Jilin finally opened all its slopes and lifts, marking the official start of the 19-20 ski season.
Meanwhile, far away in the south, Beijiao, wearing only a hoodie, could move freely between the study room and the dormitory, feeling as though he was still desperately trying to hold onto the tail end of autumn.
Inside the study room, most people were buried in various professional books, busily writing pages of notes and completing endless exams.
Dressed in a black hoodie and jeans, the boy wore Bluetooth earphones and sat by the sunny window, lazily yawning like a big dog sunbathing. His sharp canine teeth were briefly exposed.
He raised his hand listlessly to rub his eyes, his pen unconsciously spinning between his fingers. Occasionally, he glanced at the test paper in front of him, drawing a careless circle around one of the multiple-choice options.
Of course, he had no idea that someone in the study room was watching him.
Until a figure approached, blocking the sunlight that had been shining on his paper. He looked up in confusion and saw a girl with short hair standing in front of him.
She was wearing a white dress, a cream-colored thin sweater, small leather shoes, and white socks. Her hair was clipped with a cute hairpin. She was holding a clinical medicine textbook and looking down at him with a blush, then handed him a note.
Beijiao opened the note with confusion. It read: “Hi there, I’ve been watching you from the corner for a while. May I have your WeChat?”
Beijiao shifted his gaze from the note to the girl in front of him, her face flushed red, and her friends behind her, nudging each other and giggling while still trying to maintain the quietness appropriate for a study room.
…That familiar feeling finally returned. This was how a girl confessing to someone should look!
Not expressionless and ready to tell someone to “get lost” at the slightest provocation!
Ah!
This world hadn’t collapsed!
Internally overwhelmed with emotion, he almost wanted to capture this moment and send it to someone else. But on the outside, he remained calm. The boy smiled slightly and lowered his voice: “Sorry, I have a girlfriend.”
The note was pushed back under the girl’s eyes with long, neatly trimmed fingers.
Her smile stiffened slightly, the blush on her face fading. But when she looked up and met his smiling eyes, her mind exploded: Oh my god, he has dimples when he smiles!
Retrieving her note and accepting the rejection without complaint, she turned and left, still feeling excited inside.
Sunlight returned to the test paper in front of her.
The boy sat still for a moment, then picked up his pen again to try to write, hesitated, and then threw the pen away again.
He grabbed his phone and opened WeChat.
[Beijiao: I have the CET-6 exam next Saturday. I’ll fly to Changchun on Sunday. I’ll arrive in the afternoon around one. Can you pick me up?]
After sending the message, he put the phone down and did a few more multiple-choice questions.
When he picked up his phone again, there was a reply, and she had sent a photo first.
It was a bright sunny day in Guangzhou, but when he opened the photo, it was a blinding white. The photo was taken from a ski lift, and through the glass, he could see the trees covered in silver frost, a snowy and pure white world.
[WhoIsRan: ???? I’m skiing.]
[WhoIsRan: Why are you reporting to me about next weekend now?]
He held the phone, speechless, and snorted with amusement.
He took a screenshot and posted it on his Moments with the caption: “Come on, you guys.”
Three minutes later, his Moments was flooded with replies—
[SecondCar: …Poor you.]
[HuangCancan: …Poor you.]
[NianNian: You’re really going through a lot, man.]
[CK, Yan: @WhoIsRan Translate, “I miss you.”]
[NianNian: Well done, upstairs! I couldn’t resist replying again. @WhoIsRan Translate, “I miss you.”]
…
Starting from Zhao Keyan, the enthusiastic snow circle friends and relatives queued up endlessly for simultaneous translation.
About eight minutes later, calculating roughly the time it would take for Jiang Ran to take the ski lift from the halfway station at Songbei Ski Resort to the summit, and then ski back down to the halfway station, his Moments finally received a reply notification with a little frog avatar wearing a lotus leaf—
[WhoIsRan: ???]
She was about to curse again.
[WhoIsRan: Do the people upstairs have some kind of mental illness!!!]
After replying, perhaps she had been mercilessly mocked in other family groups. About three minutes later, Beijiao’s phone lit up with an incoming call.
Inside the study room, the surrounding people were still buried in their books. He tapped his Bluetooth earpiece and softly said “Hmm” before picking up the phone and temporarily leaving his seat to go outside.
The sun was bright, and he casually found a shady spot under a tree. He heard her voice on the other end of the line, muffled by her face mask… and clearly annoyed.
“Picking you up, picking you up! Is that good enough! Ancestor! Hurry up and delete your Moments!”
Under the tree shade, unlike the previous smile that hadn’t reached his eyes and was just for show, the boy genuinely smiled this time, his black pupils sparkling, their gentle luster spreading out like ripples. He said, “Oh,” and added, “Nope. Not deleting.”
The other end was silent for a few seconds, then she asked after a moment’s thought, “What are you doing?”
“Doing my test papers,” he said. “Didn’t I just say I have an exam next week?”
“Can’t you focus on doing your test papers?” Jiang Ran muttered. “It’s the CET-6, right? It’s a bit harder than the CET-4, isn’t it? If you’re distracted, can you even pass?”
“Pass with my eyes closed.”
His unpretentious confidence left the person on the other end silent again for a few seconds. “I guess you really do have too much free time. Maybe the CET-6 should be postponed a bit longer. Let’s lock you up for another week.”
“No way, can’t lock me up again,” Beijiao lazily snorted. “If you do, I’ll forget how to ski. Then when I get to the resort, you’ll have to hold my hand and teach me to push uphill again?”
“I’ll twist your head off.”
Finally, Jiang Ran, still fuming, asked him for his flight number and then, distrustfully, said, “Forget it, just send me the screenshot.”
After getting the flight number, she chatted with him briefly about random things, mostly about the ski resort. This year, there were really hundreds of millions of people hitting the snow, and the ski lifts were starting to require queuing, something that had never happened before…
They chatted casually for a few minutes until Beijiao heard a “whoosh” sound, probably the ski lift door opening, followed by footsteps and wind.
“Do your test papers,” Jiang Ran said. “Don’t cause any trouble. You’re coming next week. Behave yourself!”
This threat treated him like a rookie who was still “in the teacher’s hands” on the mountain.
But he quite enjoyed it, agreeing happily, and hung up the phone with a satisfied heart. Returning to the study room, he sat back in the sunlight and suddenly didn’t feel like yawning anymore—
From the moment he could remember, winter and summer vacations meant endless housework and days alone at home staring at the walls, with no one to talk to and no desire to talk to others, no playmates and no need for playmates…
What summer vacation, what New Year’s Eve, to him were just like being in prison, always longing for the start of the school term. When he sat in the classroom, thinking about how he needed to get a perfect score on the next exam, life finally had a little goal.
Until before the age of twenty-one.
He had never imagined that one day he would look forward to winter vacation like a primary school student counting down the days on the calendar, not wanting to do homework, physically in the study room, but his heart yearning for the scenery of another city.
Step by step approaching the day of reunion, it felt like every minute and every second was torment…
But uniquely, the raw material being roasted in this hot pan was honey, scalding hot, all sweet.
…
December 23, 2019, the day before Christmas Eve, Beijiao pushed his luggage cart out of Changchun Longjia Airport.
It was the ski season, and people dragging ski bags were everywhere in the airport. Most of them were preparing to transfer to Jilin City from Changchun by bus or car, while a small number chose to head to Changbai Mountain from Changchun.
As Beijiao exited the airport, he immediately spotted the woman leaning against a pillar in the arrival hall—
She wore a white sweater over a collared shirt, a gray long skirt, and a pair of Martin boots. Around her neck was a fluffy white scarf, her seaweed-like long hair softly cascading down her back, and her lips were painted in cherry red.
She was looking around at the incoming crowd, curiously staring at a boy wearing a mask who was about the same height as Beijiao.
Beijiao walked up to her, his large hand pressing down on her head to turn her face back. “Looking at what? Can you even recognize people? This guy’s not him at all.”
Jiang Ran turned her head and saw the boy’s pretty face looking down at her with an expressionless frown. She narrowed her eyes. “I was just saying he looks kind of handsome?”
This comment was even more provocative than admitting she had mistaken him, and it was like poking a hornet’s nest. His face turned completely cold.
But then he heard her snickering below, and a familiar sweet scent accompanied a hand reaching out to tug at his hood string… His dark eyes flickered as he looked down at her.
Looking at her cherry-red lips curved into a beautiful smile, her deep brown eyes filled with laughter.
His heart stirred, and he leaned down, following her pull, burying his face into her soft, fluffy scarf, nuzzling it.
He turned his face slightly, his pale lips brushing against her cheek as gently as a feather, and Jiang Ran heard him say in a slow, deliberate tone: “I really missed you.”
Slightly tilting his head, the boy’s eyes sparkled, close enough to touch.
So she smiled even more brightly, and in the bustling crowd, she reached out to stroke his short hair.
…
December 25, 2019. This was Christmas Day in 2019.
After familiarizing himself with the terrain at Songbei Ski Resort for two days, the playful little pup had made it his mission to be the first to hit the slopes and the last to leave.
By 4 p.m., the sun was about to set, and the last ski lift had stopped operating. The lift attendant shouted, “See you tomorrow!” He hugged his board and slowly climbed back to the villa area behind the ski resort.
Row after row of attached villas had colorful roofs covered with white snow. The yellow walls and colorful roofs looked like a fairy-tale village. One of the villas near the edge of the mountain had already turned on its warm orange lights.
Beijiao pushed open the iron gate of the yard, the sound of “creak” echoing. His heavy ski boots crunched on the snow as he opened each door of the villa one by one. When he opened the last door, warm air from the underfloor heating greeted him. The corridor was brightly lit, and laughter and chatter occasionally came from the living room.
Next to the corridor were several damp snowboards, the snow on them yet to melt.
All the snowboard bindings were facing the same direction, indicating that the owners of these snowboards all used the same technical carving style.
He placed his board next to an Ogasaka board, changed into slippers, and walked into the living room, where he first heard a tired female voice—
“The student I was teaching this afternoon was supposed to learn edge changes, but I found out she wasn’t even very skilled at pushing uphill. Arghhh, I spent the entire afternoon pushing with her on A-slope with both my legs. My dear god, you guys know how strong the wind was on A-slope when the sun was about to set this afternoon?”
Qiu Nian’s face was resting on the kotatsu table. Next to her, Li Xingnan placed down a half-peeled orange. She sniffed and sneezed from the orange peel.
“How could we not know? Who hasn’t slid down from there?” On the sofa, sitting cross-legged, Jiang Ran held the remote control, lazily flipping through channels. “My face almost got blown sideways.”
In the kitchen, the sound of water splashing, A Ju was cursing while washing seafood, not even looking up. “Stop talking nonsense. You came back at one-thirty this afternoon. The sun was brighter than our future at that time!”
Li Xingnan: “The mutt is back.”
Qiu Nian: “The hardworking pup who came in first and left last is back.”
A Ju threw down the crab she was holding: “The cook is back!”
Jiang Ran kicked her legs, her eyes not leaving the TV, asking the boy standing in the living room taking off his ski jacket: “You’re back! I wanted to find you on the last run. I slid all the way down A7 but didn’t see you anywhere. Where did you go skiing this afternoon?”
“In the G-slope area this afternoon,” Beijiao took off his jacket, went to his first-floor room without closing the door, rustled around a bit, and came out wearing jeans and a thin hoodie. “It was less crowded there.”
He naturally went to the kitchen counter. With a grateful look from A Ju, he took the scissors and the kicking crab. Turning around, there were still four or five bags of seafood wrapped in black plastic bags.
Feeling his silent gaze, Jiang Ran laughed awkwardly: “It’s a holiday, so we should eat well.”
Beijiao rolled up his sleeves.
Finally, with Qiu Nian and Jiang Ran slowly finishing the half-orange, one segment at a time, Beijiao and Li Xingnan handled the seafood and managed to get all the dishes on the table before it got dark.
They didn’t feel like making anything too complicated, so it was just a hearty seafood hotpot.
After dark, it started to snow heavily outside.
The pot was bubbling with ingredients cooking. While waiting, Jiang Ran leaned against the window, looking outside for a long time. Under the streetlights, the snowfall was especially clear. She sighed, displaying the superstitious spirit typical of people from Guangdong: “Heavy snow foretells a bountiful year… This much snow, tomorrow morning’s snow must be great! Tsk tsk tsk, no way, we have to get up early tomorrow to catch a good omen!”
Qiu Nian also scooted over, placing his head next to hers to glance outside a few times, “Stop just talking and not moving. From the start of the season until now, when have you ever opened your eyes before ten? Tomorrow, let the little workhorse wake you up!”
Beijiao was pouring wine from a bottle into glasses by the table. Hearing this, she lifted her eyelids slightly, “Fine, let them call me. Just leave me a door unlocked.”
Jiang Ran still had her hand on the windowsill. She turned her head, smiling without warmth, “Ever heard of leaving a door unlocked for a thief?”
Beijiao pretended not to hear.
When the pot was ready, everyone took their seats around the table. They had to maintain the pre-dinner ritual, raising their glasses. Ju was the first to speak, “Here’s to next year’s success! I’m going to flip 720° on the halfpipe!”
Li Xingnan: “May we have this every year.”
Jiang Ran: “May we have this every age!”
Beijiao: “To making big money?”
Qiu Nian: “As long as we’re all still here at the table next year!”
Five glasses clinked together with a crisp “ding.”
First came the red wine, then Ju dragged out a case of beer from the storage room. After finishing the beer, Jiang Ran chuckled and pulled out a bottle of Moutai from the liquor cabinet. From then on, the so-called Christmas atmosphere was completely thrown out the window.
Beijiao couldn’t drink. He barely sniffed the expensive aroma of the Moutai before shifting his nose away. While Jiang Ran casually clinked glasses with Li Xingnan and Ju as if she were drinking plain water, he sat beside her, picking apart the long legs of an Alaskan king crab—
Each thread of crab meat went into Jiang Ran’s stomach. Sighing, she remarked, “Never realized crabs could be better than peanuts as a drinking snack,” already a little tipsy.
The hotpot’s steam flushed her face with a faint blush. After several rounds of drinks, she tugged at Li Xingnan’s sleeve, insisting he explain to her what “partner swapping” was.
Li Xingnan wasn’t completely drunk yet. At this question, he became even more sober and refused to tell an underage student an 18+ story. With a flick of his hand, he swatted away the grasping fingers.
Following the force of his shove, Jiang Ran leaned back, and the boy behind her timely caught her waist. Lowering his head, his familiar scent hovered near her nose. She raised her hand to prop up his chin and calmly said, “Go away, I don’t want you.”
“It’s all inappropriate for minors, so I’ll make it vivid.”
He reached out to wipe the liquor from the corner of her lips.
Jiang Ran pushed him away and, struggling, went to find Qiu Nian again. Qiu Nian, with nowhere left to escape, finally crawled under the table.
Approaching midnight, snow still fell outside. The lights in the house were off, leaving only the twinkling orange lights of the Christmas tree by the staircase.
The mess on the table remained untouched. Ju and Li Xingnan each occupied a corner of the sofa and had fallen asleep. Jiang Ran sat in the boy’s arms, gazing absentmindedly out the window at the snow piling up on the windowsill.
Qiu Nian came in, then came back out. In the quiet dimness, she held out a card to Jiang Ran, her tone slightly awkward, “Here, originally I thought if you kept being such a pain, I’d never give this back to you.”
Jiang Ran looked down in confusion and realized it was a postcard handed to her.
The postcard bore a black stamp from the Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi, with a line of bold, flowing handwriting:
[“Don’t forget to win the silver in the parallel giant slalom at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics! Lin Shuang”]
Blinking, she took the postcard and softly said, “I thought I’d lost it?”
Pausing, she repeated, “I thought I’d lost this postcard.”
“We found it among Lin Shuang’s belongings,” Qiu Nian took a blanket and covered both Li Xingnan and Ju with it, “They thought this should belong to you… So, during the Qingming Festival of the next year, they didn’t burn it, letting her take it along.”
Jiang Ran lowered her gaze, staring at the postcard in her hand. Unintentionally, she recalled the image of that short-haired girl earnestly treating an oil drum as a wishing tree and posting the postcard inside—
She snorted with laughter. After a while, blinking her sore eyes, she softly said, “Hmm.”
It was midnight.
Suddenly, the window lit up. Fireworks bloomed in the sky above the ski resort.
Outside, colorful fireworks burst in the air with crackling sounds, quietly falling snowflakes accompanying them.
Inside, the young people curled up in the corners of the sofa under blankets, each sleeping soundly. Qiu Nian sat beside the kang table, carefully peeling a green tangerine.
The room was filled with the fragrance of tangerines.
An extremely peaceful Christmas night passed. Jiang Ran held the warm postcard in her hand, watching the fireworks blooming outside the villa window.
Suddenly, there was a slightly rough sensation on her chin. Following the force, she turned her head and the next second locked eyes with the boy’s calm, dark pupils.
Her gaze was a bit dull as she looked into his clear eyes.
“I’ll always be here, every year from now on.”
The promise of the past was brought up again. The boy’s deep voice carried a strangely sacred meaning at this moment.
She lowered her eyelashes, allowing him to gently kiss the corner of her lips.
Nothing to do with desire.
…
January 18, 2020. The beginning of the New Year.
Less than a week remained until Lunar New Year’s Eve.
According to natural conditions, for the ski resorts in Jilin City, January was usually the time when the snow quality was best.
Thanks to the campaign of “300 million people on ice and snow,” people’s enthusiasm for skiing was unprecedentedly high. Every day, the lift queues seemed endless, giving rise to the joke: “300 million people on ice and snow, 200 million at Songbei.”
Since New Year’s Day, it had snowed almost continuously for more than half a month. When everyone thought, “Oh, what a promising year with auspicious snowfall,” an unusual observation was made on the lift that day.
After another descent, a group squeezed into a lift cabin. Jiang Ran was turning her head to complain to Beijiao about her goggles fogging up when he gestured for her to take them off so he could handle it.
She slapped the goggles into his hand and looked down as he used his palm to melt the frost on the lenses, then slowly wiped off the melted frost with an eyeglass cloth…
At this moment, Ju was holding his phone and quickly glanced at the news, “Uh,” he said, “What’s going on? It seems there’s a sudden outbreak of pneumonia in the south—”
“Pneumonia? Like SARS?” Jiang Ran lifted her eyelids indifferently, still calm, “Remember SARS? Chaotic, but it was controlled. It got better the next summer… Is it back again?”
“It doesn’t seem exactly the same. This time it’s a new coronavirus, never seen before. Something discovered in a seafood market. That’s probably imported, right?” Ju said, “I don’t really get it. Ask the med student?”
The med student was still polishing his master’s frosted goggles, not even looking up, “Don’t ask me. I’m only a sophomore. Before break, my professor said, if you get sick, go to the hospital. Half-baked med students aren’t even qualified to treat the neighbor’s dog during the holidays.”
Qiu Nian chuckled.
“How did SARS end back then?” Beijiao fanned the goggles and asked, “I was little, don’t have much memory.”
“Ran out of salt and Isatis root?” Li Xingnan struggled to recall, “I remember playing in the neighborhood, met my mom, asked what she was doing, she said buying Isatis root… Then couldn’t find any. Never thought Isatis root could sell out one day.”
“Did school close?” Ju asked.
“Don’t remember,” Li Xingnan said.
“Same here, plus one,” Qiu Nian said.
“Same here, plus two,” Jiang Ran said.
“I was in kindergarten,” Beijiao said expressionlessly, “Remember even less.”
Ju: “Hope this time will be okay too?”
“Don’t know,” Jiang Ran looked out the lift window, “Last time didn’t seem to affect normal life much. Hope this time is the same.”
“Anyway, nowhere to go. Let’s keep skiing, as long as the resort doesn’t shut down,” Qiu Nian said, “I was supposed to go back to the countryside for the New Year, but I’ve already decided to stay in Jilin.”
“Probably won’t close the resort.”
“Who knows?”
…
January 22, 2020. Only two days remained until Lunar New Year’s Eve.
They had agreed to go shopping for New Year’s goods with Qiu Nian in the afternoon. In the morning, Jiang Ran was still sound asleep when she was suddenly startled awake by a loud “Oh my god!” from outside the door.
She sat up abruptly, looking around. At that moment, the door opened and Qiu Nian rushed in like a gust of wind, “Check your phone!”
Jiang Ran was still half-asleep. Drowsily, she grabbed her phone. As soon as she opened WeChat, she saw a group message from the villa manager—
[Important Notice]
[According to the current nationwide spread of pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus, starting today, the resort will follow national control regulations, implementing a policy of exiting only, no entry.
For a certain period ahead, the ski resort’s operating status is pending. Those needing to leave the resort and Jilin City can take a bus to the airport, with two departures daily (specific schedule as attached).
Buses will operate normally on January 22 and are expected to stop on January 25 (the first day of the Lunar New Year) (subject to adjustment based on actual situations, please follow the manager’s notice). At that time, the resort will implement a policy of no exit and no entry, sealing the mountain and roads, requiring everyone to stay put.
During the lockdown, the resort’s internal commercial areas will remain open, and the ski resort will continue to operate. Residents and property owners can temporarily move freely within the resort.
In summary, please leave as soon as possible if needed.]
Jiang Ran: “…”
Qiu Nian: “Heard that friends in Jilin City who wanted to come skiing today were turned away directly.”
Jiang Ran: “…Fine. From today on, no more queuing for the lifts?”
Qiu Nian: “If you want to put it that way, I guess so.”
Jiang Ran checked the time. It was exactly 9:30 a.m. She video-called Beijiao. The puppy was holding his board heading down the mountain. He lifted his eyelids, looking a bit surprised: “Hmm? You’re up already?”
Jiang Ran wondered why he was so calm. Then she realized—he didn’t have the manager’s WeChat and had no idea what had happened.
“How many people are on the mountain today?” Jiang Ran asked, “Report to me when you reach the lift.”
“When has it ever been less crowded? Everyone’s on vacation… If you can’t get up, don’t make excuses. Keep sleeping, no one’s blaming you.”
He muttered on the other end while hanging up the video call.
Ten minutes later, Jiang Ran’s WeChat buzzed again. Beijiao had sent at least ten photos in a row—
The empty rental shop.
The empty lift entrance.
And a string of question marks.
Beijiao video-called back, his first words bewildered: “Is it the end of the world?”
Jiang Ran replied weakly: “Almost… This is too surreal. Let me sleep a bit more to recover—go ahead and ski. No one will be competing with you today. You might even find untouched ‘noodle snow’ in some corners before eleven (snow freshly groomed by snowcats, leaving noodle-like tracks).”
Beijiao: “No, there’s no one on the mountain. I’m scared. Wake up and keep me company.”
Jiang Ran: “…Don’t be a baby.”
Beijiao: “I will be. Master Dad.”
Qiu Nian cleared his throat: “Hey, pup, maybe you haven’t noticed, but I’m right next to your Master Dad.”
Beijiao: “…”
Three seconds of silence on the video call, then Beijiao expressionlessly hung up.
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