Yunwei Town

Snow in Yunwei Town fell year after year on the towering wheel frame above the iron mine. On a winter morning in her final year of high school, eighteen-year-old Jiang Yin met Shen He. The scar at the corner of his eye spoke of the mine’s harshness, yet he took her on his motorcycle to watch the sun set over Yunding Mountain.

The flowers at Steel City University bloomed and withered, but one rainy night, the tunnels underground collapsed. Zhu Qingshen’s suit was pressed to perfection, like a set of shackles, but it couldn’t hide the old mark on her wrist, shaped like a mineral vein.

When the last handful of ashes was scattered into Mine Shaft 791, Lin Jiayue finally understood the words Cui Enning had left unsaid. Snow had buried three deaths, but it couldn’t bury the confession deep inside the iron mine, torn to pieces by steel cables.