When the Snow Lies Heavy Over the Capital

On the night Beijing saw its first snow, Gu Huaiqing returned.

Five years had passed. He was now the youngest at the pinnacle of Beijing's elite, while she was still Xie Ling, quietly spreading silence across her canvases. At an auction, he spent a million to buy one of her old works, yet his gaze was as distant as if she were a stranger.

Everyone said Xie Ling had wronged him terribly back then, and that Gu Huaiqing had every right to hate her. Only she knew that some departures were not betrayals, but the deepest kind of protection. Just as she had never told him what was written on the note handed to her on the eve of her adoptive father's imprisonment.

Snow had fallen for five years, and she had been waiting for it to melt. He came back with the wind and snow, carrying hatred and confusion in his eyes, as well as a lingering warmth she did not dare examine too closely.

Was this reunion a return to an old dream, or the beginning of another storm?