Nalan Shan quit his job as a machinery maintenance worker in the city and returned to his hometown to take over the orchard that had been neglected after his father fell ill. He reunited with his first love when he was young, Su Wan - the girl who wanted to go to Shenzhen and refused to return home. Su Wan returns to the village every winter, not to see him, but to help her father record the whitening data of fruit trees. The two competed in the whitening process: Nalanshan painted it as thick as 3 millimeters, almost suffocating three old pear trees; Su Wan insisted on painting as thin as 1 millimeter, saying "trees also have to breathe."
A winter rain washed away 70% of the coating. Su Wan said in the rain, "I'll leave the day after tomorrow." Nalan Shan spent ten years carving the word "wait" on the bark of a tree, while Su Wan was laid off in Shenzhen, fell in love, and prepared to get married. During the rainy season, the coating peels off in large areas, and the unbrushed tree trunks in the shade freeze and crack and ooze sap. She finally brought the financial man back to pick up the old things, and on the last day in the orchard she helped him hold up the branches, saying softly: "If it is thick, it will suffocate, if it is thin, it will peel off, nothing is right."
In late autumn, the ground is full of fallen leaves, and it's another season of white painting. Nalan Mountain painted a thin layer on 265 fruit trees, and carved a small word "night" on the newly exposed bark in the shade of the three old pear trees. It is painted white every year and peels off every year. Fruit trees survive every cold winter, but some people can only leave before spring arrives.
