Winter Buries the Secret of Spring

It's always quiet when the snow falls. Hexagonal ice crystals flooded down from the lead-gray sky, first moistening the bare willow branches, then covering the frozen ground with a thin layer of velvet, and finally wrapping the withered wild chrysanthemums in the corner into white dumplings - no one knew that the secrets of last spring were buried under the chrysanthemum roots. Chun has a secret that he wants to tell Dong, but Chun is no longer there Lin Chuyang has a secret that he wants to tell Shen Yanshuang, but Lin Chuyang is no longer there Spring snow has not yet melted The last time Lin Chuyang saw Shen Yanshuang was under the plum tree at the end of winter last year. She was wrapped in an off-white scarf, holding an unfinished piece of paper with her fingertips. She looked at him standing on the snowy stone steps, his black coat stained with fine snow particles, like a person stepping down from ink-colored rice paper. "Shen Yanshuang," she called him at that time, her voice blown by the wind, "When the locust flowers bloom, I have something to say to you." When he turned back, the snow on his eyebrows had just melted, and the water droplets slid down his eyebrows, just like the tea stains on the pages of the book from his fingertips when she first met him in the library. He said "hmm", and his voice was mixed with the fragrance of winter plums, making it clear and cold. Then spring really came. The locust tree outside the library is covered with pink and white flowers, which fall all over the body when the wind blows. Lin Chuyang tucked the note full of words into the book "Winter" he often read, and took a detour every day by the row of bookshelves, always looking forward to bumping into him. But what she was waiting for was not Shen Yanshuang's footsteps, but a diagnosis from the hospital - acute leukemia, terminal stage. Chemotherapy had lost all her hair. She was lying on the hospital bed, watching the locust flowers outside the window from blooming to withering. The petals floated into the ward and fell on her open notebook. The book is full of little things about him: he only adds a piece of sugar to his coffee, he has a habit of rubbing the pages with his fingertips when turning pages, and when he says "hmm" under the plum tree, the tips of his ears will quietly turn red. On the last page was written the unspoken words: "Shen Yanshuang, I seem to like you, since the spring snow didn't melt." The day she left, it was raining lightly outside, like spring crying. When her friends were packing up her belongings, they found the notebook and the note sandwiched in "Winter" - the handwriting on the note was a little blurred by the years, and there was a small flower drawn at the end, with the words next to it: "Wait until you see it, the locust flowers are blooming beautifully." It snowed again this winter. Shen Yanshuang flipped through the notebook among the old books. She ran her fingertips over the yellowed pages and suddenly thought of the plum trees at the end of winter last year. At that time, Lin Chuyang stood in the snow, his eyes as bright as the spring sunshine, and said that he would tell him something when the locust flowers bloomed. He walked under the locust tree outside the library. Snow fell on the bare branches, like a layer of white gauze wrapped around the branches. He took out the note from his coat pocket, and the cold wind blew the snow foam by. The cherry blossoms on the note were wetted by the snow and slowly fainted. It turns out that Chun has a secret that he wants to tell Dong, but Chun can't wait until Dong comes to hear it again; Lin Chuyang has a secret that he wants to tell Shen Yanshuang, but Lin Chuyang can no longer wait for the locust flowers to bloom. The snow fell thicker and thicker, filling his footprints flat and burying his late "me too" in the whiteness of the world. Concept: Imagery: winter snow, old locust tree, plum tree, note, notebook - Core emotions: unspoken love, regret, miss, lateness - Key scenes: Under the plum trees in late winter, cherry blossom forest in spring, library bookshelves, sick bed