Branches of Huaihe River Go South

Her withered fingers ran over the yellowed pages of the diary, and finally stopped on the tear-stained line of writing: "Is the weather in New Zealand good? How are you, Yu Qinghuai? Can you watch the snow with me again?" At this moment, the sky in Huainan is pouring heavy snow, as if the thoughts of the entire winter have been crushed and fallen. She was wrapped in a thin home clothes, her bare feet stepped on the cold floor, and she moved step by step outside the door - the snowflakes fell on her eyelashes and instantly melted into water, blurring her vision. She wanted to see him again, the boy who was always fresh in her seventeen-year-old memory, but who had never truly belonged to her. The snow in Huainan is always breathtakingly beautiful, just like that winter when the young man blushed and awkwardly wrapped a scarf with thick stitches around her neck. "Where did you buy it? The quality is so bad." She deliberately teased him. The boy's ears instantly burned red, and he stammered in defense: "No... I didn't buy it, I... I knitted it myself..." She froze on the spot, her heart feeling as if she had been hit by a ball of hot snow. But the next second, when the young man saw her speechless, the light in his eyes dimmed little by little, like a burning star. Suddenly, a warm touch gently fell on his cheek - it was her fingertips, which were as cold as snow, but also surprisingly hot. "I like it very much, thank you, Ah Huai..." The memories stopped abruptly at this moment, like old film clips cut off by wind and snow. She murmured and repeated: "Thank you for the seventeen-year-old Yu Qinghuai, thank you for the Yu Qinghuai from Huainan..." He was the white moonlight in her life that would remain with her until death. The sweet aroma of raw coconut latte wafted from the cafe on the corner, but she just wanted to hide in the warmth of a cup of hot cocoa, just like that year he always stuffed warm cocoa into the palm of her hand on snowy days. The snow is still falling, there is no response, and there is no him. She knew she would never see that boy again. The snow came very early this year, turning Huainan into a silvery white color in mid-November. She stood in the snow and suddenly shouted towards the empty street: "Classmate Yu, will we see you again?" The sound was carried by the wind and snow and dispersed without a trace. She smiled, but there was moisture in her eyes: "Is this a dream? I seem to have seen him..." In the snow curtain, there seemed to be a young man in a white shirt, walking towards her with a smile. She still had the thick scarf that he had knitted and unknitted, unknitted and knitted around her neck. Intention: To those in Huainan