When the flowers bloomed in spring, he thought of the pollen on the tip of her nose; in summer, when the cicadas chirped, he thought of her shamelessness of always rubbing his iced Coke because she was afraid of the heat; when the leaves fell in autumn, he thought of her proud smile when she picked the most beautiful ones and put them in his book. And every winter, when the snow falls, it's like a silent torment—no matter how hot the hot drinks in the convenience store are on the night of the first snow, they can't warm your hands from the cold that seeps out of your bone marrow.
He became the most silent recorder. There is no longer her figure under the empty locust tree, the moat is frozen earlier and earlier every year, and all the places she loved in this city are becoming increasingly unfamiliar in the alternation of morning and dusk. The photos piled up, like a grand but hopeless evocation. Lao Zhang said it was time to move forward, but he just shook his head and wrapped the "abstract art" scarf tighter.
It turns out that the real hypothermia is not being exposed to ice and snow, but when your sun goes out and all the light for the rest of your life is just a dim ember.
Purpose: This is a novel about the "legacy of love" - when the person you love becomes a thing of the past, what she leaves behind is not just wounds, but also a new set of senses, and the ability to still discern the subtle temperature of life in the cold winter of the rest of her life.
We are not healed when the ice and snow melt, but we discover our cold-resistant muscles and bones on the road to learning to coexist with the ice and snow.
