A Thousand-Snow Night's Return

'You are Qian Xue, and you are the sun, the blazing fire that ignites the depths of my life.'

A bright, sunny optimist vs. a cool, world-weary prodigy

1.

On New Year's Eve, Qian Xue joined a tour group alone to climb a snow-covered mountain more than two thousand meters high, but she fell behind and got lost.

While searching for a way out, someone mistook her for someone trying to jump off a cliff and end her life.

The boy who rescued her was strikingly handsome, but exceptionally cold.

To stay with him, Qian Xue had no choice but to play the helpless girl. "You'd leave a tiny, frail, helpless girl like me lost in this vast snowy mountain. What if I freeze to death? Could you live with that?"

The boy looked over at her. After studying her for a while, he said, "Ye Gui. Gui, as in someone coming home through a stormy night."

2.

With a smile in her eyes, Qian Xue said, "I have a dream. Do you know what it is?"

"How would I know?" Ye Gui found himself a little dazed by her smiling eyes.

"I have one small dream: to live to ninety-nine."

Qian Xue asked what his dream was. Instead of answering, he asked, "Why live?"

Qian Xue gazed at the few lights faintly visible at the foot of the mountain. "Being alive means I can eat the cabbage-and-pork wontons my mom makes, the osmanthus rice cakes my grandma makes, and the multilayered meat pies from Old Wang's shop next to school."

"Ye Gui," Qian Xue asked thoughtfully, "what about you? Why are you alive?"

"Because I'm alive, that's why."

By the moonlight, Qian Xue saw scar after scar on Ye Gui's left wrist, chaotic and strange, twisted together across his bony wrist.

"How did you get those scars on your wrist?"

3.

As they spent time together, Qian Xue began to entertain a thought she shouldn't have. "Ye Gui, if you ever decide you want to date someone, would you consider me?"

Ye Gui didn't answer. Qian Xue gently rubbed the back of his hand with her thumb and said with a smile, "I'm just kidding. Don't take it seriously."

It was the first time Qian Xue had confessed to a boy. She had no idea what she was doing, but she was sincere. When he didn't respond, a thread of bitterness slipped into her heart.

After a long while, Ye Gui looked at Qian Xue, warmth shining in his eyes. "Qian Xue, I've been single for eighteen years. Maybe I've been waiting all this time to meet you."

"My heart can't lie to me. It tells me you're not a passing whim. You're the romantic spirit of my life."

'You are the snow across a thousand mountains that happened to wander into my life, my little sun.'

Reading Guide:

* BE

* Two-person cast

Screenshots have been saved as proof.

August 12, 2024, 8:55 a.m.

Theme: Even if fate is an executioner, don't bow your head