Missed It Several Times

Lin Yuan counted the steps amidst the bronze bells of Zurich Cathedral. There are 187 blue-grey stone steps in total. He has traced this number hundreds of times on airmail paper for 4 years and 9 months. The wind in December in Switzerland carried bits of snow into Lin Yuan's woolen scarf. He held the ginkgo leaf specimen in his pocket, and the leaf veins left fine lines on his fingertips. This was 3:57 pm on December 24, 2005, three minutes before the agreed time. Five years ago, under the sycamore tree in Zhangcheng No. 3 Middle School, when Ye late autumn sandwiched this piece of ginkgo leaf into "Byron's Selected Poems", the tips of his hair were dyed with the March moonlight. "When you finish reading this book, you will probably receive a letter from Zurich." The girl's cunning smile contained the entire spring season. Little did they know at the time that the flight to Zurich three days later would take away all their previous ideas about the future. Lin Yuan still remembers the teahouse in February 2000. In front of the wooden bar, the waiter pushed over twice the amount of steaming absinthe tea. Ye Wanqiu's words rang in his ears: "One good news and one bad news. The good news is that the mother's first interventional surgery was successful, and the bad news is that it is hereditary." In the past, Wanqiu's words were always warm and gentle, like the spring breeze surrounding her ears. It wasn't until the girl said the word "hereditary" for the second time that Lin Yuan realized the unusual trembling in her words. The ringing of church bells startled a flock of white doves. Lin Yuan looked up and saw that the clock tower hands were about to overlap, and the bronze minute hand cut out tiny spots of light in the snow curtain. He recalled the all-nighter he spent in his sophomore year, translating ETH's admissions brochure word for word on the greasy keyboard of an Internet cafe. Just for the reunion in a minute and a half. He thought of the international long-distance calling card he had finally saved up time and money to buy in his sophomore year, and finally heard a voice across seven time zones late at night at a certain moment on a certain day: "Lin Yuan?" Her voice on the other end of the phone was as light as falling snow. A figure in a foggy blue coat appeared under the steps, but his face was slightly pale. Lin Yuan felt his heart fall again into the biology laboratory five years ago - that day they sneaked into the biology laboratory to do anatomy experiments. Wan Qiu pointed at the cardiovascular model in the specimen bottle and said, "Lin Yuan, did you know? Love will speed up the blood flow by 0.3 Times." At this moment, his temples were beating slightly, and his blood flow seemed to be as accelerated as it was five years ago. The overexposed figure from five years ago that remains on the retina gradually overlaps with the beautiful figure in front of me. "Lin Yuan." This voice is far more real than the twenty-seven letters he has collected. Ye Wanqiu was wearing the maroon scarf he knitted, the tip of her nose was red from the cold, but there was an unusual watery glow in her eyes. The cuffs of her coat slipped when she reached out, and the medical tape on her wrists was dazzlingly white in the snow. With one minute left before the agreed time, Lin Yuan finally said the words that had been stuck in his throat for nearly five years: "You... You are still the same as before...". Before he finished speaking, Wan Qiu suddenly staggered and grabbed his arm. The long black hair swept across the school badge on his chest - the copper school badge taken from the uniform of Zhangcheng No. 3 Middle School was currently pinned to his ETH dark gray coat. "It's snowing." She raised her face and smiled, her eyelashes stained with the fine snow of Christmas Eve. Although he was holding her tightly, Lin Yuan felt that the person in his arms was slowly falling, like a ginkgo leaf that was wet by the rain and fell slowly. The crimson liquid began to drip from the tip of her nose drop by drop - slowly but continuously - on the snow outside Zurich Cathedral, where it bloomed into the pomegranate flower that bloomed outside the classroom in 1999. When the ambulance passed by the Christmas bell, Lin Yuan realized that he was always holding a thorn in his palm - it was a shrub in Zurich. Thorns pricked the palms of hands, and blood seeped into Ye Wanqiu's misty blue coat. Half a letter slipped out of the pocket of the late autumn coat, and the blue ink was smeared by the snow: "... The doctor said that the gift of time my mother left for me may be opened in advance on a snowy day..." Concept: Memory is not eternal, love is