The Snow in the North Doesn't Lie

In 2003, Hegang, an industrial city in Northeast China. Seventeen-year-old Chen Beiye met Lin Xue for the first time on the first day of school in the first (third) class of senior high school in Hegang No. 1 Middle School. The coolness of early autumn was drifting outside the window. She was sitting in the third row by the window, lowering her head to read a book. A strand of hair on her temples was dyed light gold by the sunlight. He was a notorious thorn in the ice hockey team, with poor grades and a love for fighting. The head teacher arranged for him to sit next to her and "receive reform." She didn't speak, but silently handed him a pen and pointed to the math problem being explained on the blackboard. From that day on, Chen Beiye's life trajectory began to change. In order to be able to enter college with her, he began to study seriously. The hockey stick was replaced by a pen, and the scabs on his fists were replaced by calluses between his fingers. In the winter of his sophomore year in high school, on Lin Xue's birthday, he ran across half of the city in a cold wind of minus 20 degrees, just to buy the out-of-print poetry book she mentioned casually. But fate is never gentle. In the first semester of his senior year of high school, gangsters from the rival school of the ice hockey team pestered Lin Xue on the way to school. Chen Beiye's eyes turned red and he didn't think about the consequences when he swung the hockey stick down. On the day when the expulsion notice was posted on the bulletin board, it snowed heavily for the first time in Hegang. Lin Xue stood in the snow for three hours, but he never showed up...