Boiling Snow in the Empty Mountains, True to the World but False to the Rest of My Life

The day heavy snow sealed off the mountains, the plum blossoms bloomed at the Empty Mountain Retreat.

Red petals shone against the snow, their cool fragrance piercing to the bone. As usual, I swept the snow from the stone steps, lit the charcoal brazier, and waited for the kettle to slowly come to a boil.

Ten years.

Every winter had passed the same way: sweeping snow, brewing tea, practicing calligraphy, waiting for someone to come through the snow.

When the courtyard gate opened, I did not look up.

Footsteps crunched through the snow, drawing nearer, carrying the crisp chill unique to winter. The visitor gently set something down beneath the eaves: a packet of fresh tea and several rolls of Xuan paper, their edges still dusted with dirt from the mountain below.

“The snow is heavier this year than in years past,” he said.

His voice was as warm and gentle as jade, unhurried, like the only unchanging sight in these years of solitude in the mountains.

I looked up at him.

Shen Yanzhou stood in the swirling snow, dressed in white. His features were refined, his bearing calm. Ten years seemed to have left no mark on him, except for the occasional flicker of an undercurrent in his eyes that I had never understood.

“You’ve spent too much again.” I poured him a cup of hot tea. “You haven’t even used up the Xuan paper from last time.”

He took the cup and smiled faintly. “You use a lot of paper when you practice calligraphy. It’s always good to have extra.”

This was the most ordinary sort of conversation between us. It was so ordinary that I never imagined the extraordinary secret hidden within those ordinary days.