In the year Lin Tao was in her third year of university, the surrogate mother that Lin Yongcheng and Fang Yisong had found successfully became pregnant with a baby boy. By the due date calculations, the child would be born in summer.

During the holiday, Lin Tao accompanied Fang Yisong to the hospital to check on the surrogate mother.

Industry regulations prohibited direct contact between a surrogate mother and the child’s actual relatives. The two of them only watched from a distance among the crowd. The supplementary items they brought were entrusted to the nurses to pass along.

From Fang Yisong, Lin Tao came to know that this surrogate mother was named Ye Jing. She was around the same age as Lin Tao — a fresh university graduate, a high-achieving student who should have had a bright future ahead of her. But because her younger brother had developed leukemia and the family could not afford treatment, she had entered this line of work.

Within the country, the surrogacy industry was subject to specific policies and medical institutions, and the screening of surrogates was very rigorous. Many families placed particular importance on the surrogate’s educational background and family circumstances.

Ye Jing had a strong academic background and a clean, proper appearance. When Lin Yongcheng first went to the agency, she had been among the candidates the agency recommended as a priority.

Initially, Fang Yisong had seen how young she was and intended to simply pay her to withdraw. But by a twist of circumstances, of all the surrogate candidates the agency had put forward, she alone had successfully conceived, and passed every medical examination. The child’s development was also in good condition.

What was done could not be undone. Fang Yisong had no recourse but to think of ways to look after Ye Jing in other respects, putting considerable effort into the treatment of her younger brother as well.

The spring breeze carried a gentle warmth.

Perhaps because she was expecting a child, Ye Jing possessed a kind of radiance that Lin Tao — her approximate contemporary — had not yet acquired; a warmth that belonged to motherhood. She seemed gentle and serene.

Lin Tao knew that Lin Yongcheng had long wanted a son to carry on the family legacy. In her earlier years, Fang Yisong had even quarreled with him over the matter. Eventually the two had reached a compromise, which had led to the present arrangement.

As for this child, Lin Tao had assumed she would feel a great deal of resistance. But when she actually learned she would be getting a younger brother, the reality was not nearly as difficult to accept as she had imagined.

When the holiday ended and Lin Tao returned to school, the heavier coursework of her third year left her little mental space to dwell on other things. She learned about the child’s progress only in passing, during occasional chats with Fang Yisong.

Perhaps because Fang Yisong was afraid Lin Tao might overthink things, she never brought the subject up on her own — she would only say a few words about the child when Lin Tao specifically asked.

Over time, seeing that Lin Tao was genuinely unbothered, Fang Yisong relaxed a little. Though she still didn’t bring it up proactively, every now and then she would mention a thing or two.

Later, however, Lin Tao began accompanying Professor Lu Xian to observe cases, which left her with less and less free time. Her contact with Fang Yisong also thinned considerably.

Toward the end of the semester, Jiang Yan and several senior colleagues from the lab followed Professor Ji Nan to Haishi to attend a domestic new-energy physics research conference. The conference ran for one month.

The conference was fully closed off — all phones were handed in, and no outside contact was permitted.

For the month Jiang Yan was away from school, Lin Tao was no less busy herself. Once final exams ended, she traveled with Professor Lu Xian to various cities across the country.

Under Professor Lu Xian’s particular attention, Lin Tao came to know that the professor had long been dedicated to pushing for revisions to the domestic regulations on the minimum age of criminal responsibility for juvenile offenders.

From the 1990s to the present, the rate of criminal offenses committed by minors had risen significantly both domestically and abroad — yet many perpetrators escaped the harsher legal consequences they deserved simply by being under eighteen.

Professor Lu Xian had always maintained that being a minor should never function as a shield for criminals.

This path looked straightforward, but was in fact long and grueling — far more difficult to walk than it seemed. Yet time was vast, and one day the end of the road would be reached.

In the height of summer, Lin Tao and Jiang Yan finished their remaining obligations at school and returned to Xicheng together. Before boarding, Lin Tao sent Fang Yisong a message to let her know that she and Jiang Yan were coming home for the summer.

Fang Yisong called her back right away. She didn’t say much — only that she had arranged for someone to pick them up at the airport, and that they would have dinner together in the evening.

After hanging up, Lin Tao noticed a notification pop up from the reminders app on her phone.

— 15 days until the due date.

The child’s due date.

Lin Tao put her phone away and leaned back against the cool surface of the chair. “Before long,” she said quietly, “I’ll probably have a little brother.”

They had been together long enough that Jiang Yan knew all about her family situation — including the entire backstory of this younger sibling-to-be.

Jiang Yan closed the laptop resting across his knees and glanced at her sideways, as if gauging the state of her mood.

Lin Tao curved her eyes and looked back at him. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Nothing.” Jiang Yan looked away. He was about to open his laptop again and pick up where he had left off, but after thinking it over, he let it go instead. He reached over and wrapped his fingers lightly around hers.

This was his small habit when he wanted to comfort someone.

Lin Tao felt something warm settle in her chest. She hooked her fingers through his and smiled. “I’m not unhappy.”

She looked out through the thick, clear glass at the sunset outside the airport and said softly, “When I was little, seeing other people with brothers and sisters — I was actually quite envious. I used to think, if I had an older sibling too, wouldn’t that be wonderful? An older brother or sister isn’t possible now, but having a younger brother doesn’t seem so bad either.”

Jiang Yan shifted and tucked his laptop into his bag, then said lightly, “Then we can always make an effort.”

Lin Tao looked at him, puzzled. “Make an effort at what?”

“Make an effort to ensure our children don’t envy other people for having siblings.” Jiang Yan smiled as he said it.

“……”

A few hours later, the plane touched down at Xicheng International Airport. Lin Tao and Jiang Yan hadn’t packed much — just one suitcase between them.

The moment they came out of the terminal, the driver Fang Yisong had arranged came forward and took their suitcase. His manner was respectful. “Madam is already waiting at home.”

Lin Tao smiled. “All right, let’s head straight back then.”

The car got onto the elevated road and drove steadily in the direction of the city center.

Two years earlier, Lin Yongcheng had purchased a villa in the Fujiang Garden complex in the city center. After renovations the following year, the whole family had moved out of the densely-packed Fujiang residential estate and into Peijiang Garden, where even the trees were imported cultivars.

When Lin Tao and Jiang Yan arrived, Fang Yisong was in the kitchen preparing dinner. The housekeeper was at her side helping. Hearing the sound of the car pulling up, she passed the ladle to the housekeeper, told her to keep an eye on the heat, then washed her hands and came out of the kitchen.

Lin Tao and Jiang Yan were changing their shoes at the entryway. Lin Tao looked up, saw Fang Yisong, and smiled as she went over. “Mom, what are you cooking? It smells wonderful.”

Fang Yisong smiled back. “Squab and ginseng soup. One of your father’s business partners sent him some ginseng roots from Changbai Mountain a couple of days ago. I thought since you two have been so busy at school, I’d make a soup to nourish you both.”

As she spoke, the three of them moved into the dining room and sat down.

Fang Yisong asked the housekeeper to bring out the white fungus and snow lotus root congee she had prepared earlier. “Have some of this first to tide you over — your father probably won’t be home until seven tonight.”

“Sounds good.”

The three of them sat together chatting. Fang Yisong asked after Jiang Yan’s studies. She had heard from Lin Tao that his stomach wasn’t in the best shape, so she also reminded him to take better care of his diet while at school.

Jiang Yan responded agreeably.

Lin Tao stirred her spoon and said with a smile, “Mom, you should say more to him. Whenever I say anything, he lets it go in one ear and out the other.”

Jiang Yan — who was committed to maintaining a good impression in front of his elders — “……”

Fang Yisong looked at the two of them, warmth and affection filling her eyes. “Ah Yan, you really do need to take better care of yourself. So many illnesses start from carelessness when you’re young — it’s only when you’re older that you end up suffering for it.”

Jiang Yan nodded. “Understood.”

Fang Yisong didn’t linger in conversation. Once the two of them had finished their congee, she got up and went back to the kitchen to carry on with dinner. Lin Tao and Jiang Yan went upstairs to their rooms.

During the renovation, Fang Yisong had specifically set up a room for Jiang Yan. Knowing that he often spent long hours at the lab at school, she had even converted the room next to his bedroom into a study by merging the two spaces.

Lin Tao went to her own room to sort out the clothes from the suitcase, then took the bag containing Jiang Yan’s change of clothes — which he had packed along with hers — into his room.

When she got there, Jiang Yan was already at his laptop, typing away. The words on the screen were individually legible to her, but assembled together they became a language she couldn’t parse.

“You really are incredibly busy,” Lin Tao said. She set the bag of clothes to one side, slipped off her shoes, and curled up on the couch. “Is everyone in your laboratory this busy?”

Jiang Yan’s hands kept moving. He said, in an even tone, “No.”

Lin Tao leaned forward and flipped through the books on his desk. “I knew it.”

Jiang Yan looked up at her. “They’re busier than I am.”

“……” Lin Tao paused mid-movement and pressed her lips together. “Forget I said anything.”

Jiang Yan let out a low laugh, then closed the laptop and set it aside. He reached over and pulled her into his arms in one easy motion. “Do you know what I want to do when I’m not busy?” he murmured.

Lin Tao tilted her head back to look at him, her gaze guileless. “What?”

He leaned down. His warm breath was close — lips just touching hers, barely a distance at all, as he slowly spoke.

“Kiss you.”

“……”

Lin Yongcheng indeed came home late that evening. Fang Yisong’s squab and ginseng soup had been reheated three times over.

During dinner, Lin Tao recalled the date she had seen that afternoon and mentioned casually, “Isn’t Ye Jing due soon?”

Fang Yisong had been busy lately and hadn’t paid close attention to the timing — she only had a rough idea. But Lin Yongcheng remembered clearly. “Almost time. The doctor said the due date is the twelfth of next month.”

Lin Tao didn’t dwell on it, and smiled. “If the baby comes three days later, we’d share the same birthday.”

Fang Yisong put some dishes into Lin Tao and Jiang Yan’s bowls and said warmly, “If he and you share a birthday, that would truly be a matter of fate.”

Lin Tao raised an eyebrow slightly. “Maybe they really will share one.”

As if the couple was still being careful not to make Lin Tao feel out of place, the conversation about the child didn’t continue for long. In the meantime, Lin Yongcheng turned to Jiang Yan’s research topic, and the talk drifted toward recent developments in domestic and international diplomacy.

Lin Tao listened with a growing headache and redirected her attention to chatting with Fang Yisong about interesting things from school.

After dinner, Fang Yisong and Lin Yongcheng went to their study to deal with work matters. Lin Tao and Jiang Yan had nothing pressing to do, so they went out for a stroll around the neighborhood.

No matter how many years passed, a summer night was never free from the ceaseless racket of the cicadas.

The evening breeze was gentle and the night sky thick with stars. Of all the three hundred-and-some days and nights through all four seasons, summer evenings were always the ones most likely to leave a person intoxicated by the world.

Jiang Yan and Lin Tao walked side by side along a tree-lined path filled with Chinese sycamores.

After a stretch of quiet, Jiang Yan spoke. “Are you really not bothered by it?”

“Hm?” Lin Tao looked up at his profile, silvered by moonlight, feeling somewhat confused. “Bothered by what?”

Jiang Yan kept it brief. “The child.”

“Ah……” Lin Tao lowered her head and gave a small laugh. “Would you believe me if I said I wasn’t bothered at all?”

He nodded, then realized she was looking down and couldn’t see it, so he made a soft sound of acknowledgment.

Lin Tao let out a sigh, her voice carrying a quiet weight. “Honestly, I can’t say I’m completely unbothered. But I can’t say I’m very bothered either.”

She looked down, her smile not quite reaching its full depth. “Besides — some things aren’t things I can avoid just by being bothered. What’s meant to happen will happen. So for something you can’t escape, being bothered or running from it is worse than just facing it with equanimity.”

Jiang Yan pressed his lips together. The French sycamores on both sides of the path were lush with full branches, their leaves stirring with the wind, casting shifting silhouettes across the ground. His voice, carried away by the breeze, came from a little further away. “From now on, with me, you’re allowed to be bothered by anything.”

“Be bothered by my smoking and drinking, be bothered when I don’t eat properly, be bothered when I get so busy I can’t give you enough attention.” His gaze settled on her, steady and certain. “Whatever you want to take issue with — you’re allowed to take issue with it.”

At those words, something in Lin Tao’s chest felt as though it had been pricked — a sharp sting, followed by the gradual spread of a sour ache.

Her eyes reddened. She only said one word: okay.

……

The evening breeze picked up, and the tree canopy swayed gently, dappling shadows all around.

Two figures walked slowly into the distance, their voices left behind by the wind.

“Then right now — I’m bothered by the fact that you get so absorbed in your lab experiments you forget about me. Does that mean you can genuinely be less busy from now on?”

A pause in the wind, and then sound again.

“No.”

“……”

Before the summer vacation of Lin Tao’s third year came to an end, Ye Jing gave birth smoothly at the hospital to a baby boy.

Lin Yongcheng named him Lin Qichen, drawing from a verse in the Classic of Poetry, Odes of Lu — Panshuei: “Those distant people of Huai, come to present their treasures.” The name carried the meaning: precious as a rare treasure.

With a son at last, Lin Yongcheng had thought that with one daughter and one son, he had achieved the ideal — the character for “good” made whole. But as it happened, things did not go as hoped.

Only a few days after Lin Qichen was born, he was diagnosed with congenital heart disease. When the news reached Fang Yisong, she collapsed by the hospital bed.

Lin Yongcheng, too, did not sleep for the entire night. It was as if he had aged years in a single moment.

But fortunately, after a rigorous series of examinations, specialists confirmed that Lin Qichen’s condition fell within the mild range of congenital heart disease in newborns. With intervention therapy and surgery, recovery was essentially achievable.

To care for Lin Qichen, Fang Yisong temporarily set aside her work. Lin Yongcheng also reduced the frequency of his business travel.

Lin Tao’s longtime friend Meng Xin had gone into medicine because of her elder brother, who had died of congenital heart disease at birth. Throughout university she had been researching in that direction. When she learned of Lin Qichen’s condition, she sent his case file and related materials to her mentor, Professor Gu Cheng, who had made a name for himself in cardiac surgery.

During the winter semester of Lin Tao’s fourth year, Professor Gu Cheng organized a temporary team of specialists at Jing’an City First People’s Hospital and arranged a surgery for Lin Qichen at the start of the new year.

The surgery lasted five hours.

Lin Yongcheng and Fang Yisong waited outside the operating room. Lin Tao and Jiang Yan stood nearby. When the operation was halfway through, Meng Xin and Guan Che also rushed over from school.

Lin Tao glanced at her parents standing to one side and said quietly, “Let’s go to the waiting area.”

The four of them walked to the seating area in the main hall. They had barely settled when Guan Che stood and walked to the vending machine, returning with three cans of coffee and one carton of milk.

He gave the coffee to Jiang Yan and Lin Tao, and kept the milk for Meng Xin.

Meng Xin held the carton without opening it, focused on comforting Lin Tao. “It’s going to be fine. Professor Gu analyzed the failure rate of the surgery beforehand — it’s not high.”

“I know.” Lin Tao finished saying it, then let out a breath.

Jiang Yan opened one of the coffee cans and handed it to her. “Don’t worry.”

“Mm.”

More than two hours later, Professor Gu Cheng emerged from the operating room. His forehead was dotted with fine beads of sweat. When he met Lin Yongcheng and Fang Yisong’s eyes, his expression was relaxed. “The surgery was very successful. You can set your minds at ease.”

At those words, the weight that Lin Yongcheng and Fang Yisong had been carrying finally lifted. There was so much they wanted to say but couldn’t find words for. All they could manage, over and over, was: thank you.

Behind them, the four who had rushed over all breathed out in relief as well. Lin Tao braced a hand against the railing along the wall, looked up, and saw that outside the window — at some point while they had been waiting — snow had begun to fall again.

The world was vast and white. Snow swirled and drifted.

This winter, it seemed, would not be so hard to endure after all.