For safety’s sake, the driver had been moving at quite a cautious pace. At several points during the journey, Nan Chu was tempted to shove him out of the seat and take the wheel herself — and yet there he was, leisurely sharing his insights on the art of navigating mountain roads.

The windows were shut tight, the space was narrow, and Nan Chu sat bundled in a mask and scarf, sweating through her own thoughts, unable to remove either without difficulty. Her mood had dropped to a point where she was seriously considering throwing herself out of the moving vehicle.

Fortunately, two hours and forty minutes later, the driver delivered her smoothly to the doors of the fire station.

Nan Chu collected her luggage and got out, asked at the guard post, and learned that the crew had just gone out on a call. So she stood beneath the camphor tree by the entrance and waited.

The snow was still falling — picking up now, great thick flakes drifting down in sweeping curtains. Nan Chu buried her hands in her pockets and stamped her feet, breath puffing out in small white clouds. The cashmere coat she wore offered practically no warmth; underneath it was a spring-weight blouse, and below that a color-blocked skirt. Apart from the scarf at her neck, every other part of her was at the mercy of the austere northern wind.

Her phone buzzed twice inside her pocket. She didn’t want to take it out — the cold was bone-deep.

A message from Yan Dai: “Have you arrived?”

She replied with a voice message. Her voice came out clear and cool, but noticeably unsteady. “I’m here.”

“Have you seen him?”

“Not yet.” Nan Chu drew a breath. “It’s freezing here.”

Yan Dai: “Didn’t you bring warm clothes?”

Nan Chu gripped the phone and looked wordlessly down at the suitcase at her feet, stuffed to the brim with what she considered her most carefully chosen outfits. “No.”

Female celebrities were notorious for choosing style over warmth. Without exception, their knees gave out to arthritis, swelling and aching with every rain. Nan Chu, having come up through modeling, was worse than most — if a garment wasn’t pretty, she simply wouldn’t wear it.

“Go buy something in town. Don’t freeze yourself sick.”

The two of them traded idle messages for roughly an hour, until the sky began to dim.

Nan Chu’s head had accumulated a fine layer of white fluff, and she was on the verge of passing out from the cold.

Just then.

They came back.

A red fire engine turned in through the gate. Seven or eight men climbed down. Lin Luxiao was the last off.

As he was pulling off his gloves and helmet, the guard post called out to him, “Someone’s here to see you! A woman!”

Lin Luxiao was still working off one glove when he instinctively looked out toward the gate.

There, against the pale expanse of sky and earth, stood a slender figure. A red scarf at her neck. Standing side by side with the fire engine, they made a striking pair.

His heart slammed against his ribs — once, twice, three times —

Every feeling he had settled in that moment, and the sudden lurch of it made Lin Luxiao lower his head with a small, self-mocking laugh. What are you panicking for? Get a grip.

Behind him, Zhao Guo narrowed his eyes, trying to make out the figure beneath the tree — but Nan Chu had her mask on, covering half her face. What he could see: a slight frame, fashionable clothes. Even from a distance, there was clearly something different about her. He leaned in, nudging Lin Luxiao with an elbow, his grin loaded with implication. “Ex-girlfriend? It’s her, isn’t it? Is it her?”

A squadmate nearby couldn’t take it. “What are you getting excited about? It’s not your ex-girlfriend—”

Zhao Guo kept his eyes fixed on the figure by the gate, squinting determinedly.

Lin Luxiao stood still for a moment, gave a light, derisive sound, and then Zhao Guo pressed up to his ear with a flurry of whispered questions — until Lin Luxiao had thoroughly had enough. He pressed his glove directly into Zhao Guo’s face and, without a word, strode toward the gate.

Nan Chu had spent the last hour rehearsing the expression she would wear when she saw him. She reached up to pull off her mask — she wanted him to see her clearly — and had barely touched the strap at her ear when her wrist was caught and held.

A year apart.

And yet somehow, she felt as though time itself had slipped — as though the fragments of memory she carried were all relics of a previous life.

They were meeting again in wind and snow, fat flakes settling on his shoulders and crown, disappearing almost as soon as they landed, leaving no trace.

As if hinting that even that small shared past of theirs had been absorbed and dissolved by this storm.

It was only when Lin Luxiao closed his hand around her wrist — keeping the mask in place — that any of it felt real. His palm was exactly as she remembered: broad, warm, steady. Safety in a single grip.

She had been frozen half to death.

Her wrist where it showed above the cuff was bloodless — to the touch, colder than the snow itself.

“What are you doing here?” He gave a cold laugh.

Nan Chu blinked, startled. Her curved lashes trembled slightly as she looked up.

Against the sweeping white, the man was stone-faced, looking down at her from a slight height. His dark eyes were striking against the pale, and they held a clear and present anger.

The young woman smiled — eyebrows arching up, the corners of her mouth lifting — and ignored his hard tone and the unfriendly edge beneath it. “Looking for you.”

“Looking for me for what?”

Lin Luxiao released her wrist and pushed his hand back into his pocket. A short, incredulous sound escaped him, swallowed by the wind.

She had stood in this wind and snow for the better part of an hour. Cold as it was, his reception was somehow even colder. Though she was used to it by now — the early days of chasing him had been worse than this.

She had just made a bet with Yan Dai. Yan Dai had said he was stubborn and that this whole thing was unpredictable.

Nan Chu had been unhurried in her reply: “He won’t be able to hold out long.”

No matter how hard the attitude, once things got going below the belt — how long could any man hold out?

Yan Dai had rolled her eyes. “You’re so full of yourself! Fine, go ahead, since you’re so certain!”

Nan Chu blinked, the curve of her eyebrows lifting into a smile. Behind her, the vast pale landscape receded into backdrop. “Then I’ll just say it plainly.”

His dark eyes fixed on her without blinking.

“I’m here to pursue you.”

He couldn’t help it — a short, surprised laugh broke through. The corner of his mouth lifted in spite of himself.

About a minute passed.

His expression cooled back to something flat and expressionless. He stood perfectly straight, the wind lifting a few strands of black hair at the crown of his head. It was only then that Nan Chu noticed his hair had grown out a little. “You can leave now.”

All these years.

Something had been growing, solidifying, changing.

Da Liu and Shen Mu had both said it — Lin Luxiao had a ruthless streak buried deep in him. Cold-blooded when he wanted to be.

When he finished speaking, he shot her a contemptuous look and turned to go. Nan Chu reached out and caught his sleeve. She said, “I’ll wait for your call.”

He shook her off in one sharp motion.

Lin Luxiao had grievances, and Nan Chu understood that — after all, she had been the one to end things at the height of what they had, unilaterally, and he hadn’t agreed. She admitted to herself she had been immature then. But if she could go back, she would make the same choice again. In those circumstances, she hadn’t been able to continue a relationship steeped in mockery and public scrutiny with a clear conscience.

She couldn’t bear to watch the man she loved being ground into the dirt by public opinion while she hid inside her own world.

And she hadn’t been able to use her promises to bind a man, not when the world she’d been inhabiting had no light in it, no visible future — not when she had spent long stretches of time believing that perhaps this was simply how things would be for her.

Her soul was loyal, but it also had its pride.

She could have abandoned the whole world for him.

But she could not endure the world abandoning him.

And she had come here now with a full measure of patience and the intention to win him back.

Lin Luxiao pulled his hand free. “Go. Stop looking for me.”

He turned and walked back inside without once looking back — that retreating figure absolute and decided, as though he genuinely had no intention of returning. Nan Chu stood watching him go, biting her lip, arms on her hips, and found herself laughing despite herself.

……

In the dormitory.

The atmosphere inside was like a live broadcast — everybody too curious about Lin Luxiao to pretend otherwise, all wanting to see how he handled a woman.

The moment Lin Luxiao shook Nan Chu’s hand off.

Zhao Guo yanked the curtain aside and howled, “Holy — are they filming a Korean drama out there?!”

His roommate crowded in, “Could you make out what she looks like?”

Zhao Guo tried every angle — cupped his hands around his eyes, produced a small pair of binoculars — and still couldn’t get a clear look. “She’s got a mask on. But she’s definitely beautiful. No wonder that guy had no interest in my little cousin — this is a completely different league—”

Outside in the snow, Lin Luxiao pushed his hands into his pockets, and with a face of perfect blankness, walked back through the station doors.

Zhao Guo dropped the curtain. “Hell, he’s back.”

The room instantly shifted — figures flashing to their respective spots.

When Lin Luxiao entered, some were doing push-ups, some were doing pull-ups, one had hooked his feet over the bar and hung upside down. A scene of perfect, harmonious industry—

He didn’t look at any of them. He went directly to his bunk and began taking off his jacket without a word.

The others stole sideways glances at him, then at each other.

Zhao Guo snuck a look toward the window. Out there in the vast white, that small flash of red hadn’t moved.

“Ahem—” He put on a deliberate cough.

Lin Luxiao finished removing his jacket and moved on to his undershirt, expression unchanged.

“Ahem, ahem—” Zhao Guo coughed again.

Lin Luxiao picked up the washbasin beside him and walked out without turning around, leaving behind one dry remark: “Something wrong with your throat?”

That provoked Zhao Guo into chasing him to the bathroom.

Lin Luxiao set the basin in the sink, turned on the tap, and before the water had even a chance to warm, plunged his face down into both cupped hands and scrubbed hard.

“Is she really your sister-in-law?” Zhao Guo asked.

Lin Luxiao went still. Head still bowed, both hands braced on the rim of the sink, water dripping along the lines of his face, down in slow trails.

Then he raised his head and looked at himself in the mirror.

There was anger burning in his chest — the kind that couldn’t be contained — and then, quietly, he let out a defeated laugh, and pressed it back down.

“She came to get back together with you?”

He said nothing.

Zhao Guo continued quickly, “Honestly — in my experience, women are like that. When they leave, they make all the drama in the world. Then after all the drama, they decide maybe it wasn’t so great out there after all, that maybe the old life wasn’t so bad, and they come running back… Though, not to say anything else, it’s genuinely freezing out there.”

Having said that, Zhao Guo tucked his chin into his collar and walked away.

When Lin Luxiao came back from washing up.

Zhao Guo gave a meaningful look, and another roommate said casually, “Luxiao, that woman’s still out there—”

……

Nan Chu had no sense of direction. She wasn’t sure where to go, and didn’t want to wander off and get lost. Head down, she was trying to find her bearings on her phone — wherever she went, she needed to know where the station was first, and ideally find a hotel somewhere nearby.

She was still working this out.

A crunching sound came through the snow ahead.

A shadow fell across her. Her phone was taken from her hand. She was about to cry out — and then her peripheral vision caught a pair of military boots. Her gaze travelled upward: camouflage trousers. She looked up, and her eyes lit up with surprised delight. “Why did you come back down?”

The screen on her phone was open to the five-star hotels near her on the food-and-services app.

Lin Luxiao glanced at it, closed the screen, and with one hand picked up her suitcase. He tilted his chin in a direction. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“Do you want to keep standing out here freezing?” He raised an eyebrow. “Follow me.”

Nan Chu followed.

Two figures in the snow — one tall, one slender — moving in single file.

There were no hotels for several hundred meters in any direction.

Lin Luxiao took her directly to the family quarters attached to the fire station, tucked behind the compound. In the courtyard, a woman was sitting behind a counter knitting a sweater. She looked up as the two came in and called out warmly, “Mr. Lu! Is this your girlfriend, come to visit?”

Lin Luxiao asked Nan Chu to get out her ID card, then gave a small smile and corrected the woman with patience: “My surname is Lin, actually. I think you might have forgotten.”

The woman smacked herself on the forehead. “I keep hearing Zhao Guo and the boys call you Luxiao-Luxiao, so I assumed the Lu was your surname! So sorry, my memory!”

Lin Luxiao laughed. “Not at all.”

Nan Chu handed over her ID.

The woman took it, scanned it, noted the details, handed it back, and said with a cheerful smile, “There you go! Up you go, you two.”

Nan Chu thought the woman had excellent instincts. She answered brightly, “Thank you very much—”

Lin Luxiao picked up the suitcase, gave her the back of his head as he walked, and pushed her lightly upstairs without leaving her a single moment to say anything further.

Inside the room, the family quarters were clean and well-lit and surprisingly spacious — even the bedding had been folded in precise, regulation squares, clearly the work of someone trained in military discipline.

……

“Is this the family quarters?”

Nan Chu looked around the room, then moved to stand by the window. A white expanse outside. Directly across: the fire station.

Lin Luxiao set down the luggage and leaned against the wall, hands in pockets. “Hmm.”

Nan Chu pulled her gaze in from the window and turned back to look at him with a small, warm smile.

Lin Luxiao straightened up. “There are no hotels in town. Once the town bus is running, you head back. I’m going.”

He had barely turned to go.

“I’m not leaving.” Firm as before.

That, apparently, was the thing that finally did it — a lit match to a year’s worth of accumulated powder. He rounded on her, furious: “What the hell do you actually want?”