When I came out of Mr. Wang’s office, it was already midnight.

Heavy snowflakes drifted down from the grayish-purple sky. The streetlight cast a thin glimmer of light and shadow, falling on Cheng Xia’s car.

“Didn’t you say you’d go back early?” I said wearily.

“It’s fine. I’m best at waiting for people anyway.” He closed the book in his hands and opened the passenger door.

“How did it go?”

“What else could it be? I resigned,” I said. “I was originally planning to retire at his place.”

Actually, things like attitude didn’t matter to me at all. The key point was that he repeatedly tested the boundaries of the law. His intentions weren’t good. Sooner or later something big would happen.

Cheng Xia smiled, saying with great certainty, “Otherwise you wouldn’t have lasted long there anyway.”

“Why?”

He let out a long breath and said, seemingly changing the subject, “Architecture emphasizes rigor and balance, but if you go to the countryside and look at those old houses, there are tons of them with unstable foundations and chaotic structures. Yet they somehow remain habitable. They don’t collapse today, they don’t collapse tomorrow. Everyone just muddles through vaguely, fooling around, and life goes on.”

He turned to look at me and said softly, “But you can’t live like that.”

I quietly turned my head to look at him. The snowy ground was silver-bright, but his smile was very warm.

“No matter what circumstances you’re in, you’ll fight desperately to climb upward,” he said to me with a smile. “Even if it’s your eightieth birthday.”

In that moment, my heart felt as clear and bright as the snow color at this moment.

Yes, I wanted to keep climbing upward forever.

It wasn’t enough to just have money. I wanted more freedom. I wanted dignity, decent work, to live with bright hope in my heart. I wanted to build architecture that could make people happy.

I always told myself to be content, but I was originally this kind of greedy person. I couldn’t settle for just getting by. This was my fate.

“Come on, I’ll treat you to a meal!” For a moment, I felt heroically ambitious.

“I don’t eat anything after six in the evening,” Cheng Xia said.

Then he took out a very exquisite lunch box from the back seat and said, “But I brought you dumplings.”

There were two kinds of dumplings—cabbage filling and celery filling—fresh and crisp. Dipped in vinegar and chili oil, they were very refreshing. He also brought a thermos of dumpling soup.

I ate until I broke into a slight sweat, my stomach and heart both warming up.

Cheng Xia truly had willpower. He didn’t take a single bite, just smiled and watched me eat. “Is it good?”

I said, “Where did you buy these? They’re especially, especially good!”

“I made them myself.”

I looked up. “You?”

I thought of Zhou Ting. Were all men into cooking nowadays?

But Cheng Xia—he was the person who back in the day could even make spicy hot pot taste like pig feed.

“Yes.”

He casually pulled out a tissue and wiped my mouth, saying, “Everything is expensive to eat abroad, so I gradually practiced. What else would you like to eat?”

This gesture was too intimate. I reflexively dodged away.

For a moment, we were both a bit awkward. Cheng Xia handed me the tissue, then turned his body to face forward.

At this time, the snow was falling heavier and heavier. It had already accumulated quite thick. A group of girls were walking through the snow, holding happiness characters and red basins, chattering and in high spirits. One of the girls wore a red qipao with a down jacket over it, surrounded by the others in the center.

“Is that the bride?” I asked.

“She’s probably getting married tomorrow.”

The day before the wedding, people generally entertained guests who had come from far away. Then the bride and bridesmaids stayed together at her parents’ home, waiting for the wedding day.

“Getting married in such cold weather,” I casually remarked, tidying up the lunch box. “Let me wash this for you.”

“No need,” Cheng Xia said. “Keep me company for a while.”

“Big brother, it’s one o’clock. I’m unemployed, but you still have to work tomorrow.”

“Keep me company. Please.”

He just looked at me like that, his gaze tender and vulnerable, pleading.

Cheng Xia—that was Cheng Xia. I felt infinitely heartbroken.

He reclined his seat. The two of us half-lay in the driver’s seat, listening to a Cantonese song singing slowly:

That story ended hastily

Before dying, already buried

…

Even though when we meet again we’ll be strangers in a vast sea

This life I’ll probably never stop thinking of you

The snowflakes slowly drifted down. The windshield wipers swept intermittently.

Cheng Xia and I were still like before—we didn’t have much common ground, so we didn’t chat much when we were together.

But strangely, this silence wasn’t awkward. Instead it was very comfortable.

Just staying with him like this, not saying anything, not doing anything, just watching the heavy snow in the middle of the night—I didn’t feel lonely.

“How’s your illness now?”

“I haven’t had episodes for several years,” he said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t dare come find you.”

“That’s good.”

The heat was drowsy. Combined with being full, I slowly closed my eyes and said, “Cheng Xia, do you remember in high school when I borrowed ‘Inuyasha’ from you?”

“Mm.”

“Back then all our classmates liked Kagome. Only I liked Kikyo. She said something: Inuyasha, once the red string of fate breaks, it can never be reconnected.”

In the old days when horses and carriages were slow, a lifetime was only enough to love one person.

But now the pace was too fast. Three or four years felt as distant as a past life.

Since we had both been reborn into new lives.

Those overly intense loves and hates—there was no need to pick them up again.

I was too tired.

I just fell asleep like that, leaning on the passenger seat.

I had many chaotic dreams. Sometimes I dreamed that Mr. Wang brought a group of burly men to cause me trouble. I resisted with all my might. His face twisted and transformed into Chi Na’s face. I seemed to return to that pitch-black night on the grassland.

Sometimes I dreamed that back then I had stayed and married Cheng Xia. I held his hand walking on the beach at sunset. We had two big dogs and three children…

The colors in the dream were all like old paper, gradually becoming unclear.

What I lost was a life. What I gained was a better life.

When I woke up, the sky wasn’t yet bright. Under the warm-colored lights, Cheng Xia was looking out the window. The heavy snow was still falling profusely.

“What time is it? How did I fall asleep?” I sat up while asking drowsily.

“It’s four o’clock,” he said, then pointed at the building entrance ahead. “Look.”

The household celebrating the wedding was a storefront building. Outside the door pasted with happiness characters, the accumulated snow was already three feet deep.

But right in front of the door, there was actually a bouquet of red flowers placed there. They should be peonies, blooming brightly and fully.

“Is this some kind of custom?”

“I just looked it up. There’s a saying that the day before a woman gets married, her brother or father sends a bouquet of peonies. Peonies in ancient times were also called ‘jiangli,’ expressing reluctance about the woman leaving home.”

“Huh? Sending them at this time? Won’t the flowers freeze?”

“He sent them.”

Following Cheng Xia’s direction, I saw a young man, tall and upright. He stood with his arms crossed, leaning against a car, quietly watching that door. Snow had already accumulated all over him.

After a while, a makeup artist hurried over. The bride opened the door. She saw the bouquet.

She didn’t pick it up, nor did she glance at the boy over there. She just let the makeup artist in.

Then the photographer came, and family members from her parents’ home came in droves. The sky gradually brightened. Firecrackers sounded. Joyfully, the groom arrived.

In the ten-thousand-zhang glow of dawn, he carried away his bride on his back.

And that boy, later he got in his own car, quietly watching all of this.

His flowers were on the ground, trampled by people, crushed, kicked aside forlornly.

We witnessed like this, by chance, a heavy snow and a story known to no one.

“I think he’s probably not her brother. He should be someone who had a secret crush on this bride, sending her off one last time,” I said.

Cheng Xia laughed lightly and suddenly said, “If you get married one day, I’ll also send you off.”

I was stunned and turned to look at him.

“You don’t have many people from your parents’ home. I’m afraid people will bully you,” he said softly. “Then I’ll wait for you forever, just like you once waited for me.”

I felt uncomfortable for a moment, not knowing what to say. After a long while, I said, “How long will you wait?”

He smiled slightly and said, “Until I no longer love you, or until you fall in love with me again.”