Shoutout to Alinaza for the commission!
Tongcheng welcomed its first snowfall not long after.
Because of that jar of wild bamboo leaves Han Yin sent, Yu Shiying had a very good impression of her, and after the first snow she had Jiang Se bring some warming niangjiu up the mountain.
Jiang Se changed her car to snow tires and slowly drove toward Hanshan Temple.
Han Yin had been ill a few times; her body couldn’t handle strong liquor. Niangjiu was mild and fragrant, warming the blood and stomach, just right for her.
“This niangjiu must have quite a few years on it?” In the bamboo hut, Han Yin tasted a small cup and said with a smile, “It’s more mellow than what I drank before.”
Jiang Se smiled: “My mom said this wine is even older than I am.”
“That really is them giving up something precious,” Han Yin said, “This kind of aged wine, every sip is one less sip left.”
Though she had never met Jiang Chuan and Yu Shiying, just from the thought they put into choosing this gift, she could tell both of them had delicate hearts.
Unsatisfied, Han Yin poured herself another small cup. “Just today I’ll break the rules and drink two cups. When you see Ah Yan next time, don’t go tattling.”
After speaking, she drank it down before Jiang Se could stop her.
Jiang Se could only say, “Then you have to promise me you won’t drink a third cup.”
Han Yin looked at her, suddenly a little emotional: “When you were little, it was you begging me to keep your secrets. Now it’s me begging you. You kids, truly, you grow up in the blink of an eye. Even Ah Yan isn’t as cute as when he was little anymore.”
Jiang Se smiled and said, “I heard from Little Chairman Lu that you’ll be leaving Tongcheng by next March at the latest. The film base will take years to finish, and old-town redevelopment even longer. Little Chairman Lu will have to keep flying here often. Why don’t you stay in Tongcheng longer?”
“If it weren’t for wanting Ah Yan to come to Tongcheng and help the Han family oversee the projects, I wouldn’t have come to Hanshan Temple at all.” Han Yin shook her head with a sigh. “Ah Yan doesn’t feel deeply toward the Han family. Even if Ah Xiao ruins the entire Han family, he wouldn’t feel it’s a pity. Now that the Lu family has joined Tongcheng’s projects, even without me, Ah Yan will keep an eye on Ah Xiao and stop him from messing around. This way, whether I stay or not doesn’t matter.”
Steam curled over the linghua teacup. Han Yin’s tea-brewing skills weren’t as good as Lu Huaiyan’s.
Jiang Se took a sip and half-joked, “If you’re not here, I’m afraid I won’t ever drink Little Chairman Lu’s tea again.”
“What’s so hard about that?” Han Yin said with a laugh. “If you want to drink, just tell me. I’ll tell him to make it for you.”
Jiang Se looked at the bamboo weighed down by snow outside the window, set down her teacup, and smiled: “Little Chairman Lu only seems like a man with seven emotions and six desires in front of you. If you’re not here, how would I dare drink tea alone with him?”
Her words made Han Yin freeze.
After divorcing Lu Jinzhong, she went away to recuperate, and for all these years never returned to Beicheng. Her meetings with Ah Yan had been pitifully few.
Every time they met, it was him coming to see her.
Watching him grow more and more cold, she had felt regret, thinking she hadn’t fulfilled her responsibility as a mother.
She shouldn’t have run away so cowardly back then.
But Ah Yan always told her that being a happy mother was more important than being a responsible but unhappy one.
These words let her feel at ease for many years.
But how could she not know, Ah Yan growing into such a cold-hearted, cold-natured person, she, as his mother, was inescapably responsible.
“Auntie Han?” Jiang Se called softly. “What’s wrong?”
Han Yin returned to herself, shook her head, and smiled: “Nothing. Just thinking you do have a point.”
Jiang Se smiled, lowered her head, and sipped her tea.
After delivering the wine and chatting with Han Yin for half an hour, she looked at her watch and got up to leave. On usual days, Han Yin would insist she stay a while longer and chat.
But today she didn’t.
After Jiang Se left, Han Yin stood alone by the window, quietly watching the snowy scene outside. After a moment, she lifted the wide sleeve covering her left hand and lowered her head to look at the scar on her wrist.
That day had also been a snowy day.
The day she committed suicide.
She and Lu Jinzhong had grown up together, and they had once loved each other. When she learned Lu Jinzhong had cheated and even had a child, only one thought filled her mind: she wanted to make him regret it, in the most tragic way.
So while wearing the wedding dress they married in, she lay alone in the bathtub, used a sharp fruit knife to slit her wrist, and when the warm water rose around her, she lay in the tub smiling like a madwoman.
But the first person who walked in that day wasn’t Lu Jinzhong, but her Ah Yan.
Only a twelve-year-old little boy, still wearing the suit school uniform he hadn’t even taken off yet, just like that, stepping on a floor full of pink water, scooped her wrist out of the bathtub.
At that time Han Yin’s consciousness was already blurry, she could no longer hear clearly what Lu Huaiyan was saying.
She only remembered that those eyes of his, always calm and restrained, were so filled with sorrow.
That was the only time in Han Yin’s life she ever saw such an expression on Lu Huaiyan’s face.
What she thought would make Lu Jinzhong regret it, that snowy day, ended up becoming the day Han Yin regretted most in her life.
That night’s snow, ah, it piled all over her Ah Yan’s shoulders.
She always wanted to go south; wasn’t it also to escape that year after year, snow day after snow day?
Lu Huaiyan came back in time, and Han Yin was saved.
After that she spent a year recuperating, and another year to get the divorce.
When she left Beicheng, Lu Huaiyan stood outside the car and told her: “Don’t worry about me. Mother, you can go wherever you want. I would rather have a mother who is selfish but happy.”
He had never once blamed her.
Han Yin lowered her sleeve, covering that hideous old scar, and sent Lu Huaiyan a WeChat: 【Ah Yan, how about Mom staying at Hanshan Temple a little longer?】
It was just past 2 a.m. in England. Lu Huaiyan hadn’t slept yet. Seeing Han Yin’s message, he directly called back.
Han Yin sighed as she picked up: “Why aren’t you asleep yet?”
“Woke up to drink some water,” Lu Huaiyan calmly lied, scrolling on his computer screen as he lightly asked, “Why the sudden change of heart? Weren’t you saying a few days ago you wanted to go somewhere warmer?”
Han Yin opened her lips, choosing her words carefully: “Aren’t you going to be coming to Tongcheng often in the next few years? If I stay in Tongcheng, it’s more convenient for you to come see me, and Mom can keep you company properly.”
Lu Huaiyan’s gaze paused slightly. After pondering for two seconds, he closed the computer and took off his glasses, saying lightly: “Who came to see you today? Grandfather or Uncle?”
If voices had temperature, then compared to earlier, his right now was probably a degree or two colder.
Han Yin laughed: “Neither. Listen to your tone when you mention your grandfather and uncle, no wonder Sese said she doesn’t dare drink tea with you.”
Lu Huaiyan lifted his eyes at that, staring at the suitcase on the wine cabinet that he had just bought from the auction, and asked without changing expression: “She came to drink tea with you today? What, she said she’s afraid of me?”
“How could Sese say something like that?” Han Yin sighed, “But you also think about it, you’re cold every day like you’ve lost seven emotions and six desires. What young girl wouldn’t be afraid of you?”
Seven emotions and six desires?
Lu Huaiyan raised a brow, silent laughter appearing: “She thinks I don’t have seven emotions and six desires?”
Han Yin: “Not only she thinks so, I think so too.”
“If you’re afraid I’ve lost my seven emotions and six desires and that’s why you want to stay in Tongcheng, then there’s no need.” Lu Huaiyan’s voice carried a faint, hard-to-detect amusement. “I’ve recently met someone who can give me seven emotions and six desires.”
Han Yin froze, momentarily unsure if she was imagining things, and quickly asked: “What do you mean by that? You have someone you like? Who?”
Lu Huaiyan lightly curved his lips: “Weren’t you the one saying my red luan star would be stirred this year? Just take it as that red star appearing. As for who it is, when there’s a stroke in our Eight Characters someday, I’ll tell you then.”
—
Before Han Yin’s call with Lu Huaiyan even ended, Jiang Se had already come down the mountain and returned to the parking lot.
Tongcheng’s winter was completely different from Beicheng’s.
Not like Beicheng’s dry cold, here the air carried a heavy dampness. When the wind blew, that wet cold drilled straight into the bones, making people shiver.
No wonder Auntie Han wanted to go somewhere warmer.
Lowering the car window, Jiang Se reached out and caught the falling snowflakes, only pulling her hand back when her pale fingers were frozen numb.
Catching sight of the sketchbook placed on the passenger seat, she pressed her lips together and drove off.
He Miao said Zhang Yue would be at the qipao shop today, so Jiang Se drove directly to Jinxiu Alley.
Likely hearing from He Miao that she would come, when Jiang Se arrived, Zhang Yue was sitting behind the counter, head lowered, flipping through a fabric book.
She was the only one in the shop. The entire outer room was so quiet even the sound of pages turning couldn’t be heard.
The only sound came from Jiang Se shaking off snow and closing her umbrella.
Zhang Yue lifted her eyes without much expression, “Little Miao said you’ve chosen the embroidery pattern.”
Jiang Se smiled and nodded, setting the umbrella outside the shop, walking in, spreading open the drawing paper in her hand, saying: “Boss Zhang, have you ever heard of the Footless Bird?”
She pointed at the bird on the paper, “This is the one I want.”
Hearing the words Footless Bird, Zhang Yue’s face instantly turned white.
Her gaze, like the drifting snow outside, slowly lowered, staring at the back half of that Footless Bird on the paper.
A long, black tail, one feather pointing up, one feather pointing down.
“Sorry, I’ve never embroidered such a bird on a qipao before. Miss Jiang, please ask someone else.”
“Never embroidered it on a qipao, which means you’ve embroidered it elsewhere?” Jiang Se looked at her, tilted her head slightly, and asked gently, “Like, perhaps, on a handkerchief someone once treasured?”
Zhang Yue pressed her lips together hard, the pale lips trembling lightly from emotion.
She closed her eyes, and suddenly remembered the man’s words before he left: 【No one can know you know me. Zhang Yue, you have never known me, remember that?】
After a long while, she looked up, staring straight at Jiang Se, voice hoarse as she said: “You don’t like qipaos, and you didn’t come to ‘Zhang Xiu’ to make a qipao. What are you here for? I’m just an ordinary person. What could I possibly have that you want?”
Her lips curved into a faint, desolate smile that smile gave her wooden, dull face a trace of human warmth.
No longer looking like a walking corpse.
The second day after taking the qipao home, Yu Shiying praised Zhang Yue’s craftsmanship while wondering why she would open a shop on such an abandoned old street with barely any foot traffic.
Before today, Jiang Se still didn’t dare be certain.
After today, she could finally be certain.
Zhang Yue was exactly the person she had been looking for.
When that man wiped the blood off her face, he had once said a barely audible “sorry.”
After saying that “sorry,” he had also said another sentence, a sentence he pressed extremely low, low like the insect hum deep in a distant mountain forest.
In the darkness, Jiang Se used countless methods to return again and again to that night, and only then finally pieced together that sentence:
【Someone is waiting for me to go back.】
—
Tongcheng’s first snow came fiercely. In only half a day’s time, it dyed Jinxiu Alley into a vast world of white.
He Miao carried two cups of hot milk tea, and from several meters away recognized Jiang Se’s back.
Not that her eyesight was good, but because Jiang Se’s temperament was too unique. Not only her temperament, but even her appearance was something greatly favored by the heavens. Using a trendy saying, she had a perfectly sculpted model face, both her features and her bone structure were top tier.
He Miao still remembered the scene when Jiang Se appeared in Jinxiu Alley.
Snow-pale skin, black hair, delicate features, fine slender bones, a swan-like neck. When she lifted her eyes to smile at her, she looked exactly like a lady who had walked out of the misty rains of Jiangnan.
Ordinary people always liked pretty faces especially, and He Miao was no exception.
Before even entering the shop, she called out warmly: “Miss Jiang is here!”
She hadn’t noticed the nearly stagnant atmosphere inside the shop. After entering, she smiled and said: “Today’s cold is going to freeze people to death, Master and Miss Jiang, do you want milk tea? I just bought it, it’s still hot!”
Zhang Yue said nothing.
Jiang Se, however, smiled a little, calmly saying: “No need, I’ll be leaving soon.”
After speaking, she lowered her head to gather the drawing paper on the counter, and while doing so said to Zhang Yue: “I know who you’re waiting for, and I know where he is. If you want to know his news, contact me, Little Miao has my phone number.”
Zhang Yue’s eyes moved slightly, something flickering past her dark pupils.
But she didn’t answer, remaining silent throughout.
Jiang Se said goodbye to He Miao and left the qipao shop.
Zhang Yue was very good at holding her ground. Jiang Se waited an entire week, and still didn’t receive her call.
The snow on the ground had piled up half a foot high, and December was about to arrive.
On the last day of November, Tongcheng’s municipal government officially announced the upcoming launch of the film-city project and the old-city redevelopment plan that included Jinxiu Alley.
On the TV, Jiang Se saw Lu Huaiyan.
Under the flashing magnesium lights, the man wore a suit and leather shoes. His sharp, cold features were softened by a pair of gold-rimmed glasses.
Yet when his dark eyes looked toward the camera, Jiang Se could still see the uniquely aggressive ambition belonging only to him.
When the press conference neared its end, Jiang Se unexpectedly received a phone call from an unfamiliar number.
Looking at the string of digits on her screen, she picked up the remote, muted the TV, and only then calmly answered: “Boss Zhang.”
The other end stayed silent for a long time, then finally a cold, almost lifeless voice slowly came.
“Miss Jiang, if you can keep the qipao shop for me, then the qipao you want, I will make it for you.”
—
After the press conference ended, the Han family hosted several celebratory banquet tables at Junyue.
The Lu Corporation was the core investor of the film-city and redevelopment project, so naturally Lu Huaiyan had to attend.
He had always moved with ease in such settings, a whole night of glasses clinking and wine exchanging. By the time he returned to the top-floor suite, it was nearly three in the morning.
Dusk-like dimness, snow falling quiet and grand.
Loosening his tie, Lu Huaiyan pushed open the glass door and stepped onto the balcony to smoke a cigarette.
Ever since coming to Tongcheng, he seemed especially prone to craving cigarettes, even though he had never particularly liked smoking.
He knew himself well, so naturally he could guess the reason.
After finishing a cigarette, Lu Huaiyan sent the originator of all this a message: 【There’s follow-up on Cao Liang’s matter, want to know?】
He had assumed the other party would be asleep by now. Who knew that the moment his phone screen dimmed, it lit up again.
A new message popped in: 【He was sent away by the Cao family?】
Lu Huaiyan stared at those few words for several seconds, then laughed.
He dialed her. The other side picked up after a short moment. He took out his cigarette case and asked: “Why aren’t you asleep?”
The man’s voice, soaked in smoke and wine, was huskier than usual. Through the line, it carried a faint itch that scratched the ear.
The computer screen was still on the search page, the homepage of the Lu Corporation. His photo from the afternoon’s press conference had already been uploaded to the site.
Jiang Se got up to pour herself a glass of water, and half-truth half-joked: “I slept too long this afternoon.”
“Can’t sleep?” Lu Huaiyan paused while flicking open the cigarette case, “I brought you a gift from Europe, want to see it?”
The matter of souvenirs, Jiang Se had heard from Han Yin.
Han Yin had even specifically asked if there was anything she liked that Lu Huaiyan could bring back from Europe.
Naturally, Jiang Se said no, but even if she said no, Lu Huaiyan would bring her a gift anyway.
Such souvenirs were merely a social courtesy, except that choosing to give it at this particular time changed the flavor of it somewhat.
Jiang Se stared at the handsome, cold face on the computer screen, her thoughts drifting without reason.
It was a damp rainy night when he grasped her wrist and asked her: “Feel it? Your entire body is rejecting me.”
It was the look in his eyes when he stood in the night by the glass corridor, lowering his head to smoke.
It was the call she received from Zhang Yue that afternoon.
It was also the long-tailed, footless bird her brush had traced onto paper.
Jiang Se closed the laptop, looked at the snow falling outside the window, and softly answered: “Okay, Lu Huaiyan, I’ll come over now to see.”
