Chapter 14: Snow in Chuanhai
Lazy to write new poems with a frozen brush, warming fine wine by the cold stove.
Gazing at the ink blossoms and moon’s white glow, I imagine snow covering the village ahead.
Wen Hupo softly recited the poem, savoring it in her heart several times, then compared it with the snow scene outside the window, gaining a new understanding.
“Do you like ancient poems?” Chu Jingyi sat across from Wen Hupo, separated by a desk in the activity classroom. The Class Monitor had changed into winter clothes and wrapped a scarf around her neck. Her delicate eyebrows were like crescent moons, her eyes like cold pools, resembling an ethereal fairy. Her scarf was a fiery red, the vibrant color making her skin appear even whiter.
“Somewhat.” There was a thermos on Wen Hupo’s desk, steam rising from its mouth, obscuring her expression from Chu Jingyi’s view. It didn’t really matter if she couldn’t see her face. Wen Hupo always had an impassive expression. She seemed incapable of smiling, crying, or getting angry, like an outsider detached from this world – at least that’s what Silly Goose thought.
Chu Jingyi wasn’t a difficult person to get along with. Taking away her Class Monitor persona, she was actually a very approachable girl. So naturally, she became friends with Wen Hupo. The issue of who owned the activity classroom was temporarily put aside. At least until Lu Li returned, Chu Jingyi didn’t mind letting Wen Hupo stay there.
She had never seen Wen Hupo attend classes. The blonde girl mostly spent her time setting up her easel in the activity classroom, carefully applying each stroke of paint. Occasionally, she brought her laptop and used a digital tablet to draw. Whenever this happened, Chu Jingyi would think of Lu Li’s game. Didn’t Lu Li need a good artist? Wen Hupo seemed to fit his requirements, right?
“Where’s your friend?” Wen Hupo took a sip of hot water, her stomach feeling warm. “She seems to be afraid of me.”
“Baili? Hmm… She does seem a bit afraid of you.” Chu Jingyi didn’t know why either. When An Baili faced Wen Hupo, it was like a thief encountering the homeowner, a mouse encountering a cat. She was timid, her eyes shifty, and always deliberately avoiding Wen Hupo.
She remembered a week ago, when An Baili first saw Wen Hupo, her expression was a mixture of shock, fear, and guilt. Guilt? Why guilt?
“She looks like she has a guilty conscience.” Wen Hupo said flatly.
“What?”
“My intuition tells me she did something wrong to me.” Wen Hupo’s eyes were as deep as ever. “I don’t know what it is, but only a guilty child would make that kind of expression. But the strange thing is, this was our first meeting, right?”
So perceptive… Chu Jingyi was a little surprised. She thought she was the only one with such keen observation skills. Unlike her, Chu Jingyi’s perceptiveness was introverted, hidden beneath a layer of innocence, like the filling inside a sandwich. Wen Hupo’s perceptiveness was outward, sharp and unconcealed, like a drawn sword.
“Baili is always like that, she’s very shy.” At times like this, she had to cover for her friend.
“Really?” A flicker of doubt crossed Wen Hupo’s face, but she didn’t ask further.
The two of them didn’t talk much. Often, they would sit together for a whole class period with less than three sentences exchanged. Today, Wen Hupo seemed particularly chatty. She saw a student couple playing in the snow on the playground, each writing the other’s name in the snow.
“Doesn’t your school care about puppy love?”
What do you mean “your school”? You’re a student at Chuanhai No. 1 High School now too, you know? Chu Jingyi was a little dissatisfied. “Of course they do, but they usually turn a blind eye. The couple you’re looking at, the boy is the second son of Chen’s Pharmaceuticals, and the girl is the daughter of a customs official. Their families have long known each other and arranged their engagement. For couples like them, as long as they don’t affect others, it’s fine.”
Wen Hupo didn’t say anything, but she thought to herself that indeed, every country was the same. Rules were made by people. This was a world controlled by humans. And… writing each other’s names in the snow was such a foolish thing to do. When the snow melted, the names would disappear. They wouldn’t even last that long. The snowfall the next day would be enough to bury all proof of love under layers of white snow.
As Wen Hupo was thinking this, she suddenly saw Chu Jingyi’s eyes light up. She could tell that this girl, who embodied classic Eastern beauty, was actually envious of that couple.
“Are you thinking about that boy named Lu Li?”
Chu Jingyi’s face instantly flushed a lovely pink. “Wh-why, how did you know?”
How could I not know? Every time you mention him, you look so eager, wanting to shower him with all the beautiful words in the world. But when I ask if you like him, you always hesitate and shake your head fearfully, just like a girl in love.
Wen Hupo also knew that it wasn’t just Chu Jingyi. That girl named An Baili was the same. When mentioning Lu Li, An Baili was even more enthusiastic than Chu Jingyi.
Perhaps it was a devoted fool who could make one girl fall deeply in love, but a man who could make two girls fall deeply in love would definitely not be a good person. Wen Hupo silently labeled the boy she had never met: a scumbag.
At least, she didn’t have a good impression of this boy named Lu Li. He must be the type who deliberately styled his hair to look fluffy, dressed fashionably, smoked, drove a sports car, and had been a playboy since he was eleven. He probably had a black rose tattooed on his left ankle with his first love’s name on it. But his first love only existed in the fabricated backstory he used when picking up girls.
Yes, that was the kind of boy he was. Weren’t boys like that everywhere in Chuanhai No. 1 High School? The funny thing was that this kind of shallow man actually wanted to add her to his list of conquests. They would only be met with repeated failures. Wen Hupo didn’t feel any sense of triumph, she just thought: This world was truly boring.
“Does it snow in America?” Chu Jingyi asked a silly question.
Wen Hupo answered quickly. “Yes, it does. Besides snow, there are also storms. If you don’t shovel the snow for a day, the garage door will be snowed in, and you won’t be able to drive out at all.”
“Then it must not be as beautiful as the light snow in Chuanhai.” Chu Jingyi finally understood why Wen Hupo kept reciting that poem earlier. She adjusted her bright red scarf. “Let’s go, let’s go see the snow.”
What’s so good about snow? Although Wen Hupo thought this, she still replied, “Okay.”
The two girls, like elves in the snow, walked towards the silver-covered land. As the saying went: Pine trees stand tall in the cold snow, mountain clouds blow with icy breath, red pepper buds burst forth in the light spring. And also: Winter’s dense snow sounds like shattered jade. Snow weighed down the branches. The girls’ figures had blended into this frosty land, leaving behind only two faint shadows for those who followed to imagine.
Oh, right, I forgot to mention.
It was snowing in Chuanhai today.
Leave a Reply