After bidding farewell to Shan Chong, nothing eventful occurred on the way back to her room. The young girl’s face remained serious, her lips tightly pressed together. Upon entering the elevator, Wei Zhi inadvertently glanced at her reflection in the mirror. At that moment, for no apparent reason, tears burst forth like a flood unleashed.
Crouching in the elevator, she wept uncontrollably until it reached her floor. With a “ding,” the doors opened, and Jiang Nanfeng stood outside.
Looking at the small figure huddled in the corner, Jiang Nanfeng didn’t even bother to say “I knew it.”
“Did someone die?” she asked expressionlessly. “It must be worth such heartbreak. I’d be disappointed if it wasn’t a matter of life and death.”
Jiang Nanfeng wasn’t surprised in the least.
Wei Zhi had always been a crybaby. She cried when she fell, when she received notes from boys when she scored 85 on elementary school tests, and even when she scored 100. She cried over setbacks and even when there were none. The peak incident was on the day of the college entrance exam results. She called Jiang Nanfeng, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe, terrifying the latter who thought she had forgotten to write her name on one of the exam papers.
Later, it turned out she had scored 603 points.
In the three mock exams before the college entrance exam, her scores were 602, 601, and 608.
“It’s not that,” Wei Zhi sniffled as she exited the elevator, looking utterly dejected. “I just realized that tomorrow the ski resort will still be open, operating normally, with people continuing to ski. It suddenly made me very sad.”
Jiang Nanfeng, naturally not understanding the logic behind this, didn’t bother to ask. She handed Wei Zhi a tissue while muttering, “I’ll thank the ski resort owner on your behalf for such sincere ‘well-wishes’.”
“Don’t be sarcastic. When you’re in a bad mood, even thinking about the sun rising tomorrow can make you want to cry.”
“As long as you know your mind isn’t quite right,” Jiang Nanfeng rambled on. “Did you go down to see that bargain teacher of yours? Did you say a proper goodbye this time? You’re not going to be all absent-minded like before, are you?”
Wei Zhi’s voice was hoarse, heavy with nasal tones: “I wasn’t absent-minded earlier either.”
Jiang Nanfeng ignored her nonsense: “So, did you say goodbye?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Did you delete him from WeChat?”
“Why would I do that?” Wei Zhi said, and at the mention of her teacher, she let out another sob, tears threatening to flow again. “I still need to learn skiing from him.”
“You’re not bothered that he’s a fraud?” Jiang Nanfeng asked. “Wasn’t it you who was lying in bed at noon, cursing while deleting all the competition videos from your phone?”
Wei Zhi sniffled, her tone soft and innocent: “This afternoon in the park, I heard them say that frauds charge six thousand yuan per lesson.”
Jiang Nanfeng: “And?”
“He doesn’t charge me,” Wei Zhi said. “It’d be foolish not to take advantage of that.”
Jiang Nanfeng: “…”
The next day.
The plane left a clear trail in the azure sky before finally landing steadily in Nancheng.
In November, Nancheng was just entering the season of intense Indian summer. As the cabin door opened, a wave of heat rushed in. The young girl curled up in her seat and opened her eyes groggily, caught off guard by the hot air that enveloped her face.
Rubbing her eyes, she lifted the blanket covering her legs and glanced out the window.
Outside, the scene was one of blue skies and white clouds, clear and bright. All she could see was a sea of green mountains and farmland, with no snow-capped peaks in sight.
She turned off airplane mode on her phone, and the first thing that popped up was the weather interface she had left open before boarding. Next to Nancheng’s icon was a big sun, with the temperature showing 31°C.
Right below Nancheng was Zhangjiakou, Chongli District, with a temperature of -7°C and a snowflake icon.
It was snowing again in Chongli.
Before she could dwell on it, her newly connected phone sprang to life with unread WeChat messages popping up one after another, from several hours ago and a few minutes ago:
From two hours ago:
[Mom: Have you arrived?]
[Mom: I’ve made plans with Uncle Han and Aunt Zhang for dinner tonight.]
[Mom: The driver from Nanfeng’s family will pick you up later. Go home first to freshen up, don’t look slovenly and give a bad impression.]
From an hour ago:
[Dad: Dinner with the Han family tonight, your mom arranged it, don’t blame me.]
From half an hour ago:
[Han Yiming: Have you arrived?]
[Han Yiming: I’ve made plans with friends tonight, so I won’t be joining. Can you have dinner with the parents by yourself?]
[Han Yiming: Call me when you arrive.]
Opening WeChat, besides the private chats from these three close contacts, there were some unread group chats where friends were chatting idly…
And that was it.
Scrolling down, the Crayon Shin-chan avatar was still at the part from last night when he asked her to come downstairs. She tapped his avatar to enter his Moments, and saw an update from an hour ago:
A photo taken from a cable car shows the snow-covered mountain top shrouded in white mist, with snow falling heavily.
This Moments post had no caption.
Taking a deep breath, Wei Zhi closed the short video, feeling a surreal sense of disconnect, as if she had left a fairy tale picture book and returned to reality.
Out of some final stubbornness or other strange sentiment, she didn’t delete the Zhangjiakou weather forecast. Instead, she exited all interfaces. Remembering the commanding tone in a certain person’s WeChat message, she went to her call log, then opened her contacts, scrolled down to the middle, found the name “Han Yiming,” and pressed the call button.
The phone rang for a long time with no answer.
Wei Zhi waited patiently until a cold female voice on the other end announced, [The user you’re calling is unavailable at the moment, please try again later]…