Chapter 64 Heavy Snow at Sea That night, heavy snow blanketed the sea, as if stars were falling...

This summer, after the middle school entrance exam, Ye Yuying didn't even have time to enjoy a leisurely vacation before her grandmother's sudden passing plunged the entire summer into gray sorrow.

At the beginning of the year, she spent the Lunar New Year with her grandmother in her aunt's hospital room, which turned out to be the last time in her life.

Jiang Xinxue didn't appear until the night before her grandmother's burial. Ye Yuying stood behind the crowd, looking at her well-dressed mother with icy eyes, before looking away.

She harbored a lingering resentment towards her mother, believing that Jiang Xinxue was merely putting on an act for the sake of public opinion.

There wasn't a single tear in Jiang Xinxue's eyes, nor was there any joy. Her shrewd eyes froze and went blank for a moment when she saw the memorial tablet.

Guided by the monk in charge of the ritual, she knelt on the prayer mat and solemnly lit an incense stick. But how much sorrow she felt in her heart was something no one could say for sure; only Jiang Xinxue herself knew.

After offering incense, Jiang Xinxue stood up, turned around, and strode over to greet the distant relatives who had come to pay their respects, their expressions filled with grief, wearing her expensive high heels that seemed out of place.

Her relatives were filled with awe for her marriage into a wealthy family, and due to Jiang Xinxue's current status, they greeted her with a mixture of respect and fear.

After exchanging pleasantries with everyone, her beautiful gaze finally fell on Ye Yuying in the distance, and she walked towards her.

Ye Yuying's lips tightened as she stared intently at the beautiful yet somewhat empty woman in front of her, meeting her mother's gaze with resentment.

This mother and daughter, who were closest by blood but most estranged emotionally, were engaged in a silent, scrutinizing confrontation in the dim light and wisps of incense smoke of the funeral hall.

Jiang Xinxue spoke first: "Your grandmother has passed away."

She looked away, as if unwilling to look at the portrait in the mourning hall any longer. She took out a cigarette from her elegant handbag, but did not light it, just held it between her fingers. "From now on, you will have to rely on yourself even more."

Her voice, like her personality, was calm and rational, yet carried an almost cold, realistic analysis of the world.

"Anyway, I won't care about you, and you won't listen to me anyway. From now on, no matter how successful or unsuccessful you are in life, it has nothing to do with me."

After all, giving birth to you was not my original intention.

She ultimately swallowed those words back, and expressionlessly placed the unlit cigarette back into the silver cigarette case that seemed so out of place with the somber atmosphere of the place.

With a soft "click," the cigarette case snapped shut, as if closing off a painful past she no longer wanted to revisit, and severing the last trace of maternal emotion she might reveal.

"you're right."

After a long silence, Ye Yuying finally spoke.

Her voice was surprisingly calm, devoid of any emotion, like a frozen Arctic lake.

“We are not on the same path. You choose to attach yourself to a stronger light, while I choose to be myself and become the light.”

Jiang Xinxue looked up at her with some surprise, her hand holding the cigarette box tightening almost imperceptibly.

She continued in that calm tone, clearly and finally returning those most hurtful words to her mother.

"I will absolutely never live like you." A voice, still carrying a hint of childishness, rang out in the air. After saying that, Ye Yuying turned and left.

Behind her, on that beautiful face that was always well-maintained and whose real age was hard to guess, a crack finally appeared in that usually impeccable shrewdness and indifference.

That night, Ye Yuying faintly heard crying coming from the mourning hall, so she quietly walked away.

Upon arriving at the empty mourning hall, Jiang Xinxue was sobbing with her head down, a violent and uncontrollable tremor emanating from her shoulders.

Ye Yuying was puzzled. There were no more spectators now, so why was her mother crying instead? Was she really sad?

*

After her grandmother's burial, even after the seventh day memorial service, Ye Yuying was still in a daze and had to cancel several competitions and daily training sessions.

Even though her middle school entrance exam results were outstanding and she was accepted into Rongcheng No. 1 High School, it didn't stir any ripples in her heart.

She went to her aunt's hospital room every day, as if only there could she feel the last trace of family affection in this world.

She became increasingly skilled at peeling apples, and could peel the apple skin thinly and continuously.

"Ah Ying, don't forget to go to the hospital. The journey is too long, and the conditions in the hospital corridor at night are not good. My condition is stable, so don't worry."

Ye Yuying lowered her head and didn't speak. She simply used the fruit knife in her hand to carefully peel the apple, round and round. The long, thin apple peel moved continuously in her hand, just like her tangled and endless thoughts at that moment.

"I'm not tired, Auntie," she whispered. "I just want to... spend more time with you."

"Silly Aying..." Auntie stretched out her hand, which was a little swollen from the IV drip, and gently placed it on the back of Ye Yuying's hand.

"You'll be going to high school soon. I heard that the high school that admitted you is the best in the province, Rongcheng No. 1 High School. It's such a good school, and the national competition is such a big stage... That's where you should go."

"Don't let coming to see me interfere with your training."

"I'll wait for you... I'll wait for you to win that... national championship someday, and then come and show me the gold medal, okay?"

Ye Yuying stopped peeling the apple with her knife.

After a long while, Ye Yuying finally managed to squeeze out a hoarse word with a heavy nasal tone from her throat.

"……good."

*

Two weeks before the start of the semester, Cheng Mingdu found Ye Yuying, who practically lived in the hospital.

Watching her sit with her aunt, gazing out the window for an entire afternoon, those eyes that always burned with fire are now just a quiet, almost extinguished ashes.

It was the height of July, when the sun began to set in the west, and the weather was turning from hot to cool.

But late summer in Qingzhou was still sweltering. The heat, mixed with the smell of disinfectant from the hospital and the immense grief in her heart, made it almost impossible for her to breathe.

Cheng Mingdu picked her up from her aunt's hospital room and brought her back to the Cheng family home one evening.

On the way, he asked her, "Would you like to go somewhere to relax before school starts? I'll take you."

Ye Yuying looked out the car window at the sky dyed red by the sunset and the sycamore trees that looked listless in the sweltering heat, and remained silent for a long time.

Then, she turned her head to look at Cheng Mingdu and said something completely out of place in this season in a voice that was almost like a dream.

"...I want to see snow."

She looked at him, and for the first time, a genuine longing of her own appeared in his empty eyes.

"I want to go to a very, very cold place and see a huge snowfall. I want to see how, when everything is covered in pure white, clean snow, my thoughts will drift away with the wind and snow."

She wanted to use an extreme, soul-freezing cold to fight against the sorrow that was burning her to pieces.

This is an impossible wish about winter snow in the height of summer.

So, without the slightest hesitation or question, he simply gave her the answer she most wanted, in a calm tone, just as he had done countless times before.

"good."

One word, one promise. A promise that can turn seasons upside down and cross oceans.

A week later, the Argentine visa was expedited, and Cheng Mingdu booked two flights to the other side of the world.

On that afternoon, still shrouded in the oppressive heat of midsummer, she got into Cheng Mingdu's car and drove towards the airport.

Leaning back in the spacious, comfortable, fully reclining seat of first class, I wrapped myself tightly in a thin blanket, opened my eyes, and looked out through the small, oval porthole at the unchanging scenery that was alternately dominated by the sea of ​​clouds and the night.

After a long flight of dozens of hours and two transfers, they crossed the equator.

Time is flowing backward.

The seasons are reversed.

When they finally landed in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in South America, on the other side of the world, a biting wind carrying the scent of glaciers and the sea blew in through the gaps in the cabin.

She followed Cheng Mingdu out of the airport terminal, inhaling the cold, pure air of the Southern Hemisphere winter. Her heart, which had long been numb and dulled by grief, was suddenly stabbed by this extreme, clean chill, and she belatedly regained a faint sense of pain.

Here, there is none of the suffocating heat of late summer in Chengdu.

There was only boundless, cold, and pure air.

The sky was a deep gray-blue, the sea a silent inky black, and in the distance, the snow-capped mountains of the Beagle Channel stretched out like a row of silent, snow-covered giants, standing quietly at the horizon where the sky meets the sea.

This is the Southern Hemisphere, experiencing a harsh winter.

This is the end of the world.

Cheng Mingdu had already arranged everything. A small yet sturdy private expedition ship, capable of breaking through ice and sailing out to sea, was quietly moored in the harbor.

They boarded the ship.

The ship slowly sailed away from the port, heading towards the deeper and more desolate black sea that led to Antarctica.

Ye Yuying, wrapped in her thickest windbreaker and blanket, sat alone at the bow of the boat.

She looked at the ice floes of various shapes floating on the sea, and at the unidentified seabirds that occasionally flew across the sky.

Her heart, like this vast ocean, became expansive and desolate, yet, more peaceful than ever before.

She didn't know why Cheng Mingdu had brought her to the sea.

Until the following night, their ship sailed into a deep blue sea enveloped by ocean currents—

A small, hexagonal, white object drifted down from the heavy sky and gently landed on her dark glove.

He stood up from the chair at the bow of the ship, which was covered with a thick blanket, and walked to the side of the ship.

She looked up and saw the lighthouse illuminating the ice and snow.

The entire inky black sky seemed to have been completely torn apart by a pair of invisible hands, and billions of pure white, light snowflakes poured down from the torn, unseen dome.

That night, the sea was blanketed in snow, as if countless stars had fallen.

She witnessed the grandest and gentlest miracle of her life.

In this grand yet tranquil funeral amidst falling snow, the sky and the sea merged into one.

Cheng Mingdu stepped forward and stood beside her.

"Is it pretty?" he asked softly, his voice unusually clear in the utter silence of the falling snow.

Overwhelmed by the sheer awe, she could only nod vigorously, uttering a single syllable with a heavy nasal tone:

"Um!"

Ye Yuying stretched out her hand, and a cold snowflake landed precisely in her palm. Its delicate, perfect shape lingered for only a moment before melting into a drop of icy water.

At that very moment, a drop of liquid, equally cold yet warm, slid down from her long-dry eye sockets.

She wanted to bury her sorrow with extreme cold.

After a long silence, she spoke softly, almost in a whisper, with a heavy nasal tone and utmost solemnity:

"Brother... thank you."

Thank you, Cheng Mingdu.

In the height of summer, I personally present her with an impossible, all-encompassing snowfall.

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Author's Note: The next chapter will begin in an urban setting.

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