The north wind blew fine snow across the blue brick walls of the military compound, and icicles hung on the branches of the locust trees.

Aunt Wang wrapped herself tightly in her blue cotton-padded jacket. The white breath she exhaled condensed into frost on her scarf, and the cabbage stalks in the bamboo basket were frozen solid.

The crowd crowded under the eaves of the message room and stamped their feet to keep warm. Aunt Li's hands were red from the cold as she was sewing shoe soles, and the needle kept slipping.

"In this horrible weather, if the notice doesn't come, the letter will be frozen into a lump of ice."

Aunt Zhang pushed her reading glasses while wearing woolen gloves, and the lenses were immediately covered with white mist.

Aunt Zhao held the enamel pot and huffed, the tea in the pot had long lost its heat: "My kid said his hands were stiff on the day of the exam, and he didn't know if he could pass the exam..."

Aunt Zhang hunched her neck and wrapped herself tightly around her cotton-padded jacket. Her chapped fingers unconsciously stroked the edge of her scarf. The white mist she exhaled condensed into tiny ice crystals in the cold air. "I don't know whose letter this is. It's so cold, and it's really not easy for the postman to deliver a letter."

She stood on tiptoe and looked into the distance, with a thin layer of frost on her reading glasses. "Look at that bulging mail package. Who knows, it might be the good news of some promising child..."

Before he finished speaking, Aunt Li beside him came over, rubbing her hands. The frozen radishes in the bamboo basket collided lightly with her movements, making dull sounds.

The broken snow fell on Lin Zhiyue's shoulders. She sat in front of the window with a book in her hand. The ginkgo bookmark between the pages was slightly curled up by the heater.

The gossip floating in from outside the window was like the north wind in winter, rustling the glass but never able to penetrate the mist-covered window.

Aunt Wang said "country girls are just pretending", and Aunt Li commented "she must be nervous about the exam". These words mixed with the whistling wind and slipped away between her fingers as she turned the pages of the book.

When Mu Yuchang kicked the door open angrily, she saw Lin Zhiyue circling the function graph with a red pen, and the tip of the pen was rustling on the draft paper.

"Those gossipers are gossiping again!"

Mu Yuchang put her red, frozen hands on the radiator and said, "I've heard three times that you will definitely fail..."

The voice stopped abruptly, because Lin Zhiyue didn't even raise his head, but just turned the notebook half a circle. The densely packed problem-solving steps on it were like precise gears, glowing quietly under the desk lamp.

"Let them say what they want."

Lin Zhiyue closed the pen cap. The snow outside the window suddenly fell faster, but it made the smile in her eyes brighter. "The real answer is never in other people's mouths."

She stood up and opened the window. The cold wind blew snow into the house, but the noisy discussions were completely blown away by the howling north wind.

Mu Yuchang looked at Lin Zhiyue's profile outlined by the snow, and suddenly remembered the girl under the grape trellis who said with certainty that "computers will change the world in the future."

At this moment, tiny snow crystals fell on the other person's eyelashes, which were more dazzling than ever.

"Joy!"

Mu Yuchang suddenly rushed over and hugged her friend, rubbing the warm scarf across Lin Zhiyue's red earlobes, "When you go to Beijing University, I will record these people's words into a tape and make them a joke for you to listen to!"

She deliberately used an exaggerated tone, but could not hide the sob in her voice.

Lin Zhiyue smiled and patted her on the back, and suddenly heard a commotion downstairs.

The moment Lin Zhiyue opened the window, a biting cold wind blowing with snow flakes blew in her face.

The crowd downstairs pushed and shoved their way towards her house. The noise was mixed with the crisp sound of breaking thin ice. Aunt Wang's bamboo basket fell to the ground, and the frozen cabbage rolled far away.

"Look! Isn't that Deputy Mayor Mu?"

The crowd suddenly exploded with exclamations.

A black car slowly drove into the compound, and the city leaders quickly got out of the car on the snow. The director of the Education Bureau held a scroll wrapped in red silk in his arms, and the cashmere scarf of the president of Peking University was still stained with frost from the journey.

The most eye-catching thing was a dozen students holding banners. The scarlet silk fluttered in the wind and snow, and the large gold-plated characters "Congratulations to Lin Zhiyue for being the top scorer in the national college entrance examination" were so bright that people could not open their eyes.

Mu Yuchang tightly grasped Lin Zhiyue's wrist, her nails almost digging into the flesh: "Zhiyue! You are actually..."

Before he could finish his words, the sound of firecrackers was drowning him out.

Outside the compound wall, citizens who heard the news stood on tiptoe to look. The sound of bicycle bells, children’s screams and the bursting of colored paper mixed together.

Lin Zhiyue leaned against the carved window frame, her hair messed up by the wind, but it made the light in her eyes shine even brighter.

When the president of Kyoto University walked up the stairs holding the admission letter, she suddenly thought of the days and nights filled with gossip.

It turns out that all the persistence will eventually bloom into the grandest echo at a certain moment when the snow falls silently.

Aunt Wang clenched her red, frozen hands, and the cabbage stalks in the bamboo basket fell "plop" onto the snow. She opened her mouth but could not utter a word.

The silver needle Aunt Li used to sew shoe soles fell to the ground with a clang and pierced into the snow without her noticing.

Aunt Zhang's reading glasses slid to the tip of her nose. Her cloudy eyes widened. The frost on the lenses turned into water droplets as she breathed hard. "How is this possible?"

Aunt Zhao's bamboo chair slipped on the ice, and she hurriedly held onto a tree trunk to steady herself. The herbal tea poured out of the enamel pot instantly froze into ice.

A few middle-aged women who were standing on tiptoe to look around looked at each other, their faces paler than the icicles hanging from the eaves.

There were gasps from the crowd, mixed with the sound of snowflakes falling to the ground. The harsh discussions from before disappeared without a trace like dead leaves blown away by the north wind.

Aunt Zhang's Adam's apple rolled up and down, and she was unaware that the frosted scarf had slipped off her shoulders.

She staggered two steps and crushed the ice at her feet, and suddenly heard the sound of her teeth chattering.

Aunt Li squatted down to pick up the silver needle, but her frozen fingers slipped from the snow three times. In the end, she could only watch the needle tip shining coldly in the snow.

"Quick, quick, get out of the way!"

The whistles of the military district guard platoon tore through the stagnant air.

A jeep carrying a red silk banner came speeding through the snow, and the snow mist raised by its wheels hit the faces of the onlookers.

Aunt Wang was pushed into the corner, and the scattered cabbage leaves in her arms were covered with mud and snow, but she no longer had the heart to pick them up.

She stared at the four gilded characters "National Number One Scholar" on the banner, and she felt as if the ink was turning into a slap, hitting her hard on the lips that were still gossiping just now.

Aunt Zhao's hand that was holding the tree trunk suddenly spasmed, and the enamel pot slammed onto the icy stone road with a "clang". The cracks caused by the vibration were very much like her shattered self-esteem at the moment.

Someone's scarf in the crowd was blown away by the wind, and rolled into a pale arc in the air, just like the dissipating ridicule and contempt.

When the president of Kyoto University stepped onto the snow-covered steps of the Lin family, he could hear a few suppressed sobs mixed in with the gasps.

I don’t know if it was the cold wind that made my eyes red, or if it was the truth that pricked my conscience.