Ah Yu hummed in agreement and didn't say anything more. A corner of the firewood in the fireplace had collapsed, and sparks flew onto the fireplace wall, making a soft, crackling sound. He remembered that rainy day when they met again in Paris. The steps of Montmartre were glistening from the rain, and she was taking pictures of the sunset with her camera. When she turned around, the first thing she saw in the lens was him, and in his pocket was the plane ticket Lin Wanqing had sent him, with a note inside, wrinkled and soaked with rainwater: "Go after the person who fills up your phone's photo album."
At that time, he had 321 photos on his phone. 319 of them were of Zhong Hua—some of her sleeping in the ICU, some of her standing on the stage at a press conference with injuries, and some of her tying red ropes on a prayer wheel in Tibet. The remaining two were a group photo of the three of them from behind at a cocktail party, and a profile of Lin Wanqing distributing supplies to refugees on the streets of Paris, which he had saved from a news feed.
"The mulled wine is getting cold." Zhong Hua brought the glass to his lips, the lip print on the rim of the glass just touching the corner of his lips. Ah Yu lowered his head and took a big gulp. As the wine slid down his throat, he heard his own heartbeat louder than the crackling of firewood in the fireplace.
The snow was still falling. The sound of bells drifted from the distant valley; perhaps someone's flock of sheep hadn't been herded back and were wandering slowly through the snow. Zhong Hua suddenly pointed out the window and laughed, "Look at that sheep! The red rope around its neck looks just like the ones we tie in Tibet."
Ah Yu looked in the direction she pointed, and sure enough, there was a small red dot moving in the snow. He remembered the days in Tibet when she tied a red string to a prayer wheel, and sunlight clung to her eyelashes. He secretly tied the same string next to her, and when she caught him red-handed, she laughed so hard she couldn't stand up straight, saying, "Ah Yu, how come you believe in these things even more than I do?"
"It's better to believe than not to believe." He said that at the time, but in his heart he was thinking that as long as she could get better, he would do anything, even kowtow in the snowy mountains, let alone tie a red string.
The fire in the fireplace gradually died down, and Zhong Hua got up to add more firewood. As she squatted in front of the woodpile, picking through the pine wood, Ah Yu noticed a snowflake stuck to the back of her sweater, probably from when she went to the window earlier. He reached out to brush it off for her, but just as his fingertips touched the fabric, he heard her whisper, "I received an email from Lin Wanqing yesterday."
"What did she say?" Ah Yu's hand froze in mid-air.
“She said she’s going to Sudan next month,” Zhong Hua said, putting the selected firewood into the stove. The iron skewer made a loud noise as it hit the stones. “She also said… she saw photos of our guesthouse on a traveler’s blog.”
Ah Yu recalled the backpacker who stayed at the hotel last week, who spent three whole days taking pictures, saying he wanted to write a report about the "Land of Rebirth". He didn't pay attention at the time, but now he thinks it was probably because the blog mentioned them - mentioned the guesthouse surrounded by lavender fields, mentioned the pine wood that was always burning in the fireplace, mentioned that the hostess always liked to put an extra half orange peel in her mulled wine.
“She also said,” Zhong Hua’s voice lowered, “that next spring she would bring some seeds from Africa to plant in the lavender fields.”
Ah Yu then noticed that the iron rod in her hand had left a shallow mark on the stone slab, like an unfinished river. He walked over, gently hugged her from behind, rested his chin on the top of her head, and smelled the crispness of snow mixed with the sweetness of mulled wine in her hair. "Then let's leave a piece of land for her," he said, "plant it in the very center, and let the lavender grow around it."
Zhong Hua didn't speak, but turned around and snuggled closer to him. Her face was pressed against his chest, and Ah Yu could feel the slight tremor of her eyelashes brushing against his shirt, like a butterfly alighting on a flower stamen. The fire in the fireplace blazed up again, casting their shadows on the wall like the intertwined branches of a tree.
The snow outside the window had lessened sometime earlier, and sunlight filtered through the clouds, gilding the snow with a pale gold. Zhong Hua suddenly looked up, her nose brushing against his chin, and they both smiled. "Look at the rims of the glasses," she said, pointing to two glasses placed side by side by the fireplace. The overlapping lip prints had faded slightly from the steam, but the two crescent-shaped lines were still visible, like two fingerprints very close together.
"Does it look like our Zhang?" Zhong Hua asked.
Ah Yu looked down and saw the flickering firelight reflected in her eyes, like a whole starry sky. He remembered what Lin Wanqing said in the New Year's Eve video: "For your wedding, I will give you the starry sky as a gift." At that time, she was standing on the African savanna, with bonfires behind her and giraffes in the distance like silent exclamation marks.
“Yes,” he said, reaching out to wipe the wine stains from the corner of her lips, leaving a sweet warmth on his fingertips. “When spring comes, we’ll bury this cup in the lavender field, and maybe next year it will grow into a cup that blooms.”
Zhong Hua laughed so hard her shoulders shook. She reached out and punched him, but he grabbed her wrist. As their fingers intertwined, Ah Yu suddenly noticed a scar smaller than a grain of rice on the second joint of her ring finger—it was from last year's mudslide, when she was cut by rubble while protecting that ginkgo leaf specimen. When he found that leaf in the ravine, he thought she would never wake up again. It wasn't until he saw her eyelashes fluttering in the ICU that he dared to believe that fate could have its moments of mercy.
"The snow has stopped," Zhong Hua said, looking out the window. The sunlight had melted a small patch of snow in front of the door, revealing the withered yellow lavender roots underneath. "How about we go for a walk at the valley entrance this afternoon? I heard there's a spring there that doesn't freeze in winter."
As Ah Yu nodded, his gaze fell on the calendar hanging on the kitchen wall. Yesterday, he had circled it in red; it marked their three-month anniversary in Provence. Next to it was a sticky note written by Zhong Hua: "Remember to buy cinnamon sticks," with a crooked smiley face drawn next to the writing, the curve of the lips almost identical to the lip print on the rim of the cup.
The fire in the fireplace gradually simmered, its warmth spreading throughout the room, mingling with the aroma of mulled wine, keeping the chill outside far away. Ah Yu picked up two glasses and noticed that the lip print on the rims had faded to almost invisible, yet it seemed etched deep into the glass, impossible to wipe away.
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