She suddenly remembered the day she had the aftereffects of the interview. The supermarket TV was broadcasting the news that "former president's wife Lin Wanqing won a humanitarian award." Her hands, gripping the shopping cart, were trembling violently. Ah Yu suddenly covered her eyes from behind: "There's only lavender scent now." At that moment, "La Vie en Rose" was playing over the supermarket's loudspeakers. His breath fell behind her ear, sounding just like the rain during their reunion in Paris.
The door was blown open by the wind again. When Danzeng got up to close the door, Zhong Hua suddenly noticed something familiar hanging on his waist—it was the doorplate that Ah Yu had made at the guesthouse, a modified version of her father's brass key, with the initials of three people's names engraved on the back.
"Brother Yu asked me to give this to you." Danzeng took off the nameplate and handed it to her. "He said if he can't get back, he wants you to hang this at the entrance of the observatory so he'll know the direction home is."
The brass of the doorplate gleamed from wear. Zhong Hua's fingertips traced the engravings on the back—Z, Y, L. The three letters, worn smooth by time, resembled three closely pressed pebbles. She remembered the day Ah Yu repurposed her father's brass key into the guesthouse doorplate. When Zhong Hua engraved these three letters on the back, he was squatting beside her, adding firewood to the fireplace, the flames dancing on his eyelashes.
"Ms. Lin also said, 'Tenzin added a piece of dry wood to the stove, and sparks flew onto the ground.' 'With the money awarded to the victims in the Gu family inheritance case, she and Ah Yu used your name to establish the 'Truth Foundation,' specifically to support journalists like you who pursue the truth.'"
Zhong Hua's throat suddenly tightened. She remembered the guesthouse in Provence, where Ah Yu had found Gu Yanting's suicide note and pulled out a video of the arson scene from a hidden compartment. The fire in the fireplace was blazing then, casting their shadows on the wall like two animals seeking warmth from each other.
The emergency lights went out completely at that moment. Zhong Hua groped in the dark and hung the sign behind the observation station door. As she turned around, she knocked over her notebook on the table. Papers were scattered all over the floor. The top one was a glacier profile she had drawn. In the corner of the drawing was a small doodle—three little figures holding hands standing on the top of a snow-capped mountain, holding balloons tied together with red strings.
She drew this at the observatory last year, intending to surprise Ah Yu on his birthday. Now it seems like a premonition drawn by fate long ago.
The snow had stopped sometime earlier. Zhong Hua wrapped her coat tighter around herself and stepped out of the observation station, noticing the first light of dawn on the horizon. The distant glaciers shimmered with a pale blue light in the morning glow, like a sapphire left behind by God. She suddenly remembered the plane ticket Lin Wanqing had sent, with a note tucked inside that read: "Go after the person who fills your phone's photo album."
My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was a text message from an unknown number with only one photo—Ayu was lying on a hospital bed in Lhasa, her right leg in a thick cast, holding a paper airplane with a small camera drawn on the wing, the lens pointed at the snow-capped mountains outside the window.
The sender's name is "Lin Wanqing (Africa-Paris)".
Zhong Hua suddenly burst out laughing, but tears streamed down her frostbitten cheeks. She raised her camera, pressed the shutter, and the snow-capped mountains, the morning light, and the prayer flags in the distance suddenly seemed to have warmth in them.
Tenzin appeared behind her unnoticed, holding a cup of freshly brewed butter tea: "Miss Lin said that after you come down from the observatory, she brewed mulled wine at her guesthouse in Paris, and the rims of the glasses have already been wiped clean."
As Zhong Hua took the teacup, the silver ring on her ring finger glittered in the morning light. She remembered how Ah Yu proposed in the snowy mountains; his left hand held dried lavender flowers, and his right hand held the jade pendant his mother had sent him, his hands trembling like fallen leaves in the autumn wind.
Then she suddenly smiled: "Look at the clouds on the horizon, don't they look like the rain when we first met?"
Standing at the entrance of the observation station at an altitude of 5,000 meters, Zhong Hua finally understood what Lin Wanqing had said: "A true confidante is someone who shields you from the thorns of fate and clears a smooth path for you."
She looked down to reply to Lin Wanqing's text message, her fingertips slowly tapping on the frozen screen:
"Tell Ah Yu that once I've finished compiling the final glacier data, I'll go back and teach him how to fold paper airplanes that can fly across the Lancang River. Oh, and don't forget to keep the fireplace in the guesthouse burning brightly. I brought a stone I picked up from the glacier and want to put it in the most prominent spot on the fireplace."
As the notification of successful delivery popped up, the roar of a helicopter could be heard in the distance. Zhong Hua looked up and saw the "International Rescue" logo printed on the fuselage. The snow spray kicked up by the propeller landed on her eyelashes, much like the rain during their reunion in Paris that year.
She raised her camera and pressed the shutter. The blue sky, the propeller, and the gradually becoming clearer rescuers in the viewfinder suddenly turned into warm colors.
It turns out that the so-called distant place is never a geographical distance, but rather the place where the longing in one's heart can reach. Just like the silver ring on her ring finger at this moment, no matter whether it's across snow-capped mountains, grasslands, or oceans, one can feel the warmth emanating from the other end.
Zhong Hua turned and walked towards the observation station, preparing to collect the final data. The brass key plaque behind the door swayed gently in the wind, making a crisp sound, like someone whispering in his ear:
"Waiting for you to come home."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
