The snow in Changbai Mountain has weight.
Yu Jiuyuan stood on the second-floor terrace of the observation station, her fingertips twirling a snowflake that had just landed on her cashmere scarf, watching it curl into tiny water droplets in her body heat.
Downstairs, the sounds of astronomy club members moving equipment drifted by. The sound of metal supports scraping against the snow was torn to shreds by the wind, mingling with the occasional flapping of wings from startled birds in the distant woods, sounding more like a natural rhythm than the morning reading bell of St. Sakura Academy.
"Isn't the student council president cold?"
A gentle voice came from behind me, still slightly warm from just stepping out of a heated room.
When Yu Jiuyuan turned around, Rong Shenghan was leaning against the balcony door frame, holding two folded windbreakers in his hands. The light gray one still had some snowflakes stuck to the corners, which she had left in the conference room that morning.
"Wait for President Xie to confirm the observation point." She took the windbreaker and draped it over her arm, looking down at the building over his shoulder. "Perfectionists have a more rigorous definition of the 'best observation angle' than the student council charter."
Rong Shenghan smiled but didn't reply. He walked to her side and stood by the railing, his gaze fixed on the distant mountain ridges dyed indigo by the twilight.
The snow reflected the sunlight, making his amber pupils look like they were covered with shattered diamonds, but Yu Jiuyuan always felt that beneath that gentle glow lay something colder than the deep valleys of Changbai Mountain.
"What do you think the chances are of seeing the aurora tonight, Vice President?" she suddenly asked.
“The weather station says it’s 70 percent.” Rong Shenghan turned his head, the fine snowflakes on his eyelashes trembling slightly. “But President Xie’s star chart prediction is 83 percent.”
He paused, his fingertips tapping unconsciously on the railing. "But I trust the chairman's intuition more."
Yu Jiuyuan raised an eyebrow. She knew how much of a test was in Rong Shenghan's words.
As the newly appointed vice president, he always manages to say the most subtle things in the most appropriate tone, like brewing tea with lukewarm water; by the time you realize it's too hot, you've already swallowed it.
"My intuition is only responsible for arranging the late-night snack."
She turned and walked downstairs, pausing as she passed him.
“Yuan Xu has been soaking in specimen solution in the lab for three days. If he doesn’t come out soon, he might have to recognize his white mice as relatives. Vice President, please go and call him. Tell him that if he misses tonight’s aurora, his newly cultivated cold-resistant moss may not see its kind again until next year.”
Rong Shenghan watched her retreating figure as she wrapped herself tightly in her windbreaker and went downstairs, the smile in his eyes fading slightly.
The edge of her down jacket's hood swept across the snow on the steps, leaving a faint arc, just like her—always on a precise trajectory, yet always drawing unexpected curves.
In the activity room on the first floor of the observation station, the heating pipes were hissing.
Yuan Xu was indeed still squatting in the small experimental area that had been temporarily partitioned off. The hem of his white coat was covered with some dark green powder, mostly lichen samples he had dug up in the woods that morning.
When Yu Jiuyuan pushed open the door, he was holding a magnifying glass to a slide, his brows furrowed like a squirrel disturbed from munching on a nut.
“Researcher Yuan,” she knocked on the doorframe, “if you don’t go and claim your observation spot soon, your ‘Nighttime Snow Microbial Activity Record’ will be missing a set of control data.”
Yuan Xu suddenly looked up, her gold-rimmed glasses sliding down to the tip of her nose, revealing her overly focused eyes.
He stared at Yu Jiuyuan for two seconds before hurriedly taking off his gloves, as if he had just stepped out of the world of a microscope: "Does the aurora affect the release cycle of lichen spores?"
“Who knows?” Yu Jiuyuan smiled gently. “Perhaps the unusual magnetic field tonight will bring a pleasant surprise to your sample.”
That hits the nail on the head.
Yuan Xu immediately stood up, still clutching the slide in her hand, and almost knocked over the specimen box in the corner as she hurried out.
Yu Jiuyuan reached out and steadied the box. When her fingertips touched the edge of the box, she caught a glimpse of the neatly stacked glass jars inside.
The bottle on top contains a rare butterfly pupa that she helped him find at a biology competition last year. It has now become a complete specimen, with the phosphorus powder on its wings gleaming with a faint blue light under the lamp.
"Thank you, President." Yuan Xu's ears turned a little red, probably because he remembered how the two of them had spent three weekends searching for this butterfly chrysalis in the rainforest pavilion. His favorability rating on the system panel jumped and stopped at 69.
Yu Jiuyuan watched him run out the door with the specimen box in his arms, and suddenly remembered that when she first met Yuan Xu, he would always hide in the last row of the biology lab and stare blankly at the frog specimens on the dissection table for an entire afternoon.
At that time, she deliberately made a mistake on the student council's plant procurement list, forcing him to come to her office every week to check the scientific names of rare species.
Watching him go from stammering "ferns, phylum Lycophyta" to now being able to naturally discuss the chromosome atlas of mosses with her, her 69% favorability rating seemed to have been slowly preserved in countless specimen jars, carrying a touch of damp patience.
"What kind of lousy place is this?"
A sharp complaint came from the other end of the activity room, carrying the arrogance unique to teenagers.
Lin Yanran was throwing her windbreaker onto the back of the chair, the zipper hitting the metal chair leg with a screeching sound.
His limited-edition snow boots, covered in mud and snow, left a trail of messy footprints on the pristine floor, clashing with his perfectly tailored down jacket.
When Yu Jiuyuan walked over, he was bending over to tie his shoelaces, his profile as stiff as a block of ice.
When he first arrived at the observation station yesterday, he stubbornly said, "This kind of rural place is only fit for my dad to punish me by sending me here."
As a result, he got a nosebleed that night because the heating was too strong. She found an ice pack to put on his forehead, and at that time, the favorability rating on the system panel jumped from 1 to 2, like a handout.
“The duties of student council members include keeping public areas clean.” Yu Jiuyuan pushed the tissue box in front of him. “Or should I read Article 3 of the Student Council Code of Conduct again?”
My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
