There was a commercial building in the city center, its blue glass reflecting the same blue sky and white clouds. Pushing open the heavy glass revolving door, the warmth from inside rushed out, carrying the scented air from the cosmetic counters.
The second floor was the home appliance section, and the third floor was the clothing section.
They took the escalator up. People came and went, the lighting was bright, and the mannequins in the glass display windows wore season-appropriate short down jackets and corduroy trousers.
When it came to making a choice, Xin Hexue found it difficult.
The stand-collar down jacket he had picked out came in two colors, pure white and navy blue. He thought both were fine.
After holding them against the mirror to compare, Xin Hexue sought opinions: “Big Brother, Lu Yang, which color do you think looks better?”
Zhuang Tongguang looked for a while and suggested, “You could try both on.”
Xin Hexue took off the thin padded coat he was wearing over his clothes. He was wearing a light gray high-neck sweater underneath. The indoor heating was sufficient, so he tugged at the collar to breathe.
The collar revealed a small section of his neck. The gray sweater made his fair skin even more prominent. Upon catching a glimpse of that patch of skin and the delicate Adam’s apple, Zhuang Tongguang’s eyelid twitched for no reason.
Xin Hexue casually handed his original padded coat to Lu Yang to hold, and tried on the navy blue one first.
He turned in front of the mirror, observing from different angles.
Lu Yang cheered him on: “Looks good.”
He changed into the white one. Lu Yang still cheered: “This one looks good too.”
It proved that the person themselves was good-looking.
Xin Hexue glanced at the mirror and couldn’t help but curl the corners of his lips, looking very self-aware.
“So which one to choose?”
The most important question had to be addressed.
Lu Yang held Xin Hexue’s padded coat in his arms, scrutinized seriously for a moment, then nodded: “Both are fine. You look good in anything, even a sack, even without clothes…”
Before he could finish, Zhuang Tongguang suddenly cut him off sharply, “Lu Yang!”
“Ah?” Lu Yang asked innocently. “What? Brother Tongguang, I haven’t finished praising him yet. If there’s something, tell me later.”
He turned back to Xin Hexue: “You’re the type where the clothes rely on the person, the saddle relies on the horse…”
Although it was weird and he misused the idiom, one could roughly understand Lu Yang’s meaning.
As for that sentence, he just wanted to emphasize Xin Hexue’s superior natural attributes.
But Zhuang Tongguang had a ghost in his heart, so he thought everyone else had shameful corners in their hearts like he did.
Only then did Lu Yang have time to respond to Zhuang Tongguang. “Brother Tongguang, why did you call me just now?”
Zhuang Tongguang’s expression remained unchanged. “Nothing. Where are we eating at noon?”
“You’re hungry already? It does seem like it’s almost lunchtime.” Lu Yang raised his wrist to check his watch. “Let’s eat at the top-floor food court later.”
But Xin Hexue remembered something. “Wait, let me ask Lin Oufei for his opinion.”
Lin Oufei didn’t have decision paralysis; he was more reliable than these two.
He handed the down jackets for Zhuang Tongguang and Lu Yang to hold, asked them to wait for him in the store, and went to a phone booth inside the mall. He returned quickly.
He happened to have brought coins out in his padded coat pocket.
The red public phone booth was in the corner of this floor, with a closed glass door. Pulling it open and entering created a quiet, isolated little space.
Xin Hexue picked up the handset, took a coin from his pocket, inserted it into the coin slot, and dialed the landline number Lin Oufei had told him before.
“Beep, beep…”
After the long tone, it connected abruptly.
“Hello, who are you looking for?”
The person answering had a clear, mature masculine voice.
“Hello, may I ask if this is Grandpa Zhou?”
Xin Hexue had heard from Lin Oufei that his father’s surname was Zhou. This voice sounded like Lin Oufei’s grandfather.
The other person asked doubtfully, “Who is this?”
Xin Hexue said politely, “Hello, Grandpa Zhou. I’m looking for Lin Oufei. I’m his friend.”
“Oufei.” The grandfather on the other end of the phone raised his voice, seemingly calling out to someone in the distance. “Your friend called here.”
Perhaps it was his imagination, the old man’s voice seemed somewhat displeased.
The receiver on the other end was placed on the table. Xin Hexue heard a lot of background sounds…Lin Oufei’s grandparents’ house seemed to have many people, children crying, adults talking loudly…
The chaotic sounds were eventually replaced by a calm, clear voice.
“Hello.”
“Lin Oufei, it’s me.”
Not having heard his good friend’s voice for a long time, Xin Hexue spoke a bit happily.
Lin Oufei’s hand holding the red wooden receiver tightened. The aloof aura surrounding him gradually faded, like ice melting. The corners of his lips, usually straight or even slightly downturned when he wasn’t smiling, lifted into a very subtle curve.
“I know,” he said, lowering his cold eyes. “I gave the number to only you.”
As soon as winter break started, Lin Oufei was taken back to the provincial capital by his mother. He had been waiting for Xin Hexue to call him.
Xin Hexue asked after him, “How are things at your grandparents’ place? Are you happy? Are they good to you?”
Lin Oufei’s face had already darkened again, but his tone betrayed no abnormality, flatly saying, “It’s alright.”
The landline phone was installed in the grandfather’s study, close to the courtyard.
Through the window, several children in the yard were running around wildly, pulling and tagging at each other until they fell to the ground, wiping their noses, and wailing loudly. Adults came over, talking over each other.
The Zhou family was a large, extended, and very traditional family. So traditional that Lin Oufei’s mother had been there as a sort of housekeeper for almost half a month, and hadn’t even sat at the dining table for a meal.
Lin Oufei, who sat with his father at the main table, couldn’t eat. He felt nauseous, and often left halfway to go to the kitchen, only to be chased back by his mother.
Lin Oufei couldn’t think of a reason why his mother was so unwaveringly devoted to his father.
In the entire Zhou family, he had many uncles, aunts, and so on. His father, Zhou Taining, was indeed the most successful one, but this was thanks to him marrying the daughter of a leader.
However, that woman had passed away due to illness long ago; now, she was referred to as Zhou Taining’s ex-wife.
Zhou Taining marrying the leader’s daughter was marrying up. The ex-wife also left a son, whom the maternal grandparents cherished dearly.
Lin Oufei’s mother was the second wife, but they didn’t even have a marriage certificate and she wasn’t formally married into the family. The Zhou family’s explanation was that they were afraid the eldest son wouldn’t accept a stepmother, which might cause dissatisfaction from his maternal grandparents. The Lin mother and son were like a small family raised outside. Zhou Taining would visit when he was in a good mood, and phone calls were scarce when he wasn’t.
The Zhou family had a tradition of stepping on those below while propping up those above. The two elders, seeing the golden phoenix of the ex-wife beforehand, looked down even more on Lin Oufei’s mother for coming from a small place and a minor family, and were unwilling to damage the relationship with the former in-laws.
It wasn’t until Zhou Taining’s eldest son went abroad to study two years ago that the deadlock loosened somewhat. Seeing that the other, neglected grandson also had quite outstanding grades, they thought about adding a bit more family happiness.
Lin Oufei found it ironic.
He lowered his gaze, pretending not to see the scene in the yard, and asked the other end of the phone, “What about you?”
“Same as usual,” Xin Hexue said.
They chatted about recent life and progress of their holiday homework.
Although Lin Oufei disguised himself very well, Xin Hexue keenly sensed that the other party’s voice seemed somewhat suppressed.
Xin Hexue tried to lighten the mood and change the subject: “I’m at a mall now, buying new clothes for the New Year. I picked out a down jacket, but there are two styles, navy blue and pure white. I can’t decide. Which color do you think suits me better?”
Lin Oufei didn’t hesitate. “White.”
He remembered Lu Yang also had a navy blue down jacket.
“Okay.” The phone booth was in the corner of the floor. Xin Hexue’s gaze happened to fall outside the commercial building’s glass window. Suddenly, he said, “Lin Oufei.”
Lin Oufei responded, “Hmm?”
“It’s snowing here.”
Xin Hexue’s attention was caught by the white snowflakes falling outside the window. Inside the phone booth’s glass, he was like a small figure inside a snow globe.
People walked around the mall, but in this small globe, the world was quiet. Inside and outside the receiver, they listened to each other’s breathing.
Lin Oufei looked at the sky; it was a gloomy day, with no wind or snow, oppressively dull and depressing.
The yard was so noisy it made people anxious. Lin Oufei said, “I want to see Lingzhou’s snow too.”
With a two-and-a-half-hour car ride away, of course he couldn’t see it in person. By the time the snow reached the provincial capital, it wouldn’t be Lingzhou’s snowflakes anymore.
“Aren’t you coming back to have New Year’s Eve dinner with us this year?”
Since third grade, this was the first year the three families hadn’t had New Year’s Eve dinner together.
Xin Hexue just felt a bit regretful.
The call, however, cut off as the three-minute time limit ended. “Beep, beep…”
Xin Hexue felt around in his pocket for another coin, but after thinking about it, decided not to call back.
He came out of the phone booth, returned to the clothing store, and bought the pure white down jacket set. Zhuang Tongguang, who had not only inherited Xin Zhiying’s cooking skills but was also good at bargaining, haggled the 400-yuan price down by half. Finally, they left carrying the clothes in a paper shopping bag.
Lu Yang also bought Xin Hexue a maroon scarf to match.
After buying all the New Year clothes, they went to the top-floor food court at noon, ordered McDonald’s and pearl milk tea, which was powdered, with a strong taro flavor.
There was a roller skating rink nearby, but they didn’t go play. They still had a few New Year’s goods that Xin Zhiying had asked them to buy. By the time they got home, it was already evening.
On New Year’s Eve, the two families gathered at Xin Hexue’s house.
Early at noon, when the sun was warm, they bathed with water soaked with pomelo leaves and changed into new clothes.
The tube building was soon filled with the aroma of food…someone was killing chickens and slaughtering geese, someone was curing sausages and salty meat, hanging them on the balcony, and someone was lifting river crucian carp by the tail and frying them in an oil pan where they sizzled until fragrant, then added water and tofu to simmer into crucian carp tofu soup.
Halfway through the process, the four adults slapped their sweaty foreheads, remembering they had forgotten to make the New Year’s Eve dinner dumplings, so they dragged the three children over to help.
As night fell, the Spring Festival Gala played on TV.
The adults busily brought dishes from the kitchen to the living room. Remembering to lift the pot lid, a pot of strangely shaped dumplings was also ready to be served.
Zhu Cuifeng smacked Lu Yang’s arm. “I told you to wrap dumplings, not play with modeling clay!”
A few dumplings had died unjustly and under strange circumstances, the torn wrappers and filling floating in the pot.
Lu Yang raised both hands in surrender: “It really wasn’t me!”
Xin Hexue glanced at the crime scene and found those dumplings somewhat familiar. He quietly carried his bowl farther away.
The adults couldn’t catch the real culprit of the dumpling case. Zhuang Tongguang had no choice but to sigh and, like an older brother taking the blame when his younger brother broke a vase as a child, said, “It was me.”
After a busy day, they finally sat down around one table in a lively atmosphere.
Amidst the sounds of the Spring Festival Gala on the indoor TV and the fireworks blooming in the suburban outdoors, his name came from downstairs.
“Xin Hexue.”
Xin Hexue’s hearing was sharp. He put down his bowl, ran to the corridor, and looked down. It was an unexpected person. “Lin Oufei? How did you get back?”
The tall, black-haired boy wore a dark gray down jacket outside, the hood of his sweatshirt on his head, casting deep shadows. One had to look up, using the light from numerous households, to see his features clearly.
Snow dusted his shoulders and hood. The bus drivers had stopped running and gone on holiday at noon today; it was unknown how Lin Oufei had returned.
Xin Hexue ran downstairs, pulling him along. “Come on, come upstairs quickly and have New Year’s Eve dinner together.”
Lin Oufei looked at the hand pulling his jacket, answering the previous question: “I came back to see Lingzhou’s snow.”
