Chapter 31: “Snow of the Northern Border” Part 1

The car rocked violently, like being adrift on a long, aimless ship, swaying and jolting with every bump.

Fu Tingli’s dream came on abruptly.

Most of it stemmed from early that morning, after every WeChat message in the small group had been hastily deleted—the moment she had placed that Flying Bird Sculpture inside. She had scoured the internet for details.

The web’s memory was fleeting, but with enough digging, fragments of the past always surfaced. What she found were scattered video clips.

In her waking hours, she couldn’t say for sure if those disjointed snippets had kept her up all night.

But in the dream, she watched it all unfold before her, heavy with suppressed gloom.

~~~

It was Kong Liyuan on her tenth birthday.

Captured in the shaky, blurry frame of a handheld camera, amid the chaotic clamor of media footsteps. Kong Yan’s hand rested on her frail, slender shoulder as he smiled at the lens and said:

“This is my one and only daughter. Of course we’re celebrating properly, no matter what age.”

Kong Liyuan’s face seemed devoid of expression—or perhaps she offered a smile at the camera, perfectly standard, without a single flaw.

The video was old, its pixels long since degraded into fuzz.

Yet in the dream, it struck Fu Tingli just how unnaturally perfect that smile was.

~~~

It was Kong Liyuan again, engulfed by a crowd under the dim glow of streetlamps, right in front of the cemetery gates.

Jiang Man—long deceased—had suddenly been outed, over a decade later, for suffering a prolonged bout of postpartum depression after giving birth to Kong Liyuan.

Kong Liyuan had just won Best Newcomer Award, dressed in an ordinary black coat and an equally plain black baseball cap that seemed almost drab in the shadows. Reporters hemmed her in on the dimly lit street.

The camera tilted upward to focus on the stone gateway, then slowly panned back to Kong Liyuan’s impassive face.

Flashes popped frantically. She lifted her chin just a fraction, her eyes shadowed beneath the brim of the cap as she gazed at the growing throng around her.

Her movements were slow, deliberate.

A cacophony of raucous, frenzied voices surged toward Kong Liyuan.

She ignored them, her gaze drifting away with lazy indifference before she slipped on a face mask, vanishing her upper face into the murky light and shadow.

For all the people crowding around her, dressed head to toe in black and hurrying past with her head down, she seemed utterly alone and adrift.

In the dream,

Fu Tingli trailed silently behind her, step by measured step. The teeming, noisy crowd morphed into a seething mass of dark water, slowly rising to lap at Kong Liyuan’s chest.

Kong Liyuan waded through the inky blackness toward even murkier shadows. Fu Tingli had nowhere else to go and followed, chilled water sloshing around her legs.

It crept up to their chins—wet, suffocating, endlessly sloshing.

Fu Tingli watched as Kong Liyuan stood in the dim street, straining to peer over the towering walls at the cemetery’s tall trees, exhaling long, weary breaths.

Fu Tingli wondered if Kong Liyuan was thinking of just scaling the wall, slipping inside—or maybe lighting a cigarette right there on the curb.

But Kong Liyuan didn’t. Instead, across the vague, ethereal distance between them, their eyes met for no reason at all.

Then Kong Liyuan smiled—not lightly, not heavily.

The water around them instantly reverted to that seething mass of people.

They surged past Fu Tingli, swarming Kong Liyuan until she was hemmed in watertight.

As if plunging underwater.

Suffocation hit Fu Tingli in a rush. It felt like she was drowning too, her heart throbbing with agonizing pain.

“Beeeep—”

The dream shattered in an instant, blasted apart by a piercing, interminable horn blast.

Fu Tingli struggled for breath, as if something heavy were lodged in her chest.

Through the haze, she heard distant, muffled arguing.

It wasn’t coming from inside their car, but from outside—filtered through the glass and the howling wind, too garbled to make out the details.

Fu Tingli’s eyes fluttered open, bleary at first.

Like a lens slowly coming into focus, the world sharpened from blur to clarity. Outside the window, snow fell in swirling, feathery flakes, drifting down beneath the jaundiced glow of streetlamps.

Had they reached the Northern Border?

She blinked in a daze, her gaze locking with the Guide’s in the rearview mirror.

“Hey, little sis is awake,” the Guide said, his voice booming as if granted some long-awaited pardon.

“What’s going on?” Her throat was parched, her voice raspy.

She pushed herself up from where she’d been leaning against the window. The next instant, something soft slipped from her shoulder.

A hand caught it deftly and draped it back over her.

She glanced down to see a scarf. And its owner, naturally, was…

Fu Tingli turned to Kong Liyuan sitting beside her.

Kong Liyuan leaned against the opposite window, still wearing that cold-weather beanie, her face fully exposed. Her eyelashes cast gentle shadows as she hugged her arms tightly to her chest.

Snowflakes drifted past outside, refracting the yellowish light like a veil of pale gauze, trailing over Kong Liyuan’s languid profile.

An endless flurry of white.

Kong Liyuan showed no reaction, as if asleep—as if she hadn’t been the one to just retrieve the scarf.

Just as Fu Tingli moved to quietly drape it over Kong Liyuan instead,

Kong Liyuan spoke first, her voice carrying that familiar lazy drawl. “Keep it on for now. Aren’t you cold? It’s way chillier here than before. Sleeping without something over you is an easy way to catch a cold.”

For some reason, Fu Tingli thought Kong Liyuan’s voice sounded even raspier than her own.

Her eyes fixed on Kong Liyuan’s arms, clenched so tightly—and suddenly, something felt off.

“Here, have some water, little sis!”

The Guide passed back a bottle of mineral water from the front seat. Fu Tingli took it and drank deeply, soothing her throat. She felt much better, more alert.

“How long was I out?”

“Three or four hours, give or take,” the Guide replied.

That long? Fu Tingli hadn’t expected to let her guard down so completely in a stranger’s car. She peered outside and realized they’d come to a stop amid the clamor.

Pressing close to the window, she looked ahead and spotted several bulky figures in heavy black coats, pacing restlessly while smoking and fiddling with their phones—edgy, visibly frustrated.

The glowing red tips of their cigarettes flared in the vast white expanse, like impatient embers.

“What’s the matter?” she asked again, still unsure.

“Oh, this.”

The Guide glanced around casually while munching on some crumbly biscuit that shed flakes with every bite, his words slurred. “We hit a big snowstorm, right? Visibility’s crap up ahead—pretty dangerous. Signal’s shit around here too.

“And then those two cars that split off earlier from us? Said someone in one got carsick, so they pulled over for a breather. Now we can’t reach ’em…”

“Your director wants to wait here, but someone else is like, no way—the snow’s only getting worse. Better push on and call an ambulance once we arrive…”

“Such a big deal?”

Fu Tingli nearly choked on her water in surprise. A nap had refreshed her, but she hadn’t anticipated this mess.

The Guide chomped away happily at his biscuit anyway, his accented Mandarin growing even thicker. “Nah, not a huge deal. Roads aren’t that bad—just the snow’s coming down heavy.

“Probably just no signal or the cold drained their batteries. Once we get there, we can call an ambulance if needed. Beats sitting here freezing our asses off.”

“Really that simple?”

Fu Tingli pressed, her eyes drifting involuntarily to Kong Liyuan on the other side.

Outside, wind whipped the snow into a frenzy, the road ahead uneven. Yet Kong Liyuan held the same posture, arms wrapped around herself—an unexpected calm.

Just as Fu Tingli had always imagined.

Even if this road led straight to their deaths. She suspected Kong Liyuan would face it with precisely this: quiet, languid poise.

As if sensing her thoughts, Kong Liyuan chuckled softly then, turning from the snow-swept window to meet her gaze.

Her sharp features pierced the surrounding haze, seizing Fu Tingli without mercy.

“You’re not scared?” Fu Tingli asked, dazed.

“Nope,” Kong Liyuan replied evenly, then flashed another offhand smile. “Are you?”

Unbidden, Fu Tingli recalled that glance from the dream.

“Hey, see? That’s superstar mentality for ya—world-weary pros like her don’t get fazed,” the Guide chimed in from up front, glancing at Fu Tingli in the rearview. “You shouldn’t overthink it, little sis.”

Fu Tingli knew fretting wouldn’t help. The priority was getting to their destination first, then dealing with the stragglers.

She sighed, her chin brushing lightly against the scarf draped across her chest.

“Still cold?” It was Kong Liyuan asking, her voice oddly adrift.

Fu Tingli shook her head, staring out at the ceaselessly swirling snow. “Not anymore.”

After a moment, she added, “Snow’s really coming down. Are we almost there?”

“Pretty much,” the Guide answered. He’d finished his biscuit and was roughly brushing crumbs from his mouth, frowning slightly.

“It’s just over an hour more to go, so we can’t just sit here twiddling our thumbs, you know.”

Kong Liyuan fell silent. Fu Tingli breathed a sigh of relief.

Just then, someone knocked on the window of Kong Liyuan’s side several times in a row.

Fu Tingli glanced over.

She saw Kong Liyuan leaning against the window, her head lowered. Her movements were a little sluggish as she rolled down the window.

A blast of cold wind rushed in from outside. It was the deputy director, wearing a woolen hat. He squeezed through the howling wind and shoved something inside, shouting loudly,

“Teacher Kong, here’s a thermometer. Rong Wu said you brought medicine with you. If there’s any in the car, take it first. We won’t hold things up here—we’re heading out right away!”

Then he shouted to the guide up front,

“Hey, stay close! Didn’t you say the road ahead is tricky and the snow’s coming down so hard? Don’t lose us!”

He was about to head off when he caught sight of Fu Tingli, who looked stunned. He added a reminder,

“Tingli, keep an eye on Teacher Kong. She’s running a fever and didn’t bring her assistant—”

“Got it.” Kong Liyuan cut off the deputy director mid-sentence, lifting her chin slightly. “The director’s leaving. The car up front is waiting for you.”

“Oh, right!”

The deputy director slapped his forehead and said no more. He hurried off along the beam of the headlights to the vehicle ahead and climbed inside.

Before the convoy started moving again, Kong Liyuan closed the open window. She casually tossed the thermometer he’d handed her aside, as if she had no intention of using it.

“Let’s go!”

The guide floored the accelerator, and the big vehicle plunged back into the wind and snow. Up ahead, the dark shapes of the other cars pressed on, their headlights flickering like they were charging into a white void of no return.

Fu Tingli had no attention left for whether any cars fell behind. She watched Kong Liyuan intently—her tightly shut eyes, the arms she held clamped around herself, the stray locks of hair draped messily across her face, her slightly flushed complexion.

Fu Tingli picked up the discarded thermometer and fiddled with the button on it.

“You’re running a fever?” The words came out more like a statement than a question.

“It’s not too bad,” Kong Liyuan said.

“Not too bad? You call that not too bad?” The guide hollered from the front seat. “Your face looks awful. You must be burning up pretty bad, but a superstar like you is different from the rest—still managing to keep your eyes open and stay lucid the whole way.”

Hearing the guide say that made Fu Tingli’s heart tighten even more. She wrinkled her nose in frustration, wondering how she hadn’t noticed earlier.

She had slept like a log, leaving Kong Liyuan to tough it out the entire way.

“I’m fine,” Kong Liyuan said again.

“Like hell you are!” Fu Tingli finally understood why Kong Liyuan’s voice had sounded so faint earlier.

She clutched the thermometer, determined to take her temperature first. But the seats were too far apart, and she was buckled in with her seatbelt. When she leaned over, it dug into her waist and back.

Feeling uncomfortable, she promptly unbuckled it. Right at that moment, the car hit a massive bump.

She couldn’t keep her balance.

A faint, clean fragrance enveloped her as her chin jabbed straight into Kong Liyuan’s chest—right into bone. A sharp pain shot up.

She hissed through her teeth, drawing in a sharp breath. Kong Liyuan seemed to have been hit too and let out a muffled grunt.

The pain left Fu Tingli speechless for a moment, and with the car still jolting around, she could only clutch her chin and look up at Kong Liyuan.

“You%?#!”

It was dim inside the car, and even she couldn’t make out what she’d just said. Shadows raced past outside as Kong Liyuan suddenly chuckled in the darkness.

Then she lifted her eyelids and looked down at her. “So, are you taking my temperature, or are you trying to hurt me?”

Before Fu Tingli could respond,

Kong Liyuan gently lifted her chin. The light was too dim, making it hard to see clearly.