“Not a waste at all.”
In that fleeting second, they weren’t celebrities on a big screen or a fallen heiress from the old streets.
They were just two people bound by fate, sharing a snowfall—even if only for that one second, it felt simple and comforting.
However, after dragging the suitcase through the thick snow for a few steps.
Fu Tingli noticed something off first. She sniffed her slightly stuffy nose and glanced at Kong Liyuan walking beside her—alone, without any luggage.
At first, she didn’t realize the issue and plodded slowly ahead. But after a few steps, listening to the crunch of snow underfoot, she glanced again at Kong Liyuan’s slightly furrowed brows.
She stopped. “Where’s your scarf?”
When Kong Liyuan had gone out to fetch water for her earlier, she’d been wearing it—and had even said it would keep her from being recognized.
But from the moment Fu Tingli woke up, the scarf had vanished.
Kong Liyuan halted in front of their two fresh sets of footprints and looked back casually.
“My phone’s gone, and I have no cash on me.”
“Wait,” Fu Tingli struggled to process the situation. “You mean you bartered in this twenty-first-century village again? With a luxury-brand scarf… for just a bottle of water?”
The village wasn’t large, and on this fresh snow-covered road, only a few bundled-up locals passed by sporadically.
Everyone huddled against the snow, necks shrunk, heads down—no one spared a glance at the two women paused in the freezing cold.
Kong Liyuan pulled down her face mask to breathe. “Hot water.”
She emphasized, then caught Fu Tingli’s wrinkled nose and gave a lazy smile.
“It was freshly boiled. They still use firewood to heat water here—worth it.”
Fu Tingli was speechless.
No wonder it had taken Kong Liyuan over ten minutes to get the water. And… maybe it was her fault Kong Liyuan had lost her phone in the first place.
Thinking about it left her a bit melancholic. The village was so small—the guide had said there wasn’t even a place to get a new SIM card, let alone buy a phone.
“Your phone’s gone—aren’t you worried?”
Fu Tingli hoisted her suitcase again, its weight sinking into the snowy path.
“It’s fine. There’s nothing important on my phone.” Kong Liyuan followed behind her, then paused for a long moment before adding,
“Except the money.”
“Except the money?” Fu Tingli gasped in disbelief.
Kong Liyuan seemed to be teasing her on purpose. Seeing her vivid reaction, she laughed, her eyes and brows curving up.
“Don’t worry. Rong Wu logged into my account from outside and transferred everything out.”
“Oh, why didn’t you say so sooner.”
“Here, let me.”
Without another word, Kong Liyuan took the suitcase from her, hefting it.
“What’s in this thing? It’s so heavy.”
Fu Tingli remembered the white model sculpture inside. She reached to grab it back, but Kong Liyuan deftly sidestepped.
Her hand, still swollen and sore from the IV, couldn’t compete. Instead, she gripped the other handle alongside Kong Liyuan, refusing to yield.
And so, the two of them hauled the same suitcase side by side down the blindingly white snowy road, as if it were all they owned in the world these past few days.
Fu Tingli thought that if outsiders saw them, they’d probably find it ridiculous.
As she mused, she stiffly changed the subject.
“You have no luggage, no phone—what are you going to do these next few days?”
Kong Liyuan suddenly stopped in front of their two parallel sets of fresh footprints and stared at her.
She fell silent, as if only just realizing all her belongings were in the lead vehicle.
“Why’d you stop?”
Fu Tingli asked, then tugged at the suitcase and found she couldn’t lift it.
When she looked up again.
White snowflakes drifted down. Kong Liyuan just stood there, exhaling a puff of white vapor, then flashed her a carefree smile.
Her disheveled hair lifted in the wind, giving her a melancholic yet beautiful air.
Then she said to her,
“Fu Tingli, buy me another pack of smokes, will you? I’ll pay you back in Kanas—all at once.”
~~~
Hewatu Village wasn’t overly developed, but thanks to the rapid tourism boom in the Altay Region in recent years, it wasn’t destitute either.
The village had once tried to capitalize on the hype to become an internet-famous spot, complete with idle amusement facilities still sitting on the empty lot at the village end.
There were a few family-run eateries and guesthouses open to outsiders. But the guide still hadn’t contacted them—likely because the guesthouses were full, and they were scouting alternatives.
After trudging a stretch of road, both were exhausted and in no mood to keep going. Though neither had much appetite, they settled at a local eatery anyway.
It was small—just a few rooms in a local home turned into dining space with some tables. It offered shelter from the wind and rain, and a limited menu, but right now wasn’t the time to be picky.
The room was warmer than outside. From their secluded spot by the window, they could still see the two fresh sets of footprints they’d left behind.
The road was nearly deserted, and the snow fell lazily, leaving the two parallel sets of footprints clearly visible.
Fu Tingli had barely taken her seat before she stood up again and headed to the kitchen to place their order with the owner.
Before she left, she eyed Kong Liyuan’s carefree posture with some unease. After a moment’s hesitation, she pulled off her baseball cap and plopped it over Kong Liyuan’s face.
“Keep a low profile. Don’t let anyone recognize you.”
Kong Liyuan had no phone, no bags—nothing—and there wasn’t a single staff member in sight. Fu Tingli couldn’t help but worry.
With those words hanging in the air, she squeezed her way into the kitchen to find the owner, who was hustling away amid the chaos.
She pulled out her freshly charged phone, scanned the QR code, and ordered up some local favorites: hand-grab rice, lamb soup, and big-plate chicken. After all, they were both invalids right now. They needed something hearty to build their strength back up.
A few dishes came to just over a hundred yuan.
As she paid, Fu Tingli stared at the balance on her screen, frozen for a long moment.
Eight hundred forty-four left, not counting lodging.
She wondered if that would cover both their expenses for the next few days.
In the old days, she wouldn’t have batted an eye at a number like that. It was just digits on a screen, with no ominous countdown lurking beneath.
But now? It was a stark reminder of how strapped she was.
There was another option, of course. She had Rong Wu’s WeChat. She could just forward all of Kong Liyuan’s expenses and ask her to spot the cash.
But when Fu Tingli opened their chat…
It was still stuck on that “hundred hamburgers” business. No way could she bring it up now.
Send over a cold itemized bill? She could never do something like that.
She stared at the screen, still undecided, when a burly man in a thick padded jacket bumped into her. He had a cigarette dangling from his lips, puffing away contentedly.
Fu Tingli blinked for a few seconds, then gently tugged at his sleeve and asked politely,
“Uncle, where’s the nearest supermarket?”
~~~
Fu Tingli returned carrying a plastic bag.
She saw Kong Liyuan right where she’d left her, by the window seat—still bundled up properly, gazing out at the snow and lost in thought.
The food had arrived in the meantime, steaming hot on the table, completely untouched.
Fu Tingli walked over and took her seat. “The food’s here. Why aren’t you eating?”
“Where’d you go?” Kong Liyuan asked.
“Just to the supermarket for some daily essentials.”
Fu Tingli peeled off her thick gloves, and a steaming bowl of lamb soup appeared before her.
Kong Liyuan had ladled it out for her. After Fu Tingli took a sip, Kong Liyuan asked, “Good?”
“Not bad.”
It had been two days of barely eating anything substantial, and her energy was running on fumes.
The hot soup warmed her from the inside out.
And this was real lamb soup, thick with actual mutton—not like the watery stuff at that dumpling shop, floating a few scallion bits and pretending to be flavorful.
That thought made Fu Tingli glance at the gloves she’d set aside, remembering how they’d come after that other bowl of lamb soup.
The world was full of these little coincidences.
“Which one’s better—this one or that one?” Fu Tingli blurted out, surprising even herself.
The two bowls weren’t even comparable.
Yet Kong Liyuan scooped up a spoonful, sipped it, and replied,
“They’re both pretty good.”
Fu Tingli wasn’t buying it. “Are you so sick you can’t even taste it anymore?”
That seemed to tickle Kong Liyuan. She laughed for a good while before saying,
“Food shared with someone special is always the tastiest. Isn’t that what you said?”
Fu Tingli was struck once again by her own past words.
She pursed her lips, baffled at how Kong Liyuan had held onto that throwaway line for so long—and was still wielding it against her now.
She let it drop. Kong Liyuan just smiled and said nothing more.
They ate in companionable silence after that.
Outside, the snow tapered off. The narrow, grimy window—smeared with a yellowish layer of dust—framed a tiny, hazy winter scene.
By the time they finished, night had fallen again.
The other tables in the restaurant had emptied out, leaving just the two of them.
Fu Tingli pulled out her phone, intending to message the Guide about their lodging situation.
But before she could type much, Kong Liyuan’s voice drifted across the table.
“Fu Tingli.”
“Hm?” Fu Tingli’s fingers stiffened on the screen; typing felt clumsy.
“Take a photo of me.”
It was Kong Liyuan’s voice—and that same request Fu Tingli had never been able to refuse.
“Right now?”
Fu Tingli looked up in surprise, gesturing at the trashed restaurant around them, littered with the remnants of the meal.
“Here?”
The sky had darkened, and the warm yellow lights now dominated the shadows. They sat tucked in a corner, and Kong Liyuan had already taken off her face mask.
“Yeah. Right here.”
The woman’s features melted into the golden glow, so captivating that even a glance felt like it could pull you in.
“Alright.”
Fu Tingli didn’t ask why. She quickly fired off a WeChat message to the Guide, then switched to her camera and aimed it at Kong Liyuan.
With her head bundled in the cap against the cold, Kong Liyuan’s facial features stood out even more strikingly. Her pale complexion only added to the intensity captured in the lens.
“You look a bit like Ayang right now,” Fu Tingli said from behind the phone, squinting as she studied her subject.
“Really?” Kong Liyuan seemed caught off guard.
She shifted her pose, leaning against the window and arching her brows just a touch.
“Better?”
Fu Tingli peered closer. “Nah, not anymore.”
As she fiddled with the angle, she added, “Don’t you want to look like Ayang?”
“Not especially.” The woman in the frame paused before brushing the hair from her cheek, fully revealing her expression.
“Just hoping I don’t right now. We’re not on set, after all.”
“You definitely don’t now.”
“Then who do I look like?”
Fu Tingli grinned at the image on her screen. “You, of course. Who else?”
Kong Liyuan paused, then nodded. “Fair enough.”
Fu Tingli regarded the woman in her lens for a moment longer, then added with blunt honesty,
“The you I know.”
She wasn’t sure why she’d said it, but the Kong Liyuan in Shanghai had never felt this vivid.
A sharp pang of regret washed over her.
She suddenly ached to scroll through every photo she’d deleted from her album—to confirm if every sharp, vivid image of Kong Liyuan had been trapped there.
Kong Liyuan went still for a beat. Then she laughed, deeper and clearer than before, as if those words had brought everything into sharper focus.
Fu Tingli adjusted the framing to match her movement.
Now the shot caught the blurry snow outside—and those faint parallel footprints.
Through the foggy, worn glass, it had the textured feel of an old photograph.
“Got it?”
She spoke up after a long silence. Finally, Kong Liyuan murmured, “Okay.”
Fu Tingli pressed the shutter.
In that frozen moment, the woman with eyes full of unspoken feeling looked achingly familiar.
A notification pinged on her phone. It was from the Guide: they’d found a homestay, followed by a wall of text Fu Tingli didn’t bother reading—phrases like “make do” and “squeeze in.”
She kept the phone raised, transfixed by Kong Liyuan on the screen. In a daze, a thought struck her.
—Forgetting someone always starts with their face… and ends with their voice.
She hadn’t tried to force it, but four years were enough to blur the features of someone she’d known for just three days into a vague symbol or impression.
She remembered the events crystal-clear, yet she was sometimes shocked to realize she couldn’t picture the woman’s face.
The reason Kong Liyuan’s features stayed so sharp in her mind was constant exposure—fresh encounters—and a whole album of photos to anchor them.
But what about Kong Liyuan?
In the lens, Kong Liyuan gazed back. Outside it, so did Fu Tingli.
Fu Tingli stared into those eyes, a swirling paradox, and wondered in a haze—
Without a single photo of her, without any footage at all, how had Kong Liyuan clung to the memory of those brief three days? How, after four years of highs and lows, had she spotted Fu Tingli instantly—when she’d been so changed, face masked and head bowed?
