In truth, Hewatu Village was already quite close to Kanas. However, the film crew had chosen a village even farther north as their base.
A winding mountain road connected the two places, but between them lay an entire glacier, endless cold air that drifted ceaselessly, and a sky that often turned ice-blue over the snow-capped peaks.
The crew’s lodging was in a remote corner of Kanas, with small, low houses and scattered residents—far fewer tourists than in the main tourist villages Kanas was promoting.
This was already the border. A little farther north, and they’d be in entirely foreign countries.
On the first night after rushing over from Hewatu, Fu Tingli suddenly felt aches all over her body.
It was as if a three-day special-effects drug had suddenly expired, and every cell in her body reverted to its post-frostbite normal state.
Every bone felt on the verge of collapse, as though despite her efforts to hold them back, they relentlessly began to yearn for that heavy snowfall, clamoring with pain.
She barely slept at all that night, tossing and turning restlessly. She had thought to throw on a coat and take a hot shower.
But as she turned over, she saw someone still lying on the bed beside hers.
She wasn’t rooming alone; the crew had paired her with a colleague from the art department.
The colleague was fast asleep, so Fu Tingli couldn’t make too much noise in the dead of night.
Instead, she sat on the edge of her bed in her coat, enduring the long night until dawn broke. She watched the first light pierce through the gaps in the snow mountains, gradually spilling onto the mountain ridges and bathing the snow-covered peaks.
Dawn here was so beautiful, like a clear, translucent liquid.
Fu Tingli stared blankly from the bedside until the sky was fully light. Then her art department colleague threw off the covers, groggily rolled out of bed.
She rummaged through her suitcase, pulling out the white model sculpture buried at the bottom, along with a sculpting knife she hadn’t touched in ages but had kept in good condition.
She sat at the wooden table by the window, cradling it day and night—a position she held for several days straight.
By the time filming officially began and the stand-ins and media hovering nearby had mostly dispersed, she finally set down the now even more refined flying bird in her hands.
She had added many upward-leaping lines to the wings, along with a flowing, gauzy texture in the air—sleek and exquisite without being fussy, further emphasizing the delicate lightness of the wing bones.
It just needed one final step: coloring. She planned to finish that back in Shanghai.
Her colleague leaned over curiously and asked what it was, noting it didn’t look like anything from this movie.
Fu Tingli yawned, sprawling out on her single bed like a starfish, and replied with squinted eyes and a smile that it was one of her old pieces. She wanted to use this opportunity to refine some details.
Her colleague admired it for a moment, then carefully set it down. Standing by the window, she gazed boredly at the endless white snow outside and remarked in a tone of admiration,
“Teacher Kong’s out there pacing in the snow again. She’s so dedicated.”
Fu Tingli lay on the bed without responding right away. She just rolled over quietly and mumbled,
“Isn’t she always like that?”
She already knew this was Kong Liyuan’s habit when immersing herself in a role’s emotions—only by fully blending into the character’s environment could she handle the emotional shifts on a deeper level.
Her colleague teased back, “True enough. Watching Teacher Kong pace around like that every day, I almost wish I were a judge for the Golden Horse Awards. I’d hand her the statuette myself!”
Fu Tingli closed her eyes, yawned again, and just smiled without following up. Even in her heart, though, Kong Liyuan had long since earned the top prize.
For no particular reason, she felt that Li Yi was already a role worthy of the highest accolade.
But she couldn’t say it out loud like that—as if she and Kong Liyuan were close enough for such familiarity.
The recent uproar over Wen Shijia and Jiang Mou might have died down online, but it still served as a wake-up call for her. Even though nothing had happened between her and Kong Liyuan yet.
Those three days in California, however, had undeniably taken place.
If someone dug that up, she couldn’t imagine the fallout. Would she end up like Jiang Mou—dissected and judged down to the last detail, exposed as a fallen heiress from a debt-ridden family? Would countless voices accuse her of joining the crew to get close to Kong Liyuan again, with ulterior motives?
And could Kong Liyuan still walk this path so openly and confidently? The road Kong Liyuan had chosen was already far more difficult than most. Now that she had finally reached this point… was Fu Tingli going to pop up as a “ticking time bomb” at any moment?
They had long since left Hewatu behind, left that frozen world and its massive blizzard.
She and she had become Kong Liyuan and Fu Tingli once more—not “Yuan” and “Li” as Saliha had called them.
Names like Yuan and Li sounded like two ordinary young people.
But Fu Tingli didn’t consider herself ordinary after the massive upheaval she’d faced at twenty-four.
Kong Liyuan was even less so.
And their shared past was anything but ordinary.
These worries piled up like smoldering, rotten ashes, layer upon layer on Fu Tingli’s heart.
She couldn’t quite name the feeling—just that every windy, snowy night in Kanas was hard to endure.
With each new worry that surfaced, her once-vibrant red heart gained another shade of ashen black.
Only when dawn bathed the snow mountains did it ease a little. Perhaps that was the allure of the Northern Border.
Shanghai’s land was worth its weight in gold, inch by inch; Kanas’s land was vast and desolate by comparison, making the entire crew seem insignificant overnight.
A handful of people on such an immense expanse—scattered, boxed in. Whatever they did or said stood out starkly.
Fu Tingli could no longer call out “Kong Liyuan” as freely as she had in Hewatu.
Instead, she called her Teacher Kong, as if she’d completely forgotten how, amid that heavy snow, she’d resolved to address her by name.
Occasionally at night, Fu Tingli realized with some surprise that since arriving in Kanas, apart from on-set and off-set communications, their most recent private interaction had been…
That afternoon when she first arrived.
—The car pulled up slowly in front of the row of squat houses. She clutched the half-melted bottle of snow as Azati unloaded her suitcase and advised her to freeze it in a fridge right away so it melted slower.
Fu Tingli nodded slowly and said okay. She watched Azati climb back into the car, saw the vehicle that had carried her and Kong Liyuan shrink into a tiny red dot.
She sniffed her frost-reddened nose, then faced her luggage and the piles of props in awkward embarrassment.
As she glanced up inadvertently,
She caught sight of a slightly higher spot—a figure in the transparent glass window of one house, gazing at her.
It was Kong Liyuan.
One hand in her pocket, the other holding her phone to her ear. She wore a brand-new camel-colored coat, a black scarf, and a black beanie; her pale skin looked cool and detached.
She must have come back and changed clothes already. Just over two hours apart, and she was the superstar Kong Liyuan again.
Fu Tingli felt relieved.
Even though her own coat was streaked with road dust and snow slush, like a weary traveler.
Even though her hastily tied-up hair had come loose, tousled by the wind into a messy, heavy, exhausted tangle.
She squinted, appraising whether the other’s condition was good enough. And that figure behind the glass seemed to be doing the same.
In those brief seconds,
The sacred, empty snow mountains seemed to echo their shared gaze, turning that moment indelibly unclear.
Until Fu Tingli felt a pat on her shoulder and turned to see the assistant director there to help with her things.
The assistant director said warmly that she’d worked hard, standing guard over all this stuff for so long and taking care of Teacher Kong for so long too.
She hastily withdrew her gaze, gripped the bottle of snow chunks tighter, and didn’t look back at that window.
She just smiled at the assistant director—not entirely openly—and said it was all part of the job.
In the days that followed, they never again gazed at each other so openly, like partners in a shared escape.
Nor did they return each other’s clothes. Maybe they both felt it unnecessary, or perhaps one had forgotten.
Fu Tingli found a nearby Apa with a fridge and quick-froze the mostly melted snow.
On her way back, sitting by the window and looking out, she saw Kong Liyuan strolling leisurely through the snow. It was like that for days on end.
But Fu Tingli never saw Kong Liyuan smoke that pack again. Kong Liyuan never smoked on set.
And so, the Renyin Tiger Year drew near.
The dry, desolate winds of the border blew day and night without cease. Fu Tingli, lacking experience, hadn’t brought any windproof or moisturizing supplies. After a while in the gusts, her skin felt like it was about to peel off.
Dryness elsewhere on her body wasn’t a big deal.
The most infuriating thing was her lips. Some mornings, she’d wake up and touch them, only to find a layer of dry, flaky skin peeling off. Even a bite of something hot would make her wince in pain, teeth gritted.
The problem was, they weren’t in the town center. Shopping in this remote spot was a nightmare; even grabbing basics meant driving out to the market in town.
She’d planned to tag along with the crew’s supply run to the market, but she always missed them.
After about a week, Fu Tingli felt brittle and fragile, like she might crumble to bits if the wind picked up.
Then one night, she had a dream. She was back on that road through the cemetery, lined with flashing lights and scrutinizing stares.
Kong Liyuan was still watching her from the crowd, the black water sloshing around, rising to their chests.
This time, though, the people didn’t ignore her. They chased her relentlessly.
Someone grabbed her and pulled her away.
It was Kong Liyuan.
In the dream, the surging black water clawed at her, lapping at her lips, soaking the dry skin in a painful, salty sting like brine on an open wound.
Dazed, she licked her lips and tasted something soft and cool, faintly fruity. Half-asleep, she leaned in for more.
But it was gone. She rolled over peacefully and sank back into the pitch-black winter night.
A moment later, her lips tingled, as if something slick and moist was being smoothed over them, easing away the flakes one by one.
It was warm from body heat, soft and tender, like someone’s fingertip gliding tenderly over every inch, working the balm deep into her skin.
Forcing her eyes open while dead to the world was nearly impossible.
That night, Fu Tingli never fully woke. Despite summoning all her strength, her eyelids cracked open just a sliver. She glimpsed a blurry shadow by the bed—crouching, maybe, or standing.
She couldn’t pry her eyes wider, but she didn’t feel scared. Under that shadowy gaze, she simply closed them again, safe and secure.
The next day was December 28th. When she woke, she instinctively licked her lips. They weren’t as dry as before bed.
Had the dream been real? Had someone really come in last night and carefully applied lip balm for her?
Lost in a daze, she glanced up—and saw the nightstand between her bed and her roommate’s.
A tube of lip balm sat there quietly, next to a basin with just a half-inch of water left.
Her roommate was gone, the other bed empty, but two WeChat messages waited:
【Tingli, I came back late last night to pack and didn’t say goodbye. Headed home for the holidays! Bought you some lip balm—it’s by the bed. Use it these next few days.】
【Also, keep a basin of water in the room every day. Don’t let everything go to pot just because I’m gone. Take care of yourself! Happy New Year!】
So it had been her roommate who’d bought the lip balm.
Had she dreamed the whole thing?
Fu Tingli picked up the tube and dabbed some on casually. The taste didn’t match what she’d accidentally licked in her sleep.
She sat stunned on the bed’s edge, staring at the empty bed beside her. It took a while before she slowly got up, made the bed, and drew back the curtains. Her gaze fell on the snow-capped mountain, gleaming like it was gilded in gold leaf.
She leaned on the windowsill, pulled on the felt hat embroidered with little birds, and gazed blankly out at the vast expanse of snow.
Tomorrow was New Year’s Eve. The crew had started their break last night, and the snowy landscape felt instantly emptier—no more cameras set up outside at dawn, no more clusters of people.
A long holiday wasn’t realistic for everyone, but the production had synced the actors’ schedules: off from the 28th until the third day of the New Year.
With four whole days free, anyone with a home—and anyone who loved home—couldn’t resist heading back. Even if flights from Kanas varied in length across the country and tickets cost several times more, they’d brave wind, rain, or snow for that family time.
But not Fu Tingli.
California was a mess; going back would be more chaos than reunion. Shanghai wasn’t home either—just a cold, rundown rental, empty without Qiao Lipan or anyone else. What was the point of a ten-plus-hour round trip?
Truth be told, Saliha’s home in Hewatu felt more like home than that Shanghai apartment, even after just a few days there.
During those days, she’d said more than once, “Let’s head home.”
To Kong Liyuan.
She thought of Kong Liyuan again.
Fu Tingli narrowed her eyes and spotted migratory birds gliding silently over the mountain, leaving a whisper in their wake: What about Kong Liyuan?
Quietly, she realized Kong Liyuan probably wasn’t going back either.
Word came from the gossipy props team group chat. Kong Liyuan’s end-of-year schedule was packed: Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, flying everywhere. Her precious four days off would vanish into year-end galas and business events.
