This time An Yi planned to travel for a month.

He didn’t plan a specific route. Whenever he arrived somewhere and liked the local customs, he would stay for a few more days before moving on to the next place. He didn’t like going to big cities; he preferred the countryside and mountains. He had collected many small items with local folk culture, mostly as pendants, which jingled and jangled on his backpack.

As he walked, he settled in a small town in the north.

Although it was already spring outside, the rolling mountains, winding rivers, and serene forests here were covered with snow, making it seem like a secluded icy wonderland.

An Yi liked it here very much.

As he wandered with his backpack, he heard someone mention Xicuo. The scenery of the Yun Tong Snow Mountain next to the village was the most beautiful. There were often art students carrying drawing boards to go up the mountain for sketching. If lucky enough, when the weather was good, you could see the sunrise from the mountaintop.

An Yi was very excited.

He went to Xicuo Village and found a village guide with rich experience, who took him into the mountains twice.

But the weather in the mountains was changeable. Every time, it was sunny at the foot of the mountain, but as soon as they climbed halfway up, dark clouds started to gather. The weather forecast on the phone was only used as a reference and was not accurate.

An Yi was not in a hurry. He stayed at the guide’s house in the village, usually wandering around nearby, and helping the host family with chores and cooking when he came back.

Until a week later, he was awakened in the middle of the night by the guide knocking on the door, “Teacher An, a few of us are going into the mountain, are you coming? If we climb up now, we should be able to see the sun!”

An Yi immediately washed up, got dressed, grabbed his backpack, and followed the guide out of the door.

There were several routes up the mountain, all small paths trodden by the locals. When approaching the mountaintop, there was a steep slope, and the solid ice was very slippery. The guide handed An Yi a homemade climbing ice axe. There were four people in total climbing up the mountain. An Yi walked in the middle, struggling to climb the steep slope. After climbing a few dozen meters further, he saw a fairyland shrouded in faint light.

“We’re here!” The guide, a man in his fifties, pointed to the faint morning glow in the east with a smile, “Wait for the sun to come out later, Teacher An, you’re lucky!”

Another younger man said, “Teacher An, don’t wander around here. We’re going nearby to hunt birds. We’ll call you in a couple of hours.”

An Yi nodded, “You guys go ahead, I’ll stay here.”

The terrain at the mountaintop was flat and open, and as the daylight grew brighter, An Yi’s field of vision expanded.

The frost on the trees nearby, silver and delicate, displayed various postures. In the distance, the verdant mountains were dripping with moisture, and the mountaintop was piled with silver and jade, breathtaking.

An Yi sat on his backpack, quietly watching the clouds surge at sunrise, feeling a bit like crying.

Such beautiful scenery, it would be great if Xiao Ya could see it.

The sea she liked, the snow-capped mountains she yearned for, he had seen them all for her, which could be considered as fulfilling his promise to her.

He took out his phone and took a few pictures, capturing the bursting orange light of the sunrise and the lingering clouds covering the mountains, and then he sent the photos to the rabbit avatar that would never reply again using his old WeChat account.

There was no signal at the mountaintop, and the photos kept circling.

Because he had changed his phone, all his previous chat records with An Ya were gone.

Occasionally, he would open An Ya’s Moments to take a look. An Ya’s last update was before she entered the transplant ward, with a picture of the two of them and another picture of her and Yan Chen.

The caption read: “Let’s go!”

And the timeline was frozen in the winter four years ago.

He had lost her for so long.

An Yi buried his head in his arms, the cold air cutting into his lungs like a knife. After a long time, the sunlight finally gave him a hint of warmth.

He put away his phone, nibbled on a piece of bread, and then took out his sketchbook, sitting on the mountaintop to sketch everything he saw.

As he drew, he began to drift off.

In the past year, he had been busy with ceramic exhibitions and rarely had time to relax. Now that he was alone, certain people and certain things that he had deliberately hidden in his heart would always pop up in some casual moments.

The last time he saw Yan Chen, when they shook hands, he saw the ring on his finger. Was it just an accessory, or did he have a new relationship?

If it was the latter, what kind of person would it be?

Yan Chen had become much more stable now, and he should have been influenced by the other party. This time, he should be able to have a good and serious relationship.

An Yi bit his pen, lowered his head, and opened a new page to continue drawing, but no matter how he drew, he couldn’t capture the mood he saw.

The messy lines were suddenly dampened by raindrops without warning. An Yi looked up, the sun was still hanging on the mountain, but it was raining overhead.

He put on his hood, and the sun and rain intertwined into golden threads in his eyes, falling between the snowy jungle.

He waited for a while without the rain stopping, and there was nowhere to shelter from the rain at the mountaintop. He stood under a tree with his backpack for nearly two hours, but the guide didn’t come to find him.

At this moment, it had been seven hours since they separated.

An Yi was trembling with cold, and he jumped slightly in place to warm himself up. The sun was gradually swallowed by the clouds and the raindrops on his assault jacket turned into ice chips.

His hands and face were reddened and numb from the cold wind and rain.

If he continued to wait like this, he would get hypothermia. An Yi decided to go down the mountain while looking for help.

He walked down the mountain following his memory. The drifting rain gradually turned into snowflakes, covering the path with a layer of white.

An Yi quickened his pace. When he passed a steep slope, his feet slipped, and he tumbled into a wild ditch below the slope, hitting a tree hard on his lower back, which prevented him from rolling further down.

The impact was not light, and he felt a sharp pain and blacked out for a moment.

It took him a long time to sit up with difficulty, pick up his backpack and phone, and found a little signal here. He called the guide, but no one answered.

He stood up leaning against the tree, rested for a while under the tree, but still couldn’t contact the guide.

The mountaintop was not far away, and if the guide was nearby, he should be able to hear his voice. But besides the falling snow, there was only his heavy breathing around.

Once the weather changed in the mountains, the temperature dropped sharply.

An Yi rested for only five minutes, and his whole body was almost frozen. He could only pick up his backpack and continue walking.

But shortly after walking, he found himself circling back to the starting point.

He took off the chain on his backpack and hung one of the strands on a tree branch or shrub every time he walked a certain distance to help him identify the direction.

By the time he ran out of chains, the rain mixed with snow had completely turned into swirling snowflakes, and it was getting heavier.

His lower back was in severe pain, probably because he hit his bones. Every step he took was very painful. He gritted his teeth and persisted for a while, took out his phone to check, and the battery had dropped to 20% due to the severe cold. It might shut down automatically due to the low temperature at any time.

An Yi leaned against the tree to rest, surrounded by a vast expanse of white.

He remembered when Yan Chen took him skiing in the wild snow. He didn’t know how to ski and watched as Yan Chen skillfully navigated through the snowy forest on his skis, his figure agile, disappearing from sight in the blink of an eye, leaving him alone standing in the snow, looking around in confusion.

At that time, he stumbled through the snow to find someone, only to get lost himself.

Then Yan Chen would suddenly emerge from behind a tree, grabbing him from behind and scaring him.

Yan Chen would then laugh wickedly, mocking him as a “coward” and “directionally challenged.” Amidst the panic, all An Yi felt for Yan Chen was admiration and love. Yan Chen would then wear a stern face and explain to him how to navigate in the wild snow mountains step by step.

“Look at which side of the branches is denser.”

“Look at which side of the tree stump has wider growth rings.”

“If all else fails, lie down on the ground and find an ant hole, and see which way the hole is facing. If you still can’t figure it out, just crawl in and bury yourself, and that’s it.”

An Yi’s eyes were red as he followed the methods Yan Chen taught him to find the way down the mountain.

As the sky gradually darkened, the bread in his backpack froze solid and he couldn’t even bite into it. He was left with only a bit of hot water.

By the time night fell completely, he was almost knocked down by the pain and cold. He curled up and leaned against a tree, thick frost forming on his dense eyelashes.

He blinked hard, seeming to see the lights of a distant house.

But at that moment, he felt like giving up a little.

Dying on the snow mountain wouldn’t be so bad.

He should have jumped into the sea long ago. Surviving for more than three years was like an extra gift from fate to him. After all, there was never a light outside that belonged to him alone… Maybe, in the grand scheme of things, he came to the snowy mountain just to wait for this snowstorm.

An Yi curled up tighter.

There would be some regret, but it was inevitable.

Unable to create a perfect piece of work, unable to touch the round and rolling cat’s head, unable to look at his home again.

His empty and deserted home.

An Yi remembered last spring, when he and Yan Chen sat facing each other at the dining table, Yan Chen holding his hand, earnestly saying he wanted to give him a home.

His heart couldn’t help but ache.

If he had agreed back then, would he have a night light now?

An Yi began to miss Yan Chen incessantly.

He missed his cruel jokes, his sarcastic remarks. He wanted to stimulate himself to feel pain, to wake up. But after thinking about it, what lingered in his mind was the embrace that suddenly appeared behind him in the wild snow.

An Yi pinched himself hard, struggling to stand up.

But his frozen legs soon knelt in the snow, the solid ice below them causing pain.

He lay in the snow, his body starting to feel slightly warm.

He realized that he was nearing hypothermia.

He blinked, and the snow seemed to stop. He saw a sky full of brilliant stars, tracing beautiful star trails in the night sky at the speed of planets orbiting.

He reached out, as if plucking a star.

Could this be Xiao Ya? Or his future self?

“Ge…”

In a daze, An Yi seemed to hear Xiao Ya calling him.

He smiled faintly, holding the star in his hand, then felt dizzy again. He felt even warmer.

“An Yi! Wake up!”

The voice calling beside his ear grew louder, and it sounded very familiar.

An Yi wondered, was Yan Chen also turning into a star?

“An Yi, Ge!!”

His body became warmer, his cheeks regained some warmth. An Yi blinked hard again. The star trails disappeared, and the snow was still falling. In the snow light, he saw Yan Chen’s eyes were red.

Yan Chen wrapped An Yi’s whole body in his thick down jacket.

He couldn’t move his limbs, so he could only lean his forehead against Yan Chen’s, gently touching Yan Chen’s chin.

Before his smile faded from his lips, he sighed hoarsely, “Pathetic.” Why did he think of Yan Chen at a time like this?

Yan Chen thought he was referring to him, tears bursting from his eyes.

He held An Yi’s frozen red cheeks tightly, roaring, “Why did you run around alone in the snow mountain! Why didn’t you check the weather before entering the mountain! Why didn’t you bring a power bank for your phone! Have you forgotten everything I taught you before! If you die here, what am I supposed to do!”

“Are you deliberately trying to die here!”

“If you want to punish me, can’t you choose a different way! Please…”

An Yi stared blankly at Yan Chen’s angry expression, his ears feeling muffled, only able to hear vague syllables.

But seeing the tears surging from the red eyes of Yan Chen, An Yi couldn’t hold back his emotions and started crying as well.

All the blame and questioning stopped abruptly.

Yan Chen hugged him tightly, waiting for him to warm up a bit, first giving him some hot chocolate in a thermos, then carrying him down the mountain.

In fact, An Yi was already very close to the foot of the mountain, less than four hundred meters away, but even such a short distance was extremely difficult for Yan Chen to traverse. He dared not imagine the consequences if he had arrived just a moment later.

If… he dared not think about it.

The SUV rented by Yan Chen was parked at the foot of the mountain. He put An Yi in the passenger seat and drove straight to the nearest county hospital.

After a preliminary examination, it was found that An Yi’s coccyx was fractured, his palms were scraped and frostbitten, and the rest needed further examination.

At Yan Chen’s strong insistence, An Yi was transferred to a higher-level hospital by ambulance overnight, with Yan Chen accompanying him silently, not saying a word.

An Yi was exhausted and weak. He fell asleep as soon as he got in the ambulance.

When he woke up, he was lying in a single room in the hospital, empty and with no one around.

He scanned the ward, his gaze stopping at the small balcony of the ward.

Yan Chen was standing in the night, his upper body slightly bent, his arms resting on the railing, holding a lit cigarette between his fingers.

An Yi gently turned over, his hand under his cheek, his chin tucked into the quilt, tears that had stopped flowing quietly accumulated again, silently watching Yan Chen.

Yan Chen smoked one cigarette after another.

The hand holding the cigarette could not stop trembling.

Finally, he bowed his head, and his shoulders began to shake.