Xin Chen bought a ticket for the latest flight, rushed to the airport at the fastest speed, sat on the plane, heard the broadcast prompt to turn off the phone and fasten the seatbelt, mechanically pulled over the seatbelt, it took a while to buckle up, only then did she realize that her hands were shaking badly.

  She was thinking wildly in her mind, but she didn't dare to persuade herself to calm down and think carefully. She sat straight throughout, staring blankly at a certain place in front of her. The middle-aged male passenger next to her looked at the young girl's tightly clenched hands on the armrest and her stiff posture, feeling sympathetic, and said soothingly: "Miss, is this your first time taking a plane? Don't be nervous, relax and you'll feel better. We'll arrive in just over half an hour."

  It took her a while to come back to herself, "Oh, thank you."

  No matter who approached her again, she had no mood to respond anymore.

  As soon as the plane landed, she hastily got off the plane and took a taxi. The driver started the car and asked her where to go. She hesitated for a moment before saying: "Driver, take the highway into the city first."

  The car was about to get off the airport expressway, and just as the driver was about to speak, Xin Chen reported the name of a lakeside community. The driver followed his words and turned the steering wheel, heading towards another highway.

  The security guard at the entrance of the residential area asked them where they were going, and she reported the house number without hesitation. The security guard handed over a temporary parking card to the driver, who drove to the front of the villa and stopped in front of the gate after paying the fare.

  She stood for a while, then tried to push the courtyard gate, which was locked from the inside. She hesitated for a moment, reached in and pulled out the bolt, and walked along the bluestone path into the yard.

  The weather was fine, with sunlight filtering through the trees and casting irregular patches of light on the ground. It was clear that the place had been renovated, as evidenced by the curtains hanging low in front of the living room window facing the courtyard. The yard itself was carefully planned, with a narrow path paved with bluestone slabs. On one side of the yard stood a tree she was familiar with, its pinnate leaves densely spreading out. Along the wall, wisteria and morning glories climbed up, while the flowers she had brought from her old place were neatly arranged on an ironwork flower stand: roses, pomegranates, and marigolds were in full bloom, and the rose bushes had already begun to sprout buds, which would likely burst into bloom within the next few days.

  Behind the acacia tree is a semi-open sunroom with wicker sofas and small wicker round tables, on which an international chess set is placed. Lu Fei sits on the sofa, staring at the chessboard in front of him.

  She stood still and didn't make a sound, but Lu Fei seemed to have suddenly felt something in his heart, turned his head around, looked surprised for a moment, then smiled on his face. He stretched out his hand to pick up a walking stick beside him, stood up, "Xiao Chen, how did you come?"

  He was wearing a white T-shirt, gray sweatpants and a pair of canvas shoes, with his left hand propping up the cane, walking out slowly.

  Xin Chen covered her mouth with her hand, stifling a scream, and stared at him in horror. She could hardly bear to look straight at the scene before her eyes, wanting to turn around and run away, leaving everything behind, but she couldn't move, standing frozen in place.

  Lu Fei walked down a few steps in front of the sunroom and said, "Come on in, Xiao Chen."

  Xin Chen stared blankly at him, her hand still covering her mouth.

  "What's wrong? Are you uncomfortable?"

  Xin Chen put down his hand, opened and closed his mouth, and finally managed to speak: "Your leg, Lu Fei, your leg." Her voice was hoarse and choked, unable to continue.

  Lu Fei hastily reached out and grasped her hand, "Don't be afraid, it's just a fracture, it's almost healed."

  The sentence hit Xin Chen so hard that she couldn't digest it for a long time, and she stood there in a daze. Lu Fei pulled her into the sunroom, took off the backpack behind her, and let her sit on the sofa. She was still in a state of shock. Lu Fei sat down beside her, put aside his cane, stretched out his legs, and reached out to touch her forehead, which was covered with cold sweat.

  "Your face looks so bad, want to drink some water?" Lu Fei looked at her with concern, stretched out his hand to touch the handrail and was about to stand up.

  Her hand flashed onto his right leg, "Don't move." Immediately withdrew her hand, "Sorry, did I press on a sore spot?"

  Lu Fei suddenly appeared with a crying and laughing expression, "Xiao Chen, you pressed my right thigh, there's nothing wrong with it. I only fractured the left tibia and fibula, and they've already been fixed with steel nails and are almost fully recovered."

  Xin Chen stared at him, and since she knew that Lu Fei had gone to Qiandongnan to find him injured, her heart had been filled with inexplicable anxiety and terror, trying hard to suppress herself from thinking about it.

  However, from Dongzhimen to now standing outside the courtyard gate, the chaotic thoughts that had been lingering in her mind suddenly became clear: car accidents, frostbite, hypothermia, amputation... The outdoor knowledge she originally possessed was entangled with pessimistic associations and couldn't be shaken off. Along the way, it had already exhausted her, and now seeing him come out with a crutch, her spirit was shaken, and she really couldn't calm down all at once.

  "She made an effort to adjust her breathing rhythm, and only spoke when she thought she could speak normally: "Have you recovered quickly? That's good. Remember to go to the hospital for a follow-up checkup on time. The steel nail seems to need to be removed after a period of time. When exercising and walking, don't put too much weight or force on your injured leg."

  Her voice was flat and even, without any ups and downs. Lu Fei looked at her thoughtfully, "This is consistent with what the doctor said, I didn't expect you to have such rich medical knowledge."

  "Hiking requires knowledge of various emergency treatments, you rest well, I'll go first." She stood up, reached out to grab her backpack, and Lu Fei held down her hand. Suddenly, she felt a surge of anger from nowhere, and without thinking, she pushed his hand away fiercely, grabbed the bag, but Lu Fei caught her wrist and pulled hard, causing her to lose balance and fall into his arms. Before she could even react in surprise or anger, she immediately asked: "Is your leg okay?"

  Lu said lightly: "I've already said that my thigh is fine, but don't move around randomly, it's possible that you might aggravate the injury."

  Xin Chen suddenly became very still and quiet in his arms, not daring to move. Lu Fei held her tightly, his chin resting on her head. After a long time, he let out a soft sigh. "Are you worried about me, little Chen?"

  Xin Chen did not make a sound.

  "I'm fine, don't worry."

  Her voice came from his arms, "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

  "I was afraid you'd worry and feel guilty, so I had planned to wait until after I could get rid of the crutches before going to Beijing to see you."

  "Why should I feel guilty?" Xincheng suddenly raised his voice, "What's it got to do with me?"

  "Yes, it's none of your business." Lu Fei tried hard to hold back his smile. "Alright, I didn't want to appear in front of you like this and make you look down on me as a disabled person."

  Xin Chen was taken aback and remained silent for a while before saying: "I'm sorry, I really wasn't being reasonable."

  Lu didn't say a word, with a joyful smile playing at the corner of his mouth. He couldn't tell her that since they met again last year, she had been too rational all along, and he enjoyed her sudden irrationality just now.

  "Tell me about the situation at that time." Xincheng said softly in his arms.

  "I got on a military truck carrying disaster relief supplies, driving over from Guangxi. The journey was slow but mostly smooth until we reached that section of the road where the braking system suddenly malfunctioned due to mechanical failure. The driver, with rich experience, made the best choice by steering the wheel to minimize damage. The vehicle slid into the mountain ditch and flipped over. I, the driver, and a soldier in the cab were all injured, but none of us were seriously hurt. It was just that the low temperature made it hard to bear. Fortunately, there were thick coats among the relief supplies we were carrying, which we took out and wrapped ourselves in, managing to get by. After contacting the convoy via radio, help arrived. You see, it wasn't exciting at all, definitely not as complicated as what you encountered on your hiking trip."

  He spoke lightly, but Xin Chen suddenly broke free from his arms and didn't stand up straight. She reached out to roll up the cuff of his left leg's athletic pants, revealing a jagged scar on his calf that wasn't a regular long line, but rather a twisted and turning one with branches extending outward. The scar started from below his knee and extended all the way down to near his ankle. Her fingertips hesitated for a moment before lightly touching it, feeling the uneven texture of the scar and the warm skin beneath. There were several places where the skin color was noticeably darker, clearly evidence of frostbite.

  "Is it an open fracture?" She knew it wasn't as simple as the tibia and fibula fractures he had mentioned, having experienced various accidents during her years of hiking and traveling. She had also seriously collected data on trauma treatment, which had indeed come in handy before.

  "There's an open wound, but you see, it's really nothing. I started working after the Spring Festival." He didn't mention that in the hospital, his secretary had been reading documents to him by his bedside, and as soon as he was discharged, he began going to work in a wheelchair.

  When the truck overturned, Lu Fei's left leg was trapped, another soldier suffered a concussion and fainted, while the driver was injured the least, with only his forehead cut by glass, flesh and blood flowing all over his face. He dragged them out of the cab one by one, flipped out the first-aid kit for emergency treatment, cut open the packaged supplies in the back compartment, and took out a cotton coat to cover them. Lu Fei endured the pain, picked out the glass shards from the driver's wound, and helped him bandage it.

  The distress signal was quickly received, but due to road conditions, help didn't arrive until 1 hour later.

  He was sent to the hospital, and the examination results were: open comminuted fracture of the left tibia, comminuted fracture of the left tibial plateau, fracture of the lower segment of the left fibula, two open wounds, blood loss, plus a not-so-small area of frostbite. After debridement at the local hospital, he was fixed with a splint and waited anxiously for news. Finally, he heard that Xin Chen had escaped from the small village and was in the same county as him, which made him breathe a sigh of relief.

  He was immediately sent to a military hospital in the neighboring province for internal fixation with steel nails. His mother rushed to the hospital to visit him and asked him how he ended up getting injured in a province far from where he worked, and he confessed: "My girlfriend was trapped there, I wanted to go pick her up."

  His mother glared at him, "Your father is busy to the point of being frazzled right now and has no time to discipline you. You're almost 30 years old, do you still need me to tell you what to do and what not to do?"

  He just smiled and held his mother's hand, "Mom, have I ever worried you before?"

  "That's not it, but after your open-minded niece appeared, you changed. Otherwise, you wouldn't have done something like canceling the engagement, let alone almost losing your life this time."

  "It's not that serious, and I told you last time, the things I did have nothing to do with Xiao Chen. She is now very capable of living independently and taking care of herself. You know, if I go find her, she might even be annoyed."

  "She didn't even come to see you, what's the point of all this?" His mother was heartbroken, looking at his leg, with tears in her eyes.

  "Don't let her know."

  His mother shook her head, knowing that saying anything more would be futile. "You child, you've been rational since you were young, I thought you wouldn't do something foolish, sigh."

  He smiled silently, but what he thought in his heart was that a person who has always lived rationally sometimes does irrational foolish things, and only then can his heart be calm and joyful.

  Lu Fei only felt the cool fingertips tracing along the scar to her ankle, where they stopped. She leaned forward, and he couldn't see her expression, but he could feel the slight tremble of her fingertips. He pulled her up and hugged her back into his arms, and she wrapped her hands around his waist.

  "If it's because of this that something irreparable has happened," thinking of this possibility, Xin Chen couldn't help but shudder, "what can I do? I will never forgive you."

  "It was just an accident, don't think too much about it. I didn't plan to cripple myself so you'd remember me forever, if the weather and road conditions weren't so bad, nothing would have happened."

  "She asked in a low voice, 'Why are you so silly and had to come looking for me? Although the traffic and communication were temporarily interrupted, I wasn't trapped in a no-man's land. If you just waited a few more days, wouldn't I have been fine?' "

  "I couldn't wait, your last call only said you were heading to a remote town. I carefully checked the map and weather report, but I couldn't be sure if you had arrived safely or were stranded on the way. And..." He paused, gently stroking her back, "your birthday is coming up soon too."

  Xin Chen got angry again, trying to control himself, "What kind of reason is this? You're not unaware that I've never cared about birthdays. What's the big deal about a birthday, worth you taking that risk."

  His voice came from above her head, "I've missed you too much, little Chen. Can't let you spend that birthday alone in the snowy wilderness again. But I still missed it, some things just can't be forced."

  The faint desolation in Lu Fei's tone left Xin Chen speechless.

  That day, she was in a small village, realizing that her birthday had quietly arrived. She stared at the red charcoal in the brazier, thinking about the twelve years they spent together and the days they missed each other. With a sense of confusion and uncertainty, the firelight cast a faint red glow on her face. But she never thought that he was trapped in a mountain valley just over ten kilometers away from her.

  When she was young, her grandfather and grandmother, as well as her father, would buy her gifts on her birthday. Her father even took her to the best hotel several times to eat cake and celebrate. However, after turning 14, she suddenly became indifferent to this day. When Lu Fei mentioned her birthday for the first time, she immediately thought of the scene where he heard it was her birthday, and her face turned pale.

  The woman who gazed back at him through the warm sunlight of a summer afternoon was named Xin Chen. He told her about her birthdate, the weather on that day, her weight, her blood type, and the red mole on the sole of her right foot... trying to convince her.

  She didn't need any proof at that moment. When the woman stared at her and said "I am your mother", she knew it was true.

  That sentence finally made her realize that no matter how happy and carefree she was, she was different from other children. Before that, she lived in her uncle's house and saw her aunt come in every night to cover her cousin Xindi with a quilt, feeling a little inexplicably envious.

  Her mother had been absent since her birth, and there was an invisible gap in her life; but then her mother suddenly appeared in this way, and silently disappeared, leaving behind only the entanglement of sleep disorders that could no longer be ignored, and the gap became bright and dazzling.

  She didn't want to think about those things, shook her head on the way, "I don't want to celebrate my birthday, take me to watch a movie instead, go out and have fun, just don't mention birthdays, no cake, no candles, no gifts, none of that."

  Lu Fei surprisingly understood her immediately, gently stroking her hair and nodding lightly. He never mentioned her birthday again, but whenever they were together on that day, he would always make time to rush to her side and spend it with her.

  He tried his best to indulge and protect her occasional vulnerability, but how could he know that her sense of insecurity had been magnifying all along.

  When her father was accused, she saw the procuratorate take him away for investigation with her own eyes. Even being held and comforted by her uncle couldn't stop her frantic fear. She was afraid that another crack would appear and expand, making her life fall apart and unable to be pieced back together again.

  When Lu Fei left, all her reactions were despair. She refused to let go, and fiercely swung her sharp claws at his heart, only hoping to make him taste the same pain as herself.

  But he still left anyway.

  Indeed, some things are destined to be unattainable. She can only learn to face her imperfect life, mend it bit by bit, and grow up day by day.

  No one can replace her in going through this process.

  She can finally look at everything calmly, her birthday has become an ordinary day, maybe gloomy and cold, maybe with a little long-lost sunshine, maybe snowing like the day she was born - but it doesn't matter, just one day in the long winter. Whether in the city where she grew up or in a simple house in a remote village, whether he is by her side or not, she can accept growing another year older.

  However, after such a long time, he still remembered that this day had special meaning for her. Just like she always remembered the first hug he gave her when she was 14 years old.

  Sunlight passes through the sunroom's shading curtain and shines in at an angle, with countless tiny dust particles dancing in the beam of light. The world is just a temporary lodging for all things, time sends away generations of passing travelers, life is like a dream, what joy can be found? Born into this dusty world of human sea, isn't everyone also just dust floating up and down in the sunlight?

  The sand will slowly seep out from between the fingers, memories will settle at the bottom of the heart bit by bit, but after all, some things still remain.

  What they are asking for is probably nothing more than to defy time, and stubbornly hold on to that fragment of emotion that the ruthless years have tried to wash away.

  The sunroom faces the courtyard, with a riot of purple and red flowers, like brocade, rushing towards me. Xincheng looks at the pot of Wenzhu placed in one corner of the sunroom, "It seems to have grown taller again, when it was at my place before, others didn't believe that Wenzhu could grow so tall."

  "The gardener of the property also said he had never seen a Wenzhu bamboo grow over 1 meter tall before."

  Xin Chen looked at the chessboard in front of him, picked up one of the black elephants and touched the small dent on its corner. "Are you going to play elephant chess with Lü Shifu's grandson?"

  "That day I went downstairs and bought a Transformer to exchange with him, he obviously liked my gift more."

  Xin Chen gazed at the chess piece she had touched countless times, smiled slightly, and put it back in its original position.

  "It's nice sitting here watching flowers."

  "Yes, I like this design the most. In winter, it can also be used as a greenhouse. Now I can be considered a good gardener, taking care of all the flowers you left behind. Have you seen that tree in the yard?"

  "Acacia tree, I like it."

  "I also like it. I specifically picked one from the forest and transplanted it here, it should bloom next month. From spring till now, watching these flowers bloom in clusters, it feels as if you've always been by my side."

  "Lu Fei, I'm no longer that naughty little girl who hugged the locust tree and swayed."

  "I know, Xiao Chen."

  "If you think you can accept a girlfriend who is uncertain about her feelings and always hesitant, let's try to start again."

  "Good."