Winter Returns

Chapter 244 A Fleeting Dream of the Past (Part Two) (Seeking monthly votes!)
Lu Qinglian raised her head, her eyes shimmering with a stubborn expression, but as darkness fell, Zhang Shutong couldn't discern the emotions hidden within them.

The two women left the teaching building without umbrellas, and snowflakes quickly settled on their shoulders. In the dim light, the woman gazed into the girl's eyes and softly said:

"Guard your heart above all else."

"what?"

"This verse is also from the Bible, and it's better than the one you memorized before."

"I don't want to hear it," said Xiao Lu, who had just mentioned liking the Bible last night, shaking her head.

How many punches did you land?

"Three punches."

"Next time, change it to one punch." The woman patted her.

“But Mom just said to keep my heart to myself.” Lu Qinglian tilted her head, her cunning side resurfacing.

"You don't understand what it means to guard your heart. If you reduce the anger of three punches to one punch, that is still guarding your heart."

"Like this?" Lu Qinglian was unusually taken aback.

"Hey, hey," Zhang Shutong thought to himself, "is your family's way of deceiving people also inherited from the same lineage?"
"I haven't finished yet. Next time it'll be one punch, and the time after that, just scare him with a punch, and then try not to hit him at all." Mother Lu shook her head and smiled. "Of course, don't be so narrow-minded. If you're punished by standing in the corner, just turn around and walk away."

"Okay." Perhaps this was exactly what Lu Qinglian had been waiting for.

When she reached the school gate, she finally looked up and asked:

How did Mom know I was being punished by standing in the corner?

“My mother is a temple keeper.” The woman’s voice was playful, but as soon as she left the school gate, she pointed to a mound of earth by the wall and said, “The secret is here.”

"what?"

The woman reached out her hand, and then a snake slowly crawled out of the hole.

Lu Qinglian's expression was even more surprised than Zhang Shutong's.

"This is a snake from the temple; it can remember your scent."

"breath?"

"Yes. Your aura, my aura, Grandma's aura, the aura of the Lu family, it could be you as a person, or it could be something on you."

The woman said softly:
"So I knew you didn't leave school on time today."

It turned out that the aura of the clay figure also came from the temple keeper. As Zhang Shutong thought this, he saw Lu's mother lift up her sleeve, revealing a section of her round wrist. There were two very light red dots on her wrist, which looked like the marks left by snake fangs.

"That's it."

Lu Qinglian, however, stepped back, frowning with obvious disgust.

"dirty."

She can still hide behind her mother's legs, so her mother protects her and says:

"It's too early for you."

"Go." The woman waved her hand dismissively, and the snake obediently slithered into the cave.

“But the timing doesn’t match,” Lu Qinglian asked again.

"Yes, there are some things."

The woman took her hand, and Lu Qinglian then pointed out:
"This is not the way home."

"Yes, I need to buy you a pair of boots, you little rascal."

Zhang Shutong guessed wrong. He thought Lu's mother had something important to do and just happened to be passing by. It turned out that she was there to pick up Lu Qinglian from school.

They walked away with their umbrellas. The umbrella in the woman's hand really detracted from her demeanor. As a temple keeper, she should have been wearing a traditional blue umbrella, but instead, she was holding a large advertising umbrella. Although it was ugly, it was big enough. Under the large umbrella, a girl named Lu Qinglian held her mother's hand and left a series of footprints in the snow.

Zhang Shutong watched for a while, then quickly followed.

His current state is peculiar; snowflakes fall on him but don't melt into water, and he doesn't feel much coldness.

The shopping mall hadn't been built yet, so they went to a commercial street. In a clothing store, Lu Qinglian tried on boots. She tried them on slowly, which is probably how any girl does. They choose styles rather than sizes, but she had no experience and didn't know to look in a full-length mirror. She just used her eyes to judge, holding them in her hands and looking at them on her feet. Once she was satisfied, she wouldn't take them off.

Zhang Shutong braved the wind and snow to go out again. They walked at a leisurely pace, so he slowed down as well. Zhang Shutong thought to himself, this is a beautiful dream.

Of course, it would be better if it weren't so tiring. No matter how much he trained, the temple keepers' physical strength far surpassed his. When he finally reached the top of the mountain, all he wanted to do was go inside and warm up. But this time, the two of them walked very fast. Just as Zhang Shutong was about to say "wait a moment," the door to the side hall was closed.

He was indeed very cold-hearted. He found a clean spot to sit down, patted his pocket, and pulled out two chocolates. He had bought them before diving. He opened one as a snack, but as soon as he put it in his mouth, his eyelids closed uncontrollably again.

……

When Zhang Shutong opened his eyes, half of his body was covered by a blanket of white snow. He excitedly stood up, but after taking only a few steps, the crater beneath him disappeared. It seemed he would have to wait.

Zhang Shutong sighed.

On the way down the mountain, they encountered foxes again. He wasn't afraid of getting his pants wet, so he sat on the snow-covered steps and waited. Lu Qinglian squatted among the foxes, touching and patting them. Perhaps still influenced by Harry Potter, she tried to treat the foxes as spirits, throwing out a few pebbles for them to pick up.

Zhang Shutong rested his chin on his hand and muttered:

“Lu Qinglian, if you ever call me childish again, I’ll definitely tell you the story of Harry Potter.”

As soon as she finished speaking, Lu Qinglian bent down and picked up a pebble. With a whoosh, the pebble grazed his ear and hit the tree trunk behind him. A full tree of snow fell down on him, burying him like a snowman. Zhang Shutong was stunned and wondered, "Could this woman really hear me?"

He struggled to climb out of the snow, nearly falling back down along the way.

Lu Qinglian threw out the last breakfast sausage in her hand, and the foxes chased after it in a group, fighting fiercely for a while. When Zhang Shutong walked over, they scattered again.

I don't seem to get along very well with animals.

He was lost in thought when a fox ran past his feet, and Zhang Shutong felt a furry touch.

His heart skipped a beat, and he hurriedly bent down to grab it, but the fox nimbly escaped. Zhang Shutong subconsciously rubbed his fingers together; there was only one red hair. He couldn't be wrong. After being able to affect some minor objects, he could now actually touch animals.

But is it an animal or limited to foxes?
Zhang Shutong looked around, but there wasn't a single animal in the mountains, not even a bird in the sky.

He looked down and saw a line of writing in the snow:
"Find the deepest secret."

Zhang Shutong's heart skipped a beat. He checked again to make sure he saw a line of words, but who wrote it?

Lu Qinglian? No, I've been following her the whole way, and she hasn't had a chance to write anything.

This line of text is located on the edge of the stone steps, a place you would never normally pass by when walking, meaning it must have been written there long ago?
Zhang Shutong subconsciously looked at the foxes, but they had already disappeared into the woods.

Who is it?
No, Zhang Shutong calmed down. It was pointless to dwell on a specific "person" in a dream. He stared at those words, which were already messed up by the fox's paw prints and bits of starch sausage. But what did "secret" mean?
His intuition told him this was the key to escaping this dream. Whose secret? Or the secret of this dream itself?

As Lu Qinglian's figure was about to disappear from sight, he hastily wiped away the writing with his foot and hurriedly followed.

When I arrived at school again, it was right at the start of morning reading time.

He sat down next to Lu Qinglian and pushed her pen. It rolled much faster than yesterday. Zhang Shutong then tried to turn the pages of her book, and it moved successfully. Confirming this made him breathe a sigh of relief. After reviewing two lessons of elementary school material, he lowered his head and started reading a novel with Lu Qinglian.

Now that things have come to this, Zhang Shutong has discovered that she deliberately skips English classes, which explains why she often does English tests in the future.

"Lu Qinglian!"

Lu Qinglian stood up in response.

Zhang Shutong thought to himself, "You really give yourself away so easily," but Lu Qinglian calmly raised her chin, ready to counter her moves as she had yesterday. But today, the teacher had learned her lesson:
"No one else is allowed to speak. Tell me, where were we?"

This way, yesterday's clever trick won't be of any use.

Zhang Shutong waited for her to lower her eyes and think of a solution, then the teacher spoke loudly again:

"I'll give you three numbers. If you can't answer them, you can't sit down for the rest of the class."

He thought to himself that things were going to get bad, but Lu Qinglian's deskmate—the little girl who gave her the beef stick—quietly reached out and pointed to a certain option. Lu Qinglian answered fluently, and the teacher looked at her as if she had seen a ghost, and had no choice but to let her sit down.

They really are good friends.

Zhang Shutong smiled when he saw this.

So the two who were sulking and not speaking to each other yesterday made up today, and her deskmate gave her a cookie:
"Brought it for you."

Lu Qinglian nodded her chin, and without any hesitation, picked up a piece of the tea and squinted her eyes.

"Thank you for standing up for me yesterday," my deskmate whispered again.

Lu Qinglian shook her head:

"I wanted to hit him."

"Your punch was really powerful."

"Not next time."

"Could you teach me? I'll bring you beef jerky next time..."

Someone started talking to Lu Qinglian, and Zhang Shutong could no longer read the novel. He waited until noon when school was over. Lu Qinglian went to the restroom, and Zhang Shutong stood by the window in the noisy classroom, looking at the snow scene.

Being an observer is a bit lonely, he thought. At this moment, he suddenly understood why some people love to draw sheep. Zhang Shutong breathed on the glass and was pondering how Gu Qiumian drew that sheep when a cloud of black smoke came into view, accompanied by the sound of a whistle.

"Are you kidding me?" Zhang Shutong blinked hard. Their school was near the lake shore, and he had actually come from the outer edge of the school, on the edge of the small island—

I saw a train!
Has the world suddenly changed? No, it should be said that the world is not what it is in reality!

(End of this chapter)