Colorful years

In early winter, fine snowflakes drifted down like cotton wool onto the bare branches on both banks of the Lishui River.

The river, carrying fragments of ice, made a crisp, clanging sound as it rushed eastward.

As dusk settled and the last rays of the sunset were swallowed by the night, the riverside fish restaurants lit up with warm lights.

Xiao Hong stood behind the counter, fiddling with a gilded bronze charcoal brazier, sparks flying and reflecting on her slightly tired yet still gentle face. The frost on the glass window was tinged with a gradient of orange-red by the neon lights, like a natural painting, tranquil and beautiful.

The mandarin fish swimming at the bottom of the river seemed to sense the approaching cold wave, and they swayed their tails restlessly in the kitchen water tank. The splashed water droplets landed on Xiao Hong's apron embroidered with green bamboo patterns, leaving a few dark marks.

She glanced down at the water stains on her apron, a slight smile playing on her lips, a hint of helplessness flashing in her eyes. In this era where love begins with appearance and fizzles out with material things, Xiao Hong, now in her forties, has long been accustomed to weighing love in the matchmaking market.

Last Wednesday, the Patek Philippe of the securities manager reflected a cold arc of light on the dining table; last month, the floor plan of the river-view apartment of the returned PhD unfolded into a data maze on WeChat. Those carefully packaged material symbols once made her feel lost, as if the essence of love had long been drowned out by the clamor of the world.

However, at this moment, as she looked at the profile of Zhang Cong, the deputy director of the Cultural Bureau, which was reddened by the firelight, she was surprised to find that all those carefully packaged material symbols could not compare to the weight of a stack of yellowed manuscripts in his briefcase.

Zhang Cong sat opposite her, wearing a slightly worn camel-colored wool coat, the pine soot ink stains on the cuffs gleaming a bluish hue in the warm light. Xiao Hong suddenly recalled the stormy night three months ago, when this deputy director, while everyone was fleeing for shelter, took off his coat and covered the three kittens in a cardboard box at the alley entrance.

Rainwater streamed down his gold-rimmed glasses, and the way he squatted in the rain reinforcing the cardboard boxes reminded him of the root carving of Tao Yuanming in his father's study, now soaked in the rain.

"Director Zhang, your Liubao tea." Xiao Hong pushed the bone china cup across the old elm wood table, the bottom of the cup making a clear, resonant sound as it touched the grain of the wood.

Zhang Cong hurriedly stood up, took the teacup, and his fingertips inadvertently brushed against her hand. He paused slightly, then gave a gentle smile. The cast-iron kettle on the charcoal brazier began to emit white steam. Zhang Cong took out a manuscript bound with hemp rope from his worn leather briefcase. A fleeting glimpse of a ginkgo leaf bookmark tucked between the pages caught Xiao Hong's eye, and she caught a whiff of dried tangerine peel mixed with the scent of camphor wood.

“These… can be considered my spiritual self-portrait this year.” Zhang Cong’s voice was mellow with the slight intoxication of rice wine. His slender fingers unconsciously caressed the cracks on the rim of the cup, and the firelight reflected in the celadon ignited into dancing stars in his eyes.

Xiao Hong took the manuscript paper, still warm from her body, and was surprised to find that her breathing was in sync with the rhythm of the falling snow outside the window. The monologue about the museum keeper in "The Mirror of the Heart" reminded her of the silhouette she had seen Zhang Cong proofreading ancient books alone in the empty shop late last night when it closed; the old book market described in "Wrinkles of Time" clearly carried the musty smell and sandalwood fragrance unique to the old bookstore on Jiefang Road that was about to be demolished.

Just as I read the line from "Twin Vine" that "we will eventually recognize each other's incomplete souls in words," the bubbling sound of the casserole pot began to rise.

"Chenpi Beef Brisket Stew, I specially simmered it for an extra half hour." Chef Lao Hao broke the silence of the room with a rough earthenware pot, and the rising steam wove a flowing veil between the two of them.

On the octagonal table, emerald-green stir-fried lettuce was drizzled with amber-colored preserved meat sauce, and crystal shrimp gleamed like pearls in the candlelight. Zhang Cong couldn't refuse Chef Hao's urging to drink, and the way his Adam's apple bobbed as he tilted his head back to drink the ginseng rice wine reminded Xiao Hong of a line from his essay: "The idealist's throat always carries the romantic notion of drinking poison to quench thirst."

As the night deepened under the snow, the old-fashioned clock at the fish restaurant struck its eighth chime.

Looking out the window at the Xiangfei bamboo bent under the weight of snow, Xiao Hong suddenly recited softly: "'Icicles hang from the eaves like crystal curtains, while the fire in the stove melts loneliness into amber'—Director Zhang's 'Winter Solstice Night Talk' from last year is even more insightful than the scene before her eyes."

Zhang Cong's hand holding the teapot hovered in mid-air, the tea soup rippling in the cup. He never imagined that the words he casually wrote would be treasured in the phone's memo by this woman who was always fiddling with an abacus behind the counter.

The streetlights at the alley entrance cast a pale yellow glow on the snow. Zhang Cong insisted on seeing her off, but Xiao Hong grabbed his forearm at the corner. The woman peeked her frostbitten nose out from under her cashmere scarf, and the movement of flipping through her notebook startled a few snowflakes from her temples.

The phone's flashlight illuminated a paragraph marked with highlighter on the page—his article "The Warm Current Beneath the Ice," published six months prior. "When you wrote about elderly people living alone arranging frozen dumplings into constellations on their windowsills, did you ever think about..."

Her voice, choked by the cold wind, faded into the darkness as her breath mingled with the snowflakes.

The Lishui River, with its frosty face, sings its song all the way, while broken ice collides on the inky river surface, creating a cool and melodious tune.

As Xiao Hong turned around downstairs at the staff dormitory, Zhang Cong's manuscript paper in the inner pocket of his coat had several more lines of elegant annotations—on the edge of the article describing ancient book restorers, lay the sentence, "Copper rust can be removed, but the rust in one's heart needs to be melted by the spring breeze."

He looked at the two parallel sets of footprints on the snow and suddenly remembered that afternoon in the archives of the Cultural Bureau, he had accidentally glimpsed Xiao Hong's poem published in the school magazine when she was in college: "We will eventually use snow as paper / to write all the letters that have never been sent in half a lifetime".

In a private booth by the window on the second floor of the fish restaurant, the embers of the charcoal brazier still reflected tiny gold flakes on the glass. Deep inside the counter drawer lay a kraft paper envelope that Zhang Cong had secretly slipped in last week. Inside, besides the settled money for the medicinal meals, was a yellowed tattered piece of Xuan paper with the words written in vigorous ink: "Three qian of dried tangerine peel can relieve the pain of lovesickness."

At this moment, the ice floes drifting on the Lishui River are refracting the lights on both banks into a galaxy, just like the footnote that Xiao Hong wrote on the title page of Zhang Cong's essay collection that night: "Words are the messages in bottles we send to the world, and you are the island I encountered after my ship sank."

The night was deep, and the snow continued to fall silently. The fish restaurant on the banks of the Lishui River seemed to have been forgotten by time, quiet and warm. In the firelight, the shadows of the two people were stretched long, as if intertwined and inseparable.

Xiao Hong gazed at the snowflakes falling outside the window, a warmth rising in her heart. She knew that the material symbols she had once weighed in the matchmaking market were no longer important. True love, perhaps, was hidden in these small, everyday moments, in those yellowed manuscripts, in the warm words, "Three coins' worth of dried tangerine peel can relieve the pain of longing."

Zhang Cong stood beside her, his gaze tenderly fixed on the snow scene outside the window. He had never imagined that the words he had casually written could stir such waves in the heart of this woman in her forties.

He sighed softly, his heart filled with contentment. Perhaps this was the power of words; they could unexpectedly connect two lonely souls.

The night grew thicker, but the fish restaurant along the Lishui River still shone with warm lights. In the firelight, their shadows stretched long, seemingly intertwined, inseparable. Xiao Hong gazed at the falling snowflakes outside the window, a warmth rising in her heart.