The boy’s gaze was as though seized and held fast by something, and in his daze he could no longer manage any of the movements he ought to have made. He forgot to breathe, forgot language, forgot even his own existence; in his eyes, in his heart, in all the world, there remained only this girl standing before him, looking at him with an expression he could not read. His feelings had been sealed in ice for many years, yet his nature was still that of a boy of ten. He thought her beautiful — he had never seen a girl so beautiful, so beautiful it left him feeling he was dreaming.

The cold wind stirred, lifting strands of her hair. Gazing at the boy before her, the coldness in the girl’s eyes gradually melted away into an entrancing haze. She wore only a thin, snow-white dress, and amid this world of ice and snow she seemed to merge with the whiteness itself, forming a picture of exquisite, dreamlike beauty — and that dreamlike face was the most heart-stirring color in the whole scene. Without her, the picture would have been nothing but a lifeless, colorless pallor.

When a woman’s beauty reaches a certain height, one might call it enough to sink fish and drop birds from the sky, enough to topple cities and kingdoms. But when she was only ten years old, such worldly praises were already unworthy of her — they would only have been a diminishment and a profanation.

Drip.

The corner of the girl’s mouth had been curved faintly upward all this while, yet the inborn coldness in her eyes was quietly thawing, until at last it melted into a single droplet that fell without a sound onto the snow at her feet.

Tears…

And after the tears, she suddenly rushed forward and — while the boy still had not come back to himself — threw her arms around him, holding him tightly, the crystalline tears she had been struggling to hold back now pouring down freely, wetting his clothes.

“I’ve… finally… found you…”

Pressed against his shoulder, she murmured softly. Her voice was gentle and light as a clear breeze through an empty valley, and so ethereal it might have come from beyond the sky. Her flawless white dress stood in stark visual contrast to the boy’s filthy, ragged grey coat. She paid not the slightest mind to the grime on him, holding him with what seemed the whole of her strength… as though she feared that if she let go, she would never see him again.

Faint, warm breath fell against his neck; the soft, lovely body in his arms trembled gently. The boy, who had never embraced a girl nor been embraced by one, was utterly frozen where he stood. More and more, he was coming to believe he was in an unreal dream.

After a long while, the girl wiped away her tears and released him, though she stayed pressed close to him still, a pair of eyes that seemed to have gathered all the world’s spiritual essence gazing at him in a hazy, besotted daze. And he looked back at her with an expression that was almost unreal… Standing so near, he saw a girl whose skin was like ice and snow, like congealed cream; eyes so beautiful they defied description, crystalline as ice; cherry-red lips lovely as fallen petals in spring. Her long black hair, spilling loose, danced lightly in the faint cold wind, framing a face like a poem, like a painting — so beautiful he scarcely dared look straight at her.

Anyone who saw her would be utterly certain that her form, her face, every inch of her skin, every breath, every glance, every thread of her voice, every trace of her smile, could effortlessly conquer any man alive. Even though she was only ten years old now.

“Who… are… you…” The boy, who had always avoided crowds and shut out all contact with others, felt not the faintest impulse in his heart to push her away. He simply gazed at her, dazed, and produced a voice so faint that even he could scarcely hear it.

The girl’s tears blurred her vision. She smiled, and that peerless, childlike smile made the boy feel as though the most beautiful flower in all the world were blooming before his eyes. Softly she said, “First tell me… your name?”

“Ye Tian.” He, who had all but forgotten his own name, found himself speaking it under her gaze, as though beyond his own control.

“Ye Tian…” The girl murmured the name softly, then said gently, “Why are you here all alone… Where is your home? Where are your father and mother?”

“Home?”

The girl suddenly felt the boy’s body go rigid; even his skin turned cold in an instant. He shook his head and said in a voice devoid of all feeling, “I have no home… Father died, Mother died… Brother died protecting me… I have always been… alone.”

The girl’s body trembled faintly. And then, having until now had eyes only for him, she suddenly saw the snowman he had built, and the ragged clothes on his back, and the biscuit in his hand with its bite marks… In that moment her heart felt pierced by ten thousand blades at once, and the pain blurred her freshly dried eyes with tears all over again.

She reached out a warm hand and laid it against his face, and through soft sobs said in anguish, “Why… why are you always so alone… No! I won’t have it — I won’t let you be lonely again, won’t let you suffer any hardship again. For my sake… you gave up far too much. This time, let me protect you with everything I have…”

What she said, he could not understand at all.

“Why… have you… have you mistaken me for someone…” he asked, on instinct.

“No… Even if I forgot myself, I could never forget you, and I could never mistake you for another…” She shook her head gently, flicking the tears from the corners of her eyes, a faint smile appearing on her tear-streaked face. “Your birthday is the seventh of July, isn’t it?”

The boy started, then nodded, bewildered.

“Mine is the seventh of July too… Will you believe me? We were born in the same year, the same month, the same day, the same hour… even the same second…”

The boy: “…”

“From now on, you won’t be alone anymore. Let me stay with you — will you let me? If you’re willing, will you listen to me just this once… From now on you won’t be called Ye Tian, but… Ye Tianxie. All right?”

“Ye… Tian… xie…”

……

……

Warm sunlight had already reached into the bedroom. Ye Tianxie, awake at last, sat up in bed and stared blankly into that past he had replayed in his dreams countless times. At such moments his expression was always vacant, and within that vacancy lay a bewilderment and a grief that never surfaced at any other time.

If we were destined to part, why did we meet at all?

And having met, why must we part…

Didn’t we promise — that you would stay with me a whole lifetime, that we would never be separated…

Why was that “forever” so very brief?

Where are you… where did you go… why did you leave…

More than ten years together, and you loved me more than everything you had. But why, even to this day… do I still not know…

Who you are…

He let out a long sigh. Three years now. Her leaving had once driven him to madness, to ruin, had once returned him to that old state of a heart burned to ashes. Step by step, he had endured it all, and gone on hoping that one day she might return as suddenly as she had left. But three years, ten years, thirty — none of it could erase his longing and his sorrow, and none of it could set him free.

He believed that she was a fairy from the heavens, the most brilliant and beautiful star that heaven had bestowed upon him…

(End of Chapter 69)