That morning, Zheng Su Nian felt something was off.
The sky was overcast, and the smog was heavy. Early in the morning, he went to the water room to fill his thermos, but as soon as he turned on the tap, water gushed out uncontrollably.
Sister Qiao Mu, who was standing behind him, rushed over to check.
“What happened? Did you get burned?”
Luckily, he dodged in time, though his left hand was left with a large red patch.
But that wasn’t the end of it. As he walked back with the thermos, he ran into a young apprentice from the lacquerware group. The girl was carrying a basin of freshly prepared pig’s blood mixed with lime, which the group leader in another courtyard was waiting to use.
Splat!
It spilled all over him.
Zheng Su Nian couldn’t stand the smell and rushed into the bathroom to strip off his jacket and rinse it.
Shivering in just his sweater, he made his way back to the replication department.
Even Shi Xian Qing couldn’t tolerate the stench. He took Zheng Su Nian’s jacket and hung it on a stone table in the courtyard to dry. In no time, the coat froze stiff in the winter cold. By the time the workday ended, Dou Si Yuan brought him an old down jacket he no longer wore, giving Zheng Su Nian the courage to step out into Beijing’s bitter winter.
Zheng Jin, being older and prone to fussing, didn’t notice the injury on Zheng Su Nian’s hand. After returning home, Su Nian searched for some burn ointment on his own. The medicine box was a mess, and he couldn’t tell if the ointment was expired or not. Just as he was about to apply it to his hand, his phone rang.
Startled, Zheng Su Nian squeezed the ointment onto his pants instead.
It was an unfamiliar number.
Normally, he would ignore such calls, assuming them to be scams, but for some reason, he answered it that day.
There was no response on the other end.
He said “hello” a few times, puzzled, and then heard very faint breathing.
It was so soft that if his room hadn’t been completely quiet, he wouldn’t have noticed it.
Zheng Su Nian knew immediately—it was Shao Xue.
He didn’t know how he knew it was her. It was as if there was some telepathic connection, or maybe a mysterious bond. The person on the other end didn’t speak, and neither did he. They remained in silent stalemate until the sound of the wind howled through the line.
Shao Xue finally spoke: “Can I hear you say something?”
“What do you want to hear?”
“Anything.”
So, he let out a long sigh.
He said, “It’s snowing in Beijing.”
After a long pause, the call ended.
There were so many things he still wanted to say: It’s snowing in Beijing, and the square in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony is covered in pure white. He was currently replicating a Qing Dynasty landscape painting. Dou Yan Xi had learned to walk, wobbling around and climbing all over him whenever they met.
But he didn’t say any of that.
In a small town far away, a tall man walked in from outside the door. Looking at Shao Xue, who had just changed into fresh clothes, he asked, “Miss Shao, are you okay? Should we take you back to the city?”
Shao Xue shook her head. “No need. If I leave, there’ll be a language barrier, and things won’t progress here.”
The man apologized, “It’s our fault for not having better safety measures. We were terrified when you fell into the river.”
“It was my own carelessness.”
He glanced at the phone Shao Xue had tossed onto the bed. “Do you need to make a call? The signal here is weak; I can find you a landline if you’d like.”
“No need. I’ll dry my hair, and we can continue.”
“Alright, we’ll wait for you.”
The next day, when Zheng Su Nian arrived at work, Shi Xian Qing was outside, crouched down feeding a cat.
Su Nian had started interning here before graduation, and by the end of the year, he would have been working for nearly two years. The job was fairly relaxed—quaint, single-story buildings with glazed tiles, each courtyard connected to the next. There were large water jars and towering ancient trees in the courtyards. In the summer, when girls screamed at the sight of bugs, it reminded him of when he, Shao Xue, and the others all lived in a hutong.
“Morning, Shi Laoshi,” he greeted.
“You’re here?” Shi Xian Qing withdrew his hand from under the cat’s paws. “Go and register to pick up a painting.”
Most of the famous paintings in the inventory had already been replicated over the years, so now they were working on lesser-known pieces. The pace wasn’t rushed; the main thing was accuracy. Zheng Su Nian was given a Qing Dynasty landscape painting, a pure black-and-white ink piece, with a solitary, icy river-fishing atmosphere.
All morning, no matter how hard he tried, the painting didn’t feel right.
Frustrated, he skipped lunch. When Shi Xian Qing returned from his meal, he saw Su Nian still working and poked at the painting with his finger.
“What’s going on with you today?”
Zheng Su Nian’s mind was a tangled mess; even he didn’t know what was wrong.
“Stop wasting our paper,” Shi Xian Qing said, gesturing outside. “The snow is beautiful. Let’s take a walk.”
People often said that when it snowed, the Forbidden City transformed, and it was true. The heavy snow blanketed the golden glazed tiles and the uneven stone paths, leaving only the vivid red palace walls visible. Su Nian and Shi Xian Qing strolled along the base of the wall, and before long, they reached the Imperial Garden.
It was Monday, and the palace was closed to the public. The Forbidden City was almost deserted. Shi Xian Qing patted Su Nian on the shoulder. “How long have you been working here?”
“Two years.”
“Oh, two years—that’s still short,” Shi Xian Qing nodded. “What are your thoughts on working here?”
“It’s pretty nice,” Zheng Su Nian smiled. “The senior craftsmen are all kind and easygoing. Working here feels more like a part of life. Ever since the hutong in my neighborhood got demolished, I haven’t had this kind of feeling in a long time.”
“And the work? It’s different from school, isn’t it?”
“Of course. Back in school, we were encouraged to create our own art, to have our own ideas. Here, it’s all about replication, and you can’t afford to be even a hair off.”
Shi Xian Qing nodded again.
“Do you know what the hardest part of replication is?”
“The shading, I suppose,” Zheng Su Nian thought for a moment. “Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t mix the right shade. It’s incredibly frustrating.”
“Exactly!” Shi Xian Qing seized on that. “But today, you’re replicating an ink wash painting. What does color have to do with that?”
Zheng Su Nian was left speechless.
“I’ve been here for over twenty years. The hardest part of replication isn’t the brushwork or mixing colors—it’s your state of mind.”
He brushed the snow off a stone bench and sat down.
“Replication isn’t creation. To restore a piece to its original form, you have to immerse yourself in the mindset of the original artist, especially with Chinese landscape paintings. Western art emphasizes realism, only later moving toward abstraction. But Chinese landscape painting uses ink to capture the essence of mountains and rivers, and leaves blank spaces to suggest the infinite. When replicating, if the original artist was delicate, you have to be delicate; if the artist was bold, you must be bold. The landscape painting you’re working on today may be by an unknown artist, but you can tell the creator had traveled far and wide. If you lack a similar depth of understanding, one misplaced stroke will ruin the entire composition.”
He paused to let Zheng Su Nian absorb his words.
“To truly grasp the artist’s mindset, your own mind must first achieve a state of ‘emptiness.’ If your mind is cluttered, how can you possibly connect with the thoughts of someone who lived hundreds of years ago?”
“Su Nian,” Shi Xian Qing stood up and patted his shoulder, “your heart isn’t at peace.”
Zheng Su Nian looked up, gazing at the expansive red walls of the Forbidden City, and silently nodded.
“If I ask what’s on your mind, would that be prying too much?”
“I’m thinking about…” Zheng Su Nian murmured, “things I can’t have.”
“Not being able to let go, feeling unsatisfied—that’s something everyone experiences,” Shi Xian Qing said with a shake of his head. “Even I do. We’re not Buddhas; it’s impossible to have no attachments. But since you’ve chosen this profession, you need to…”
He drew out the words: “You need to learn how to practice.”
For a craftsman, their work is a kind of practice, a journey of self-cultivation.
For those who restore cultural relics, the work must be pure and sincere.
That afternoon, while everyone else was in a meeting that didn’t concern him, Zheng Su Nian stayed behind in the quiet restoration room. He fell asleep on his desk.
In his dream, he was in a misty landscape, with dark mountains and icy white rivers. He sat in a small boat, an old man in a straw raincoat standing beside him.
“What are you doing?” Su Nian asked.
“Waiting for someone,” the old man replied.
“You’re waiting here? On the river?”
“Yes, on the river.”
“What if the person you’re waiting for doesn’t come?”
“I’ll keep waiting.”
“Why not go look for them?”
The old man was silent for a moment, then slowly turned toward Zheng Su Nian. He lifted his straw hat slightly, revealing a pair of youthful, clear eyes.
“Because I know she’ll come.”
Zheng Su Nian froze, then gasped in shock.
Those were his own eyes!
Suddenly, with a splash, the lake water rose, and his vision blurred. When he opened his eyes, he heard a commotion from the lacquerware group next door.
“Oh no, you knocked over the basin again!”
By the time the painting was almost finished, a group of visitors from an overseas museum arrived at the restoration studio.
The foreign guests were particularly interested in porcelain and spent over half an hour talking with Dou Si Yuan before heading to the painting section. The translator, a young woman with clear pronunciation and sharp diction, seemed out of place in the ancient atmosphere of the workshop.
Zheng Su Nian hadn’t planned to interact with them, giving just a brief nod of acknowledgment before returning to his desk. But suddenly, the translator’s voice halted, and a gaze locked onto him.
Shi Laoshi was in the middle of explaining their work, but one of the visitors nudged the translator forward. Feeling something odd, Zheng Su Nian looked up again, only to see Qin Si Mu deep in thought while translating, her eyes focused on him.
Zheng Su Nian felt as though he and Qin Si Mu must have some kind of cosmic clash. Every time he saw her, he felt thoroughly uncomfortable.
After the foreign visitors finished the introduction to artifact restoration, they scattered to explore the palaces and buildings of the Forbidden City. With no more translation duties, Qin Si Mu walked up to Zheng Su Nian, rapping her knuckles on his desk.
The sudden jolt made Zheng Su Nian’s brush slip, and he let out a sharp hiss of frustration.
“If you knock any harder, my entire month’s work will be ruined,” he said, putting down his brush and standing up. “Let’s talk outside.”
Once they had stepped through the layered doors of the restoration room, they stood in a quieter corner where fewer people passed by. The winter sun in Beijing was always pale and thin, casting a cold light on Zheng Su Nian’s face, making him seem somewhat distant.
“I didn’t expect to run into you here,” Qin Si Mu said bluntly. “Are you still in touch with Shao Xue?”
The brief memory of that phone call flashed through Zheng Su Nian’s mind. He hesitated for a moment before shaking his head.
“Zheng Su Nian, I’ve never seen a guy as pathetic as you,” Qin Si Mu said, her words cutting sharply. But Zheng Su Nian wasn’t offended.
“I always thought that in a relationship, the man should take the initiative. When Shao Xue said she was leaving, I never imagined you’d just let her go so easily.”
“Let her go?” Zheng Su Nian frowned at that. “She’s a person, not some pet. She has the right to choose her own path. What do you mean, ‘let her go’?”
“Don’t you know she loves you?”
“I do. I know she loves me, and I also know that I love her just as much.”
“Then why didn’t you try harder?” Qin Si Mu pressed. “I didn’t think much of it before, but recently I’ve learned more about her situation. She’s having a tough time out there on her own. Why don’t you go find her?”
Zheng Su Nian’s brow furrowed. “How is she struggling?”
“She’s a girl out there by herself. Of course, it’s hard.”
Zheng Su Nian took a deep breath, calming himself before speaking.
“Miss Qin, I don’t like it when others meddle in my personal matters,” he said, taking a step back and looking at her. “But since you’re her senior, I’ll say a bit more. Everyone has their own view of love. You think I should go find her, but I believe I should give her absolute freedom. I don’t have the right or the qualification to interfere with the path she chooses, whether it’s difficult or easy.”
Qin Si Mu looked at him, confused. “I don’t get you people. If you love her, why didn’t you hold onto her?”
“Shao Xue is different from other girls,” Zheng Su Nian said, his thoughts becoming clearer as he spoke. In fact, he felt grateful to Qin Si Mu for forcing him to untangle his messy emotions. “Giving her freedom is what suits her best. What I can promise is that if one day she comes back, I’ll be here. But everything else should be up to her.”
“How can you be so sure she’ll come back? What if she doesn’t?”
“Then I’ll wait,” he replied.
Qin Si Mu was stunned for a moment, her tone softening. “You’ll really wait for her?”
The wall before them had stood for six hundred years.
For six hundred years, it had withstood wind, rain, and scorching sun.
The palace wall, a deep red, gleamed under the sunlight, as if engulfed in a blazing fire. It had seen centuries of human sorrow and joy, too much for any single lifetime to bear.
But the man standing before Qin Si Mu was young.
He stood tall, his back straight, his voice cold yet resolute.
“I will.
“I will wait for her.
“Because I know she will come.”
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