Beijing, 2002.
There weren’t many major events that year. The most thrilling one was probably Brazil’s football team winning the World Cup in June, as expected, without any surprises. Winter arrived on schedule, and the cold weather turned the children in the alleys into fluffy balls, wrapped by their parents in thick cotton coats and down jackets.
However, the snow that year came quite late. Two years later, a man with a voice full of weariness sang a song that became popular everywhere—“The First Snow of 2002.”
“The first snow of 2002 came even later than usual.”
Late, but vast enough. The world was enveloped in a boundless expanse of white, blurring the traces of time.
Shao Xue was born in such a snowstorm.
In those days, Beijing was not yet plagued by smog, and standing on Yinding Bridge, you could still see the Western Hills. The sun hung faintly in the sky, casting a warm, soft light onto the ground. To Shao Xue, those scenes seemed to stubbornly grow in her mind, impossible to forget even after many years. For instance, she and Zheng Su Nian riding bicycles through the early morning mist of Beijing, arriving at the vermilion gates of the Forbidden City with the gentle murmur of the Jinshui River in the background. The palace gates opened one by one, and the gilded door studs lit up the silent palaces. Or, the snow piled up in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the sparrows hopping in the snow, and the gatekeeper wielding his bamboo broom with great vigor.
That was her youth.
Her passionate, fiery youth.
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