The First Night: On Stories
Since childhood, I’ve always loved stories.
However, more often than not, I preferred listening to them rather than telling them. When I remained silent, I felt full, but once I opened my mouth and the words scattered into the wind, I felt like I would wither, much like an ephemeral flower.
It wasn’t until 2001 that I touched a keyboard for the first time—when I typed that first word, the woman called “Cang Yue” was born at my fingertips. She replaced me, using Chinese characters to weave the stories in my heart, transmitting them through the virtual world, across thousands of miles, to reach people on the other side.
From then on, I could finally tell everything in silence.
The Second Night: On Writing
I am not a genius, nor have I ever received formal training in writing. The only driving force behind my constant writing has always been the desire to express myself.
It’s like a little girl standing amidst a sea of people, timidly singing her first note, not expecting to earn applause. But gradually, some people stopped to listen. She felt joy, but also unease, and just wanted to sing better.
—But as time went on, I realized that relying solely on passion and talent could only take me so far.
In the five years since “Cang Yue” was born, I encountered many guides. During those early, lonely, and uncertain days, these mentors and friends walked with me, offering kind guidance from different perspectives, helping me see further and reach new places.
They planted seeds in my heart, which slowly blossomed over the years.
Writing is a long and winding road, and much has changed in these five years. Now that I’ve reached the end of one journey, the companions I once shared the view with have become fewer. Still, my gratitude remains.
One snowy night, years later, as I sat at the computer typing the title for this work, a poem by Xi Murong came to mind:
“I know that all the blossoms on the tree
“Come from a single seed, buried deep in the snow.”
The Third Night: On Snow
In many of my writings, I mention the rain in Jiangnan, but I rarely write about snow.
For someone like me, born in an ancient city in eastern Zhejiang and later moving to Hangzhou at eighteen, my memories of snow over the past two decades are faint. Perhaps it’s because snow is rare in Jiangnan, whereas the rainy season is long and unrelenting; or maybe it’s because I’ve always been physically weak and have feared the cold.
As a child, I often longed for a warm winter without snow. Yet, I frequently found myself waking up in the middle of the night, chilled to the bone, unable to sleep because my legs were freezing.
The next morning, when I opened the door, the world outside would be blanketed in white, clean and pure.
—Snow, to me, seemed like a symbol of some kind of ending.
This was the secret thought I harbored in my heart as a teenager.
The Fourth Night: On the Night
In the winter of 2004, I was preparing my master’s thesis in a rented apartment near my school. It was also a time when I was writing prolifically.
The apartment was a small, cramped space on the top floor of a building from the 1980s, with no heating. The living room, less than four square meters, held two computers, and the kitchen was on the balcony. Three of us girls squeezed into this space and lived there for more than a year.
Late at night, after my roommates had fallen asleep, I would make a cup of instant fruit drink, put on my headphones, and enter the world of my writing, letting everything else quietly slip away. In the stillness of the deep night, I sat motionless at my computer, tapping the keys incessantly in the same posture, writing without end. Only when dawn broke did I finally return to my bedroom, draw the curtains, and collapse into bed, utterly exhausted.
When I opened my eyes again, the sun would already have set outside, and the room would be empty.
No shopping, no socializing, no parties, not even much conversation with my roommates.
Life felt as though it existed on the other side of a mirror—through the glass, I could see the bustling scenes of cars, people, and noise, but I was outside looking in. Occasionally, I would reach out to touch the mirror, only to feel the cold surface.
This lonely and quiet routine lasted for a long time, and I eventually grew accustomed to it.
—Writing, after all, is a solitary endeavor. Like the thorn bird that must sing with its own blood, those who cannot bear loneliness may find it difficult to touch the world buried within their hearts.
At least, that’s how I saw it.
The Fifth Night: On Snowy Nights
However, the winter of 2004 was unexpectedly harsh, and several heavy snowfalls, the likes of which hadn’t been seen in years, came down suddenly.
The biggest snowstorm arrived in the middle of the night, soundlessly. The temperature outside plummeted, but in my obliviousness, I didn’t notice. I continued to sit at my computer, typing furiously in nothing but jeans and a light top, not moving until dawn. When I stood up, I suddenly lost my balance and fell heavily to the floor. To my horror, I realized that my frozen knees could no longer bend.
That snowstorm left a deep impression on me.
—The frostbite on my knees was severe, the skin rotting away to the bone. I now have two round scars on my right knee, resembling small eyes, and every time the weather changes, they ache faintly. During the spring and autumn months, I have to cover my knees with thick blankets before I can sit down to write in peace.
Those scars are the mark that snow left on me.
The Sixth Night: On Life
After that, I thought to myself, I need to re-enter the world around me and live as others my age do.
Otherwise, this isolated, night-turned-day life will destroy me.
Then came graduation, a new job, the nine-to-five life, and a steady routine—I began my career as a practicing architect and gradually stopped writing late into the night. During my free time, I would go out, wandering from one small shop to another by the West Lake, trying different restaurants, daydreaming under the shade of willows, watching the mist rise over the lake, and on snowy nights, I would crawl into my warm bed early, lazily flipping through a book or listening to music...
Life had become like a ticking clock—orderly, precise, but mechanical.
Everything seemed to be going according to plan.
Yet, deep inside, there was a stirring of discontent. No! I am meant to be a dream-weaver; my life shouldn’t be limited to this. If my former way of life was leading to my physical destruction, then this new life was causing me to wither away.
So, I allowed that desire to express myself to surge back, overwhelming me completely.
The Seventh Night: On "Seven Nights of Snow"
The idea for this story began during the Chinese New Year of 2006.
At the time, I had taken a break from work and returned to my hometown for vacation, which gave me a lot of free time. I’m not fond of crowds, nor do I enjoy visiting relatives, so I sat alone in the garden at home, much like I did in my youth, lost in thought.
The winter sun was warm and drowsy, but fragments of a story gradually began to surface in the thin sunlight, floating in and out, as if waiting for me to reach out and catch them.
At that moment, I decided to write a story about snow.
In my youth, the stories I wrote were often sharp and filled with intense pain, all or nothing, with no room for compromise. Every character was proud and resolute, unwilling to settle for less; if they couldn’t have it all, they would rather see everything destroyed—such was the case with Tingxuelou and Illusory World.
However, the theme of Seven Nights of Snow is about compromise and letting go.
In this story, there is no heart-wrenching conflict, only a dull and deep sense of pain and the exhaustion that comes after release. Each character wades through the river of their past, carrying different memories. Though their fates are deeply intertwined, in the end, they each choose to let go and find mutual release—Xue Zi Ye lets go of Xue Huai, Huo Zhan Bai lets go of Qiu Shui Yin, and Yami lets go of the Holy Leader...
They have all crossed the river of time, moving toward the other shore.
—Only the lone narrator remains, standing there, gazing in silence as these figures disappear into the mist of time and space. As if watching their own distant self.
"Once I climbed high peaks to glimpse the bright moon,
"Occasionally peering into the mundane world."
"But, alas, now I find myself within the very scene I used to observe."
Finale
“Writing is like holding up a mirror that allows you to understand yourself”—these five years have quietly changed my heart.
I do not feel shame for the sharpness and naivety of my youth, nor do I regret the restraint and patience I’ve learned now—because I know that five years from now, when I look back, I will still find things that are less than ideal.
Life is a cycle of repeated challenges, and only through this constant forging can we gradually grow and rise.
So, to the readers who have been with me for five years—have you also grown alongside me?
When I sat alone late at night, pouring my heart out in front of the computer, I thank you for always listening; when I was delayed by life’s struggles, I thank you for your patience, for never leaving. And I will continue to be here, accompanying you through graduation, work, marriage, children, and old age...
Until the day you forget about me :)
August 24, 2006
Written in Hangzhou
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