The streets were deathly quiet after the heavy snow.
I am alone in a world without light, walking and walking.
Believe that everything will be fine in the end, even if there are many misfortunes now.

During the winter vacation, Wu Zhizi and Ren Di went to the Maldives for a trip. Ella and Dafei got along well, and she visited Xia Chan less often.
For a long time, Xia Chan had been dreaming. She dreamed that she fell into an infinite loop of dreams, in which there was no light or color. She was in wet waters and vaguely heard a young man's painful cry for help. The voice was very familiar, but it was filled with deep despair.
She kept moving forward to find the source of the sound, grabbing the hand that was as cold as ice and longing for salvation, anxiously wanting to ask who he was, what to say, and why he kept appearing in her dreams. But as soon as she opened her mouth, piercingly cold water filled her chest.
The hand that held her in the dream suddenly pushed her upwards. For a moment, a warm light seemed to come from a distant wilderness into her eyes. The voice under the water gradually faded away. When she finally heard what it was, she felt as if she was pierced by thousands of arrows. He said goodbye in an unclear tone: "Axia, goodbye..."
She didn't even see his face clearly until the end.
The ringing of the cell phone interrupted the dream, and the person sleeping on the bed had tears flowing from his tightly closed eyes.
Xia Chan reached out from under the quilt, groped for her phone in a daze, and said incoherently, "Hello."
There was a light laugh from inside.
She opened her eyes with great effort and looked at the number in confusion, suspecting that the other party had dialed the wrong number. There were only four people's numbers in her phone contacts: Jiang Huainan, Ella, Wu Zhizi, and Gu Tong.
When I was about to hang up, Monet's lazy voice came: "Axia, how are you?"
It's just a winter vacation, what's good or bad, it's so strange so early in the morning. Xia Chan looked up at the wall clock, it's only eight o'clock, this guy really disturbs my sleep.
She yawned involuntarily, and pulled her hands back into the warm quilt. She put the phone to her ear and said, "It's great, especially when I can't see you."
"So you miss me so much?" Monet asked with a smile, and said softly, "I miss you too, every day, during the day and at night. Axia, I think I've been poisoned by you."
She said angrily, "When will you die? If you are sick, take medicine."
"Tsk, how can you talk like that? How can you curse me?" Monet's dissatisfied tone was full of tenderness. "Besides, it would be a pity if I, who is so handsome, charming and suave, died. How many young girls would cry their eyes out. As a girl, wouldn't you feel sad? I just took the medicine. The doctor said I need to rest and can't be stimulated."
"Haha, then just rest and don't provoke me." Xia Chan said coldly.
He pretended not to hear, and said cheerfully: “I guess you are at home, I came to find you now, I want to see you.”
"I don't want to see..." There was a busy tone on the phone. Xia Chan threw the phone casually on the bed, cursed "bastard", and thought to herself that if she didn't open the door, she would see what he would do.
Five minutes later, the phone rang again.
Xia Chan grabbed her hair and sat up suddenly. Without even looking at him, she answered the phone and yelled, "Are you annoying? Can you let me sleep?"
The other party was silent.
Realizing something was wrong, Xia Chan put the phone away. After waking up, she saw that the caller was "Jiang Huainan".
She stared at the name blankly, and suddenly she couldn't say anything. She felt very complicated, with all kinds of emotions intertwined, sadness, nostalgia, heartache, or grievance. She couldn't tell which emotion was more real.
What he said at the hotpot restaurant was very clear, and at the KTV, under Ella and Gu Tong's "design", they were all full of things on their minds and forced themselves to smile.
The gap between the two people gradually widened, and after a long time, people habitually wanted to escape. Between him and her, it was not a simple secret love or unrequited love, where he didn't like her and she left; nor was it a conflict between friends, where he broke off the relationship and she stopped associating with him .
There are too many things that cannot be let go, the lines of fate are intertwined, and there is no winner. She and Jiang Huainan must be more of a family, and now her feelings are mixed in. There is no suitable identity to get along with each other, and both of them are embarrassed.
She took a deep breath, looked at the hazy fog outside, and thought about how to start.
" Axia." Jiang Huainan's tired voice came from the other end of the phone, with a nasal tone due to a cold.
"Yeah, I'm here." Her mind was full of thoughts.
"I'm downstairs at your house, let's talk." His voice was as heavy as a sigh.
"Okay, I'll be right down."
Xia Chan threw back the quilt, quickly dressed, washed, changed her shoes, casually tied her hair up and prepared to go out. When she looked up and saw herself in the mirror, her face was pale and haggard like a ghost.
She stepped back, rushed into the room, took out the bottles and jars from the storage box, applied makeup skillfully and patted them lightly, then put on honey-colored lipstick to cover her dry lips, smoothed the bangs around her ears to make herself look better, then smiled at herself in the mirror, said "come on" and went out.
Her heart was beating fast. She and Jiang Huainan hadn't seen each other for a long time.
After going downstairs, she saw Jiang Huainan in the street park. It was drizzling outside. He sat in the pavilion. The rain drifted into the pavilion with the wind, soaking his thin shoulders. A camellia tree next to him had four flowers in bloom. There were water droplets on the moon-white petals. The whole tree was not growing well, very thin, and looked sick.
Xia Chan looked at his profile and slowly approached him step by step. Jiang Huainan also saw her in the rain, frowned, but said nothing.
She stopped in the pavilion, half a meter away, and asked with a smile: "Have you been waiting for a long time?"
"No, I just came a while ago. Wipe the water off." He handed over a piece of paper, his voice as cold as the rain.
She said "Oh" woodenly and sat down on the stone bench opposite him.
He looked at the drizzle that was weaving a web, his eyes full of reminiscence, and said calmly, "I will apply to study medicine at University A." Then he lowered his eyes to look at her and told her the answer she had always wanted to know.
But, does this answer still make sense?
Xia Chan stared at the water stains on the tissue in her hand. The water stains spread out layer by layer. She was distracted for a moment and said, "With...her?"
Jiang Huainan looked at her without saying anything, and the meaning of his expression was very clear: Who is she?
Xia Chan touched her nose, her tone unconsciously sour: "In the cafe, you were with a girl, that night, I happened to be sitting outside the window opposite."
"Qin Xiaosi." Jiang Huainan's eyes flashed with understanding, he raised his head and answered calmly, "Her name is Qin Xiaosi. The Qin family and our family are old friends. We were friends before we moved to S City. Xiaosi's grandfather is a retired military officer. Her father and mother run a company. In their early years, they were on a business trip together and the plane crashed. Grandpa Qin lost his son and daughter-in-law in his later years. He was hit hard and loved Xiaosi like a treasure in his palm. Xiaosi was mentally fragile for a while. My parents asked me to talk to her and open her heart. At that time, Huaibei was still there, and the three of us knew each other. Later, my family had an accident and Xiaosi was sent abroad. We never met again and only kept in touch online. She just came back recently."
The rain keeps falling.
Xia Chan stared at the unbloomed camellia without saying anything. She closed her eyes, unable to help feeling sad, and said, "She seems to like you very much."
She quietly observed Jiang Huainan's expression. He did not answer, as if he agreed.
What about you? So you like her too? She didn't dare to ask. This was her last bit of self-esteem and pride. Compared to Jiang Huainan falling in love with another person, she would rather choose to believe that he was heartless and loveless and alone.
Don't care about her, don't care about anyone, that's fair.
It turns out she is so selfish.
The wet tissue in her hand was torn by her nails, and the heavy rain drops hit her heart.
The order of appearance is really important. Even if we will meet many people later, we cannot change the people and things in our past memories.
Even if we have the will, we can’t do anything about it.
The sky became very dark, and raindrops as big as beans kept falling like pearls from a broken string. The rain was getting heavier, and the low-lying areas on the ground formed small ponds. The rain fell on the leaves and white camellia flowers without mercy.
"I'll answer your last question." Xia Chan raised her head slightly, not hiding her feelings. Her voice was not loud but carried an inexplicable power. "Yes, I like you."
"I don't know when it started, but I have liked you for a long time, so long that it has become a habit. The day I met you, you appeared in front of me like a god, stood behind me and firmly said that you were my brother. You made me experience the feeling of being protected for the first time, it was warm and beautiful, and once you fall in love with someone, you can't bear to let go."
She peeled off the outer layer of her memories, watching them exposed to the air naked, not knowing what kind of judgment was waiting for her.
"Later, as I got older, I realized that my feelings for you were no longer just admiration. I became suspicious and irritable, and I wanted more. I got jealous when I saw you receiving love letters, and I got angry when girls gave you gifts. I didn't bring an umbrella, I went hungry, and I did poorly in my studies because I knew that only in this way would you worry about me. But I was scared, Jiang Huainan, do you know that? I was scared."
She bit her lip lightly, tears welling up in her eyes. "So when you asked me that in the hot pot restaurant, I panicked. I was completely panicked. You were like a leopard that sensed danger and was eager to escape after smelling something unusual. You asked me in the most direct way whether I liked you or not. You brought up your childhood experiences and reminded me that this was the end. But how can I forget about feelings that have lasted for so many years? You knew I would be at a loss, and you knew I would retreat when the going got tough, so you did it."
At that moment, her heart was beating wildly, the cold rain hit her arms, and her tone was trembling.
Yes, she is the one who is trapped in her own cocoon as Monet said, living for a man named Jiang Huainan, living in humiliation. She should have been a butterfly flapping its wings and flying high.
She was right. He knew her too well and understood that her heart leaned towards him. He only hated himself for understanding it too late. Jiang Huainan looked at her with a confused look in his eyes: "Axia, I'm sorry, I can't get over it myself."
The crackling sound of rain continued to sound, and the hot tears mixed with the blowing rain fell. She looked at him and said self-deprecatingly: "You said you were a debtor, and you transferred all your guilt towards Jiang Huaibei to me, and spent all your money to atone for your sins. And I was a moth that flew into the fire, and the glittering you made me fall. I chased you desperately, and every time I hit the hard glass lampshade. But you are right about one thing, your brother and I are indeed very similar, and the most similar thing about us is that we both want your love!"
What we have in common most is that we both want your love!
Something touched the guilt deep in his soul and pricked his sensitive nerves.
She never thought she would say what she said today, so when she shouted this, she squatted down and burst into tears, her heart was clenched into a ball, and the huge pain spread from her heart to her whole body.
"Asha..."
This sentence made Jiang Huainan's expression change. He reached out to help her, but unexpectedly a fist suddenly came towards his face, and the tone was fierce: "Don't touch her."
Jiang Huainan was caught off guard and had no time to dodge. He was punched hard on the corner of his mouth. He staggered back a few steps and held onto the pillar next to him.
Frightened, Xia Chan grabbed the sleeve of the man in front of her and said sadly, "Monet, don't hit him."
Monet stood still, exuding a cold aura, but he did not move forward. He frowned and looked at the man beside the pillar, his eyes cold and his words ruthless: "Don't make her cry, otherwise I won't let you go!"
Those cold eyes and words made people feel like they were falling into an icy cave.
Xia Chan felt cold all over, and looked at the man in front of her without saying a word. He was soaked, his face was terribly pale, his thin clothes were tightly attached to his body, there was a puddle of water on the ground, and water was still dripping from his hair and sleeves.
I don’t know how long he had been there, how much of those words he had heard, and how long he had been in the rain.
"Come with me." He turned around suddenly and walked outside with Xia Chan. Before stepping into the rain, he stretched out his hand and took away the dark blue long-handled umbrella that Jiang Huainan hung on the handrail. Then Xia Chan felt a clear sky above her head.
Her heart was warmed, and all the words in her mind became blank. The rain was still falling outside the umbrella, but she felt as if her heart was soaked in warm water, and she was surrounded by an unknown feeling of emotion and joy.
She let him pull her away.
Monet leaned most of the umbrella towards her and asked unkindly, "Are you stupid? You're not usually very arrogant, but someone made you cry?"
The bitter smile on Xia Chan's lips was like a flash in the pan, disappearing in a flash.
The corners of my eyes were so dry and painful, but it turned out not to be difficult to talk about it. In fact, I felt a lot more relieved after I said it.
Monet had a cold face, shook off the rain on his umbrella, and asked sarcastically: "This is the umbrella of your lover, are you going to return it?"
This person's behavior is always unexpected, but it makes people helpless.
She didn't answer for a long time, and her wandering thoughts gradually came back to her senses.
Monet tapped her forehead impatiently: "I'm asking you a question."
"It's not mine, you don't have to return it." Her starry eyes were like the sea, and it was unclear.
Monet nodded.
Seeing that the road seemed unfamiliar, Xia Chan asked in confusion: "Isn't this the way back to my home? Where are you going?"
Monet's mouth twitched, and he gritted his teeth and said, "Let's go to the mall to buy clothes! I'm freezing to death."
Xia Chan was stunned for a moment, then she grinned, tears welling up in her eyes as she laughed, and she mocked him: "You deserve it, you asked for it."
He rolled his eyes at her, as if blaming her for not knowing how to appreciate his kindness.
After hurriedly buying clothes and changing them at the mall, the rain had already subsided a lot. Monet sneezed a few times, and her face was unnaturally flushed, as if she had a cold. She suddenly remembered Jiang Huainan's voice on the phone, which was very nasal, but she didn't pay attention to it while talking.
She asked, "Are you sick?"
Monet glanced at her and said, "It's fine. Lovesickness is not a disease."
She knew she couldn't talk to him normally, because a dog can't spit out ivory.
When they reached the corridor entrance and sent Xia Chan upstairs, Monet looked at the umbrella in his hand and said in an ambiguous tone, "You really don't want the umbrella anymore, do you?"
Without thinking, she said, "Yeah."
Monet threw it hard.
With a "pop", the umbrella was thrown into the trash can, and something was also completely thrown into the trash can.
"Calm down for a while, take a hot bath and have a good sleep. I'm going back." After saying this, Monet turned around and walked into the rain without saying a word.
She remembered that he had just come here in a hurry not long ago, and now he was gone just like that?
There are too many things she doesn't understand, and her heart is too small to hold so many things.
Xia Chan went home and slept for a day. She got up in the middle of the night and cooked a bowl of noodles. Her head was dizzy, so she took a few cold medicines, leaned back on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket, and fell asleep again. She felt as if a huge burden had been lifted from her heart.
It was evening when she woke up. There were lights on in every house outside. The windows were not closed tightly, and the cool night wind blew in. She felt much more awake.
The calendar on the table was rustling in the wind. Xia Chan leaned over, took the marker from the pen holder, lowered her head and flipped through several pages, then wrote on a date: University A.
Jiang Huainan’s goal has nothing to do with her anymore. As for the future, she wants to live for herself.
She's supposed to be strong and proud, isn't she?
She opened the window and saw the green mustard grass. Soon the flowers would be filled with bees and butterflies. She opened her arms and breathed in the free air. Her heart suddenly became as calm as the spring water in March.
This winter is finally passing.
Wu Zhizi didn't come back until school was about to start. After a trip to the Maldives, she and Ren Di stayed in Hangzhou, saying they would make plans after the weather warmed up.
Xia Chan glanced at the empty wall in the living room, with a few nails on it, where the family portrait of their family of three used to be. She once asked Wu Zhizi where the photo frame was, and Wu Zhizi said she had put it away.
Maybe this is no longer Wu Zhizi's home.
Two days after the start of the school, the class was enthusiastically discussing the exchange student who had been transferred to the class. A week later, the school held a swearing-in ceremony, and then there was free time. After the leader finished his official speech, the student representatives spoke, and a slender girl walked up to the flag-raising platform.
She was wearing a tweed coat, tall, with a confident smile on her face, and her naturally curly hair was tied up high. When she leaned over the microphone to speak, her hair slid over her shoulders. The wind rustled through the banyan leaves around her, and her voice, with its bewitching power, echoed over the playground.
Xia Chan will never forget this girl.
Ella was standing in the next class. She turned her head to look at her, put her hands on her face, and reminded her with her lips: "It's her."
Of course Xia Chan knew what Ella was talking about.
She looked at Ella, smiled and nodded to show that she understood.
The applause for the end rang out. Ella pushed through the crowd and came to Xia Chan, asking in surprise: "What's wrong? What are you laughing at?"
She looked at the figure walking down the flag-raising platform and said, "Her name is Qin Xiaosi. If nothing unexpected happens, she is still my classmate."
Ella screamed as if she had discovered a new world: "Xia Xia, when did you become so awesome! You know more gossip than I do!"
Xia Chan waited for the crowd to leave and asked with a smile, "How are you and Dafei?"
"That's it." Ella stared in one direction, looking for Dafei's back, her eyes full of tenderness and affection, "We agreed that we will work hard for a few months and get into a good school, so that we can have plenty of time to enjoy the good life in the future. Don't worry, I won't forget you when I get rich, haha."
She suddenly raised her right hand and waved it. Xia Chan turned around and saw Dafei holding a schoolbag, standing under a pine tree and smiling at them.
Xia Chan patted her arm and said, "Go ahead."
Ella nodded, kissed Xia Chan on the forehead, said "thank you", and ran over happily. She was always so cheerful.
Ella's life story is a bit pitiful. She was abandoned by her biological parents in an amusement park when she was three years old. When it got dark, she cried all the way and unknowingly walked to a nursing home. Aunt Dong, the cook in the nursing home, took pity on her and took her in. Aunt Dong had no children and had her own small house . She treated Ella as her own daughter, let her live in her house, and even used her connections to register her. Ella lived there for fifteen years.
Aunt Dong lives in the staff room of the nursing home and doesn't come back most of the time. Ella has been surviving by relying on her tenacious self-care ability and has grown up to be an optimistic person.
Because she met Aunt Dong, she no longer hates her parents.
These are Ella's exact words.
In fact, she envied Ella, who was simple and direct, dared to love and hate, and would do her best to say and do whatever she wanted. She didn't care about the result, but at least she had no regrets in the process.
She had nowhere to go during the free time and was about to go back to the classroom when she was stopped by a crisp voice.
"Xia Chan?" Qin Xiaosi walked over gracefully, stopped in front of Xia Chan, and said, "I'm Qin Xiaosi, your classmate from now on." While speaking, she put her hands in her coat pockets and smiled charmingly.
"Hello." Xia Chan smiled.
"Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to be friends with you." Qin Xiaosi looked up at Xia Chan, and his words were colder than winter.
Xia Chan raised her eyes and chuckled, "I didn't misunderstand."
"Do you like Brother Huainan?" The questioning tone was like a sharp knife.
Qin Xiaosi looked at Xia Chan's face, exploring what she wanted. There was some resentment in her eyes, and a hidden anger was brewing in her eyes. She said word by word: "Answer me."
Xia Chan said calmly: "I have the right to remain silent."
Xia Chan didn't know whether spoiled young ladies were born with a sense of superiority.
It was the first time she observed Qin Xiaosi so closely. When she pieced together the fragments, the only thing that came to her mind was what Jiang Huainan said: "The two of them were on a business trip together in the early years and the plane crashed... Xiaosi was mentally fragile for a while."
She knew too well how deeply losing a loved one could hit a person, and how much a drowning person didn't want to give up his only piece of driftwood. For Qin Xiaosi, Jiang Huainan was that piece of driftwood.
Qin Xiaosi raised his voice and shouted: "Don't look at me like that, it's annoying."
Xia Chan curled her lips and asked with some amusement: "Jiang Huainan, you like him very much, right?"
Qin Xiaosi's eyes were filled with confusion, and her tone contained a determined anger: "Brother Huainan is mine."
When she saw Qin Xiaosi, Xia Chan suddenly thought of Ella. They were like trains on a railway track, with only one direction to go straight forward, either rushing to the end of the road or colliding with the enemy and dying.
But her life track has long gone off track.
She looked at Qin Xiaosi with a calm expression and said slowly, "It's yours, so just keep it. No need to ask me."
Qin Xiaosi suppressed his anger and watched her turn and walk away in confusion, unable to understand.
"Remember your words, otherwise I will never let you go." Qin Xiaosi warned, staring at her back.
Her body froze, but she did not stop walking slowly forward.
This is the arrogance that young people should have. They are not afraid of strange looks, and they wield weapons to defend their inherent territory and warn all outsiders not to invade.
She doesn't even have this kind of courage, which is really sad to think about.
Qin Xiaosi's grades are very good, or even quite outstanding. Although she is an art student, her academic performance is far superior to that of the top students in key classes.
The teachers all thought they had found a treasure and treated Qin Xiaosi as a "key target" for training, but Xia Chan felt that she was more like a surveillance target.
Although Qin Xiaosi had not been in the class for long, she was very famous in the school. She was pretty, well-dressed, had good grades, and came from a good family, which attracted many boys. But the first time a boy confessed his love to her, she announced on the radio at noon that she was Jiang Huainan's girlfriend.
Then, all the teachers and students in the school knew that they were a couple, and Jiang Huainan also became famous. Because they both had good grades, there was no such thing as the teacher "breaking up the couple".
Ella angrily questioned Jiang Huainan and Xia Chan about this matter, but they both remained silent. Ella simply said angrily that she didn't care anymore.
Looking at Gu Tong's Weibo updates, she traveled to Hainan, Hong Kong, and Malaysia, and the scenery photos she posted were enviable. When Xia Chan liked her post, she saw several of her replies: "Good luck on the exam!" "I'll treat you to delicious food when I come back, muah!"
Gu Tong seemed to be in good condition, and she felt relieved.
Xia Chan stayed away from these whirlpools and ran between school, cafeteria and home. Monet still skipped classes and called her to tell her that he was practicing singing and would sing for her when he had time.
Monet didn't give up even though he didn't get a response . Every weekend, he would run to Xia Chan's building with his guitar, calling "Axia" over and over again.
When Xia Chan showed up with dark circles under her eyes, he would drag her to listen to him singing, sometimes in a cafe, sometimes in a bar. He said he wanted her to experience the joy of becoming famous in advance.
Monet's singing style is different from usual. He is like a wild horse that has broken free from its reins, unrestrained and wanton, with a red face and thick neck. He is still full of energy even when his voice is hoarse. His strong personality and handsome appearance have won him many grassroots fans.
There was an episode where a shopping mall was holding an event one day. Monet was the lead singer in the opening show and Xia Chan was pulled to the stage to be an audience member. Monet suddenly fell to the ground in the middle of singing and didn't get up for a long time.
The sudden situation made Xia Chan's heart jump heavily, and her head was confused. When she reacted, she had already rushed to the stage: "Monet, what's wrong with you?"
Monet shook his head palely and said jokingly, "It's okay. I was in a hurry and forgot to eat breakfast. I have low blood sugar."
She looked at him, furious, and dragged him straight to a noodle shop, ordered a large portion of chicken noodles for him, and forced him to eat it in a ferocious manner.
Monet held the bowl, his mouth puffed up, and asked incoherently: "Asha, do you care about me?"
Xia Chan glared at him fiercely: "Eat quickly." He didn't dare to say anything more.
However, the merchant was kind enough to compensate them with a bunch of sugar and blood supplements after hearing the whole story. Monet despised them and gave them all to Xia Chan.
Everyone is working hard for the future.
Before I knew it, time had passed quietly amidst laughter and overwhelming test papers.