Looking through the window, the snow falls silently. Tonight, the snow is falling exceptionally gently, without a breath of wind. It just quietly and slowly swirls and drifts down freely in the air.
It seemed like they all landed on the top of his head.
Shi Ling stood and watched for a moment.
When she walked into their meeting room, Chi Cheng's groupmate, who was not sleeping, looked up at her in surprise, thinking that she had come to see him about something related to the assignment.
Shi Ling shook her head and made a shushing gesture.
She walked behind Chi Cheng, took off the thick scarf she was wearing, still warm from her body, and draped it over him.
Chi Cheng's bangs fell softly down, making him look somewhat childlike as he slept.
Shi Ling covered him with the scarf and let go of his hand.
She had only taken half a step back when her icy hand touched the scalding heat.
Her hand was completely grasped by a warm palm.
Shi Ling lowered her head. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw his eyes in the darkness, his gaze meeting hers deeply.
She hadn't held his hands in a long time and had almost forgotten how much their body temperatures differed, so she subconsciously shrank back.
Chi Cheng tightened his grip, half-pinching her slender wrist.
Shi Ling's slight pull back force was completely ineffective.
The only sounds in the room were the sound of someone typing, a single fluorescent light, and classmates still sleeping around them.
They were engaged in a silent contest, from the tips of their eyebrows to the corners of their eyes, from the palms of their hands to their hearts.
The scenery outside the window is clearly a world of ice and snow.
Shi Ling could still feel the warmth of his hand slowly spreading from where they were clasped together to her palm, the back of her hand, her wrist, seeping into her blood and pulse.
Shi Ling stopped struggling and let him hold her.
Chi Cheng was not satisfied, and began to caress the back of her hand, slowly and gently scraping her palm.
Author's Note: Minor revisions.
Chapter 38 "Flying Flowers"
At dawn, in the stillness, the magical ice sculptures shimmered.
We embraced in an unfamiliar place.
Traveling together in Sapporo, pure white at zero degrees Celsius.
You said you wanted to possess this night view forever.
----"fly"
Shi Ling's palms were sweaty and damp as he gripped her hand tightly.
In the darkness, this warm, damp sensation felt like a snake emerging from its burrow on a summer afternoon.
In this world, dampness and warmth, sex and desire, affection and love are all interconnected concepts.
Shi Ling felt the dampness.
She tried to pull her hand away again.
Chi Cheng smiled, knowing when to stop, and let go of her hand.
He dragged the chair back off the ground as much as possible, stood up, stretched, and then put his arm around Shi Ling's waist, leading her out of the conference room.
They left the cubicle, and the corridor was eerily quiet. Apart from those who were studying late into the night, many people were taking a nap at their desks.
The lights are not evenly distributed.
Chi Cheng put his arm around her and they walked together through areas that were either bright or dark.
It felt like driving through an empty tunnel.
He whispered in her ear, "Shall we sleep together for a while?"
He gestured to the rest area, where there were several sofas and a few people were lying down to rest.
Shi Ling nodded.
Both of them were exhausted. In fact, they hadn't had a good night's sleep for a week. To catch up on various assignments, they could only get 4 or 5 hours of sleep a day at most.
They found a sofa further inside and sat down. Chi Cheng naturally pulled her close, letting her lean against his shoulder and neck.
Chi Cheng always pays attention to his image, and he must have been exhausted, as a dark stubble had appeared on his chin.
Shi Ling looked at him closely and saw that his eye bags were almost covered by dark circles. Because he had slept for a while and hadn't slept enough, there were faint blood vessels under his eyes.
Shi Ling glanced at him and called his name softly.
"Chi Cheng".
Chi Cheng responded, and as he spoke, she leaned on his shoulder and could clearly feel the tremor.
Shi Ling didn't follow up.
Chi Cheng squeezed her hand with his other hand. "Go to sleep."
Chi Cheng wrapped the two of them up a little tighter with a scarf.
The two had so much left to say before they fell asleep in each other's arms.
Shi Ling slept soundly in his arms; she hadn't slept so deeply in a long time.
When I woke up, I was stunned. What I saw was his stubble chin and the snowflakes falling outside the window. The night was still dark and there was no light at all.
Chi Cheng was already awake, and he was casually playing with her hand.
Shi Ling asked him, "What time is it?"
Chi Cheng lowered his head and nuzzled her with his chin. "I just slept for half an hour, it's three o'clock now."
Shi Ling hummed in agreement, sat up straight, and stretched her back.
Let's go.
Their group's assignment is still not finished; the final submission time is 9 a.m. this morning.
The two returned to their respective meeting rooms.
By early morning, Chi Cheng's group had finished, while Shi Ling's group was still a little short.
He went to Shi Ling's group's meeting room to wait for her.
The others couldn't help but glance at him a few more times. They all knew Chi Cheng, so they casually joked with him, "What's wrong? You've taken a fancy to our Shi Ling?"
Chi Cheng joked with them, "Why don't you just say she's interested in me?"
The homework was almost finished, and the group was in the mood for jokes, so I started teasing them.
That makes a lot of sense.
Shi Ling listened to them talk for a while, and they got more and more outrageous. She cleared her throat, and they finally got back to the main topic and stopped joking.
Shi Ling and her team did a final check, and one of them was responsible for uploading it to the online system.
The group had worked through the night, and now that they were done, they felt a sense of pride in having fought side by side through thick and thin.
They folded their hands together and shook them off, laughing continuously.
They said they wouldn't be third wheels, so they packed their things and left first, deliberately leaving Chi Cheng and Shi Ling behind.
A group of people left the library one after the other.
Around the winter solstice, Britain's latitude dictates that the nights will be long.
It was already seven in the morning when we finally saw a sliver of dawn on the horizon.
Spending a whole day in the library made me almost forget about time.
When I went outside, I saw a layer of snow on the ground, as if the world had been covered in silver overnight, and the sky and earth were vast and desolate.
The Christmas tree in front of the door, its branches weighed down by white snow, finally truly felt like Christmas.
Not far away, people were having a snowball fight and laughing together.
Laughter and joy are everywhere in the world.
They stood there for a moment, then stepped out from under the eaves of the library and stood truly under the rustling snowflakes.
Chi Cheng lowered his head, reached out to tighten her scarf, and pulled down the hood of her down jacket. "It's snowing."
Shi Ling put her hands in her pockets. "Hmm."
Neither of them spoke the rest of the way. They looked at the footprints they had left on the ground, stepping on the untouched snow, making it soft and firm, and listening to the crunching sound.
The two returned to their room doors, opened them, and paused.
Room 203 was quiet, but the watermarks on the carpet indicated that Fang Ze and Zhao Yongbin had returned and were probably catching up on sleep. Apart from a light left on in the kitchen, the rest of the room was quiet and dark.
There was something surging in their eyes, and they had so much to say.
They stared at each other for a moment, leaning against the door, and suddenly understood what the other meant.
Chi Cheng said in a hoarse voice, "Get up and talk."
When they were together, IELTS pushed and urged them to leave.
For the first time since we separated, I saw tender affection in each other's eyes. Only after losing something do you realize its value. Unwilling to be so hasty, we embraced again, exhausted.
It's better to get a good night's sleep and then pour out your hearts to each other when you wake up.
Love is truly the most exquisite creation of humankind, far surpassing the beauty of romance and fleeting pleasures.
Even though there was a wall between us, I could still feel that the tender affection could penetrate the wall, as if an invisible thread connected us.
I slept especially soundly on such a snowy day.
After Chi Cheng got up, he didn't rush to look for her.
He took a shower, leisurely styled his hair, and shaved his stubble clean.
I changed into a burgundy coat and made sure I looked more stylish than usual.