When the first snowflake melted against a warm cheek, the stranger walking down the street with downcast eyes thought it was his own tears he couldn’t hold back.
Only when the next glistening droplet spread across his skin did surprise bloom in his dark eyes. He instinctively looked up at the night sky overhead.
The night was thick and profound, with countless snowflakes drifting down like tiny, lightweight scraps of paper weaving through long verses of poetry.
The bustling, noisy streets were alive with flashing neon lights. Giant screens on the sides of skyscrapers flowed with colorful signals. Faces blurred as people hurried along, yet they all halted almost simultaneously. Some with dawning realization, others in stunned amazement, they tilted their heads back to gaze at the vast night sky.
Today’s news had been relentless, dominating every glowing electronic screen with discussions of global sky anomalies that hadn’t yet subsided. Now an unexpected cold snap had descended, sparking wild speculations about doomsday and disasters that echoed across the planet.
But tonight, the stars paid no heed to such matters.
In a brief moment of stunned silence, pedestrians who had stopped for the snow exchanged glances with total strangers around them. Eyes filled with wonder collided amid the falling flakes.
The beautiful city fell silent for an instant before erupting into lively, joyful clamor.
“Is it snowing?”
“It’s actually snowing in our city!”
Messages and voices began to spread, weaving a vast, transparent net above the city that linked countless emotions tied to the snow.
An elderly fruit vendor by the roadside widened his eyes. Together with his customers who had been picking out produce, he tremblingly extended his hand into the cold air, reaching out with childlike curiosity to catch the snowflakes drifting from the sky.
A young office worker released his mouse and turned to stare blankly out the window. After a long moment, he snapped back to reality, hurriedly raising his phone to capture the snow and send it through invisible signals to those not by his side.
The child at a desk in his room stood and pressed close to the window, his young face alight with delight. He abandoned his homework and pen, shouting excitedly to his parents in the living room behind him: “Mom! Dad! Let’s go downstairs to see the snow!”
“Wait, you haven’t finished your homework—” Footsteps followed swiftly, accompanied by equally thrilled laughter. “Forget it, let’s go see the snow first!”
The pure white snowflakes drifted down like feathers, landing in the palm etched with wrinkles. They quickly melted into droplets of water.
The study window was pushed open. An elderly man with silver hair stood at the edge, watching as he caught flake after flake in his hand. Yet a sense of unreality lingered, as if he were immersed in a beautiful illusion.
Hurried footsteps echoed down the corridor. After a single brisk knock, a vigorous elderly man couldn’t wait any longer. He pushed the door open and poked his head inside.
“I knew you’d be in here!” Butler Uncle Ah spoke rapidly and urgently. “Yunjiang, it’s snowing outside!”
“Yeah, it’s snowing.” In the study, Zhang Yunjiang withdrew the hand hovering in midair and sighed with emotion. “It’s been so many years since we’ve seen snow like this.”
In the serene courtyard bathed in bright moonlight, great clumps of snow were falling thick and fast. It was a genuine snowy night.
“Let me think. There were a few light snows in the early years, but they were so scant they didn’t last through the night.”
Butler Uncle Ah had a sharp memory and began counting on his fingers. “As far as I recall, the last proper snowfall was forty or fifty years ago!”
As he spoke, he couldn’t help but chuckle. “You were just a kid back then! We had a snowball fight together—do you remember?”
Zhang Yunjiang was drawn into those distant memories and laughed along. “Of course I do. But I wasn’t a kid anymore by then. I must have been seventeen—a young man.”
“Right, right. You were taller, and Fugui was shorter.” Uncle Ah nodded immediately, his words vivid and lively. “He was fourteen, a real little rascal. He grabbed snow and stuffed it down the teacher’s collar from behind. The teacher was so mad he flipped the Go board and chased him everywhere with a feather duster!”
Zhang Yunjiang instinctively picked up the thread. “The teacher had been worrying if he’d scolded him too harshly. Well, now it was the other way around—he regretted not chewing him out even more.”
“Ouch, only Fugui had the guts for that. You never would have!”
Under the moonlight of the snowy night, faded and yellowed memories surged forth. Both old men laughed heartily, their brows and the corners of their eyes carrying the weight of years.
“Those were good times,” Uncle Ah said. “I was only in my twenties back then. I could chase after you two for an entire afternoon of snowball fights!”
“Yeah. Now we can barely run, and we haven’t had snow deep enough to blanket the ground since.”
Their laughter gradually faded, leaving a quiet reminiscence.
The refined and scholarly elder gazed at the swirling white snow outside the window and softly sighed. “What anomalous weather this is.”
“Better to have something unusual.” Uncle Ah’s hearty smile remained as he straightened up. “My life’s nearing its end. Seeing such beautiful snow one more time is a blessing!”
The even older man had taken in the snow. His gaze swept over the notebook spread open on the desk in the study, and he smiled warmly at the younger one. “They rarely come to visit you. Why not chat with them more instead of holing up here writing Go records?”
“They all seemed preoccupied, so I didn’t want to disturb them.”
Zhang Yunjiang replied evenly before glancing at the Go record on the table. Then he added, “This isn’t a new one. It’s the game I transcribed from memory yesterday. Since I have some time now, I’m pondering it.”
Uncle Ah leaned in for a closer look upon hearing this. He knew a bit about Go too. “Is this the game you played in the park yesterday?”
“Yeah.”
“Didn’t you say that talented young man already solved it?” Uncle Ah was puzzled. “It was a brilliant move—a heavenly flying immortal from beyond!”
It had originally been an endgame between two elders, where the impatient black stones were on the verge of defeat against the steady white stones. Yet in the hands of a young man new to Go, it had miraculously turned into a victory.
Zhang Yunjiang nodded at first, then shook his head.
“He did solve it—impressively and spectacularly.” The elder mused. “But as I reviewed this record over and over, I had a faint feeling that besides that line of play, there might be another way to crack it.”
Uncle Ah immediately turned to leave upon hearing this. “Then you keep studying it. I won’t bother you!”
Zhang Yunjiang waved him off. “It’s fine. I definitely won’t figure it out today. Too much wine—my mind’s a fog. Little Doctor Yu probably isn’t sober yet either.”
Thinking of the young man who became so talkative when drunk made Uncle Ah chuckle uncontrollably. “Then don’t bother with it. Just enjoy the snow. I’ll go make some sobering tea!”
Steaming hot tea soup spread a clear, refreshing aroma through the night.
Snowflakes drifted past the crystal-clear glass window, facing the flickering television screen from afar.
Yan Jing, who had been watching TV alone in his room, stood frozen at the window. After a moment, he came to his senses and shoved the half-eaten snack in his hand into his mouth.
He hurriedly freed his hands, raised his phone, and snapped a frenzy of shots at the night sky. Then he lowered his head and typed furiously, his fingers and cheeks moving at top speed.
[Little Bai, you still awake? If you are, come out and play!!]
[It’s snowing, holy crap!!!!]
The invisible signal quietly crossed the vast courtyard, drifting lightly through the snowy night.
On the warm yellow Go board scattered with black and white Go stones, the cushions at either end of the table still held residual warmth. Outside the Chess Room, in the quaint corridor, two small figures sat side by side under the eaves.
The little girl with two braids reached out carefully to catch the snow, her childish voice brimming with novelty. “This is my first time seeing snow!”
The slightly shorter boy beside her looked up at the great snowflakes blanketing the courtyard, his eyes holding a mix of fresh wonder and faint melancholy.
“If it snows all night, you can have a snowball fight with people when you wake up tomorrow.”
“Can we have snowball fights? I’ve only seen pictures like that in textbooks!”
The young child’s eyes and heart were filled with longing and joy. “This is so great. The snow is so beautiful.”
The other child echoed in a daze. “Yeah, so beautiful.”
“Grandpa Yuan, have you seen snow before?”
The clever little girl only called him Grandpa when no outsiders were around. She hadn’t slipped up yet.
“I’ve seen it.” Yuan Yuxing said. “Right here, as it happens.”
He Xi let out a surprised “Eh?” “Was it during the days when you were little and learning Go?”
Both grandpas said she had a talent for Go. Tonight, Grandpa Yuan had secretly brought her to the Chess Room to teach her.
She wasn’t sure if she truly had talent, but she listened intently—to the complex, unfamiliar Go terms and the stories tied to the game.
She had just learned that the two grandpas had learned Go as children right here in this spacious, elegant courtyard.
“Yes.” The elder in the form of a child nodded with a sigh. “What a coincidence. It was in another timespace, yet here I am, sitting and watching the snow again.”
The same crisscrossing black-and-white Go board, the same beautiful, drifting snowflakes.
But different children learning to play.
The old man wore a look of faint melancholy on his face, but the child gazed at him with innocent curiosity, picking up the thread of their conversation from before the snow began to fall. “So, how long did you and Grandpa Zhang study Go together?”
“I studied for a little over three years, and he must have done four. He had more talent than me, and he stuck with it a bit longer.”
He Xi let out an admiring gasp. “That’s such a long time!”
To an eight-year-old little girl, it felt like forever—practically twice as long as her entire life.
“What happened after you finished learning?” she asked innocently. “Did you enter competitions to see who was better?”
The little boy burst out laughing. He shook his head with a smile. “You’ve got it backwards.”
“What do you mean?”
“You stop learning because you realize you can’t beat the others.” His tone was matter-of-fact. “Go is a game that relies heavily on natural talent. If you dream of being a professional player your whole life, love alone won’t cut it.”
“But whatever you do, don’t quit halfway like I did. You’ve got way more insight than I ever did at your age.”
He Xi nodded, half understanding, and let out a soft “oh.” Then she asked him, “Grandpa Yuan, did you quit because you felt like your Go wasn’t good enough?”
She’d had those same thoughts herself whenever she couldn’t grasp what her teacher was trying to teach her—times when she just wanted to stop going to school altogether.
“Yeah.”
“But then why did Grandpa Zhang quit too?” she asked, her expression puzzled. “You said he had talent.”
“He did have more talent than me, but his circumstances were… unique. Even with that kind of gift, it wasn’t enough to keep going.”
“What kind of unique circumstances?”
“He was an only child, and his family wasn’t your average household.” Yuan Yuxing phrased it in that trendy slang the young folks used back then. “Unless he became the number one player in the world, his only real option was to go home and inherit the family business.”
He said it lightly, as if it were a joke, but He Xi didn’t laugh. A solemn expression settled over her childish features.
She murmured, “He couldn’t keep studying Go… Grandpa Zhang must have been so sad back then.”
The little boy paused, falling silent. He reached out and gently ruffled the little girl’s hair. His aged eyes softened with extraordinary tenderness.
Feeling the warmth on the top of her head, He Xi whispered, “Grandpa Yuan, you must have been heartbroken too when you decided to quit.”
Even she could see how much both grandpas still loved Go, now in their silver-haired years.
They must have loved it even more back then.
“…Not heartbroken.” The little boy turned his face away, his voice barely above a whisper. “I had no talent to speak of, and my family was dirt poor. How could I keep wasting time on something like that? Quitting was the sensible choice.”
He spoke softly and swiftly, his words drifting into the frigid night like a snowflake melting silently into a droplet of water.
The snow kept falling.
The innocent little girl watched it quietly, her palm already cradling countless pure white flakes.
She spotted Butler Uncle Ah hurrying along the long corridor not far away. When their eyes met, he smiled and gave her a nod.
He Xi smiled back, waving at the passing old man. Then she turned to the little boy beside her. “Oh, right, Grandpa Yuan—why do they call you Fugui?”
She’d pieced together the story by now. The Fugui that Butler Grandpa and Grandpa Zhang talked about was Grandpa Yuan.
But Grandpa Yuan’s actual name was Yuan Yuxing.
Such a lovely name.
“Is that your nickname?” the little girl said, a touch of envy in her voice. “I don’t have any extra names like that.”
Her question was so pure and childlike that Yuan Yuxing paused for a moment. Then he smiled, almost like a sigh. “Because your name is perfect as it is—no need for anything else, Little He Xi.”
“Fugui wasn’t a nickname. It was my original name. I changed it to this one when I was a teenager.”
The little girl’s eyes went wide with surprise. “Huh? You changed your name?”
“Yeah. It used to be Yuan Fugui—pretty hick-sounding, huh?” Yuan Yuxing said. “My grandpa picked it. Back in the day, if you yelled ‘Fugui’ on the street, you’d have a whole crowd turning around. Total embarrassment. Lucky I changed it.”
He Xi laughed until her eyes crinkled. “Your name now is so pretty! It feels like it’s from ancient times. Did you pick it yourself?”
Yuan Yuxing didn’t answer directly. “It does come from an ancient poem.”
“Really? Which one?”
Under the eaves, where snowflakes swirled in the air, the short little boy stared off at the stars and moon far on the horizon. He seemed lost in some distant memory. It took him a long while to find his voice again.
“‘Dew washes the jade firmament clean of smoke, the moon wheel glides across the vast heavenly expanse.’” He recited softly. “I took two characters from those lines.”
The little girl listened with rapt attention. “Grandpa Yuan, what does the poem mean?”
She couldn’t grasp the deeper meaning, but she imagined it must paint a beautiful scene.
As beautiful as the snowflakes nestled in her tiny palm.
That clear, childish voice stirred memories in the little boy—memories of an obscure ancient poem, the only one he’d ever memorized completely. Memories of this night, dreamlike and filled with joyful laughter. Memories of so much more.
He gazed at the truly young child before him, and his voice caught suddenly.
“The poem says you’ll see a beautiful, boundless world… as long as you follow your heart and keep pressing forward.”
The moonlight shone clear as water, and the fine snow drifted down endlessly.
The young man by the glass window stared out in a daze for a long moment before snapping back to reality. He whipped his head around to the person behind him, his warm brown hair sweeping a brilliant arc through the air.
“It’s snowing outside,” Yu Bai murmured. “It’s really snowing… or am I imagining it?”
He’d just wished aloud for snow in Skystar City, where it hardly ever fell, and here it was.
Almost like a promise from the divine.
His light brown eyes, now brimming with snowflakes, sparkled brighter than the moon. A soft smile warmed the eyes of the man watching him.
“Not an illusion,” he said. “It’s really snowing.”
Who had made the snow fall?
The answer was plain as day.
Yu Bai thought this as he stood by the window, his eyes curving into happy crescents as he asked Xie Wufang, “Aren’t you coming to see the snow?”
The man at the sink set down the clean kitchenware and walked over, just as asked.
It was only a few steps—just a second or two.
In the first second, Yu Bai watched him—who usually hated anything white—meekly approach the window and the snowy scene beyond.
And so he set down the cup of hot chocolate he’d been holding, placing it casually on the counter.
In the second second, he stepped forward to meet him.
This tiny, tipsy human, acting on pure whim, wrapped the deity in a brilliant, heartfelt embrace.
His pale cheek pressed suddenly against the warm shoulder. His damp hair tips grazed the man’s chiseled jaw. In the reflection of the glass window, that gray-blue lake stirred with rippling waves.
“I love this snow,” he said, hugging tight the god who had made his wish come true. His voice rang out bright and joyful. “It’s beautiful. Really, really beautiful.”
