Coach: Coaching the Grizzlies at the beginning, playing the bantam

"There's honey on your eyelashes." Lu Yong reached out and gently wiped the corners of Hannah's eyes, with traces of locust flower honey stolen from the breakfast buffet on his fingertips.

Hannah's eyelashes trembled, gilded in the morning light. Outside the window, the gray-green bricks of Dajing Gate were spreading through the last mist of April.

Hannah pressed the iced milk cup against her hot cheek: "The person who said he wanted to watch the sunrise last night slept with his pillow drooling."

The silver bracelet on her wrist slid to her elbow, revealing the "LY" engraved on the inside. It was a birthday gift that Lu Yong had secretly carved using watch repair tools.

"Some people eat strawberry shortcake in the middle of the night with a fork hidden under their pillow."

Lu Yong shook the silver fork he picked up from the crack of the bed. Half a strawberry was stuck on the tines.

He suddenly leaned close to Hannah's earlobe and said, "But the sound of you cheating is better than the alarm clock."

The hotel revolving door swallowed up their laughter.

The canvas bag Lu Yong was carrying was bulging - in addition to Hannah's sunscreen and stomach medicine, there were also buckwheat pancakes that he had bought after running through three streets three hours ago, which were now being simmered with his body temperature.

The 637 stone steps of Dajing Gate were faintly visible in the morning mist, and Hannah's floral skirt swept across the moss under the plaque "Beautiful Rivers and Mountains".

The tour group holding selfie sticks flooded in like a tide, and Lu Yong suddenly pulled her into the shade of the old locust tree behind the ticket office.

"In the 23rd year of Emperor Kangxi's reign, the general guarding the city was under this tree." He deliberately lowered his voice and ran his fingers across Hannah's palm, "He pinned a camellia to his wife."

Hannah laughed so hard that tears came out of her eyes: "The tour guide got the words wrong! They were clearly a general and his wife from the Republic of China."

Before he finished speaking, Lu Yong took out a silk camellia from his canvas bag like a magician and pinned it on the ribbon of her straw hat.

The morning breeze lifted the brim of his hat, revealing the dark red lining he had sewn overnight - it was made by dismantling last year's Valentine's Day tie.

In front of the mottled arrowheads of the city wall, Lu Yong knelt on one knee to adjust the camera parameters.

"We need to take photos that feel like Roman Holiday." Hannah posed against the city wall, her hair being blown by the draft to the tip of Lu Yong's nose. He pressed the shutter button five times in a row, but he didn't actually open the lens cap.

"There's a light behind you!" Hannah suddenly turned around, and Lu Yong's profile hit the camera of her raised mobile phone.

In the frame, his stunned expression overlaps with the eaves of the city walls, and the mountain ridge in the distance is melting - Zhangjiakou's rare advection fog flows over the Great Wall, wrapping them in a milky white cocoon.

Lu Yong took the opportunity to take out the thermos cup: "Red dates and ginger tea, you are on your period"

Before she could finish her words, Hannah covered her mouth. She looked around with red ears and said, "The old man selling candied haws 300 meters away heard it!"

The blue cloth cover of the tea stall halfway up the mountain suddenly rustled. Just as Lu Yong had fed the last bite of pancake to Hannah, raindrops as big as copper coins hit the bluestone slabs.

When the proprietress opened the wicker box to look for an umbrella, Hannah found a faded theater ticket at the bottom of the box - the 1998 Shanxi Opera "Dajingmen Anecdotes", Seat B, Row 17.

"From this position, you can see the sweat beads on the martial artist's temples." The proprietress poured eight-treasure tea into an enamel cup. "Back then, my husband jumped down from the stage with a red tasseled spear in his hand to bring me an umbrella."

The teacup Hannah was holding suddenly tilted. Lu Yong caught the longan that rolled down and drew a heart on the back of her hand with his fingertips dipped in the tea.

The tour group's screams were heard from outside the rain curtain, and Hannah stole a glance at Lu Yong's shirt that was wet by the rain.

He suddenly unbuttoned his suit jacket, but instead of putting it on her shoulders, he shook it open and covered their heads: "Look! Our moving castle."

The dark grey suits swelled like sails in the wind, carrying them towards the nearest corridor.

During the ten minutes of sheltering from the rain at the beacon tower, Lu Yong wiped the stone bench dry with a tissue, but first put his cashmere scarf under it.

"Your lower back hurts from the cold." He rubbed Hannah's stiff shoulders, his fingertips feeling the coolness of the Great Wall bricks.

Hannah counted the rain stains on his sweater and suddenly discovered that the stitching on the third button was a different color - he had secretly mended it after the scuffle at the hot pot restaurant last week.

As the rain gradually subsided, the old man selling mountain products lifted the oilcloth, revealing fresh sea buckthorn berries. Lu Yong squatted on the ground to pick them, and the water drops from the hair on the back of his neck fell into Hannah's palm. She tasted it for some unknown reason, and it was sweeter than she had imagined.

"I will carry you down the mountain if we find the stele with the word 'loyalty' on it."

Lu Yong pointed at the guide map at the entrance of the Forest of Steles, but he didn't expect Hannah to actually stop in front of the seventh broken stele.

Only half of the character "忠" (loyalty) was left of the moss-covered character. She touched the crack with her fingertips and asked, "Does it look like the love lock that we broke in Huangshan that year?"

Lu Yong suddenly took out the Swiss Army knife from his pocket and scratched the blank area of ​​the stone tablet twice.

Hannah was about to stop it, but she saw stone powder falling down, revealing a naturally formed heart pattern.

"Look, God has given us blessings." His little pride was blown away by the mountain wind, and the whistle of the forest ranger in the distance startled a flock of birds.

When spreading the picnic blanket on the leeward side of the ridge, a glass bottle suddenly rolled out of Lu Yong's canvas bag.

Hannah picked up the medicinal wine soaked with angelica and exclaimed: "When did you..."

Before he could finish his words, Lu Yong snatched them away and stuffed them back into his bag. "Old Wang insisted that Trane cures stiff necks." His red ears betrayed the secret - Hannah had a stiff neck from working overtime last week, and he still remembered it.

As wild strawberries soaked in rain water exploded on the tip of my tongue, a few goats poked their heads out from behind the broken wall.

Hannah smiled and broke buckwheat cakes into pieces to feed the baby. Lu Yong suddenly captured the moment she raised her hand.

Later he developed this photo and put it under his desk - there were grass seeds stuck in Hannah's hair, and her smile was brighter than the mountains behind her.

In the evening, the Guandi Temple was filled with incense. When Hannah tiptoed to throw coins into the wishing pool, Lu Yong suddenly grabbed her wrist and said, "If you want to wish, wish for the most expensive one."

He took out a Kangxi Tong Bao coin and said, "I spent three hours bargaining with someone at Panjiayuan last week." The ripples caused by the coin falling into the water scared away the koi fish, and Hannah's reflection shattered into gold foil.

"What wish did you make?" In the cable car going down the mountain, Lu Yong tucked Hannah's cool hands into the hem of his sweater.

She bit his second button and laughed: "I hope someone won't steal my lip balm again."

The voice was blocked by the suddenly tilted cable car seats. Lu Yong's kiss was stained with the fragrance of sea buckthorn fruit. In the distance, the last ray of sunset at Dajing Gate was passing over the golden top of the arrow tower.

The moment the night market lanterns lit up, Lu Yong’s canvas bag was suddenly deformed by the sugar-roasted chestnuts.

Hannah held a marshmallow and walked between the almond tea stalls, with sugar threads stuck to the ends of her hair: "I have to find a sugar dragon taller than me!"

While the craftsman was pouring out a golden dragon that looked like it was flying in the clouds, Lu Yong was squatting down to tie her loosened shoelaces - a pair of embroidered camellias had appeared on the light blue shoelaces without her noticing.

"Open your mouth." Hannah fed him the cooled almond tea, and Lu Yong deliberately bit the porcelain spoon.

The blue and white porcelain reflected her suddenly enlarged pupils, and the loud noise from the popcorn stove behind her startled the neon lights in the street.

The old lady selling paper-cuts smiled and cut out the silhouettes of a couple cuddling together, with the crescent moon just caught between their interlaced fingers.

The back seat of the taxi was piled with wild mushrooms and oat noodles. Hannah rested her head on Lu Yong's shoulder and counted the street lights.

A straw grasshopper suddenly fell out of his sweatshirt pocket - it was a failed product that she had thrown on the stone steps halfway through making in the afternoon, but now its tentacles had been carefully reinforced with red silk thread.

"Are we going to the Grassland Sky Road tomorrow?" Lu Yong's chin rubbed against the top of her head.

Hannah pretended to be asleep and didn't answer, but drew a crooked heart on his palm with her fingertips.

Outside the car window, the lanterns of the night tour of Dajing Gate were extinguished one by one, and a secret was fermenting in her bag - when the Kangxi Tongbao coin sank to the bottom of the wishing pool, she silently said: "I will always be his allergy medicine, human navigation and best photographer."

.........

The next morning. "You have a compass hidden in your shoelaces?" Hannah bent down and poked Lu Yong's sneakers. The embroidered shoelaces she bought at Dajingmen Night Market last night were hooked with a few grass stems.

When the morning mist drifted in from the Guyuan grassland into the hotel windows, the wild flowers inserted in the side pocket of Lu Yong's backpack were still dripping with dew.

Hannah bit the yogurt straw flat and said, "I promised to sleep until I woke up naturally, but now I'm on the balcony taking pictures of birds at six o'clock."

She shook her phone and in the photo, Lu Yong was wrapped in a bathrobe and squatting next to the clothesline. Half a piece of bread for feeding birds was visible at the edge of the lens - that was the buckwheat bun she had hidden in her pocket last night.

Lu Yong poked his head out of the bathroom, shaving cream applied to look like Santa Claus: "Some people secretly set their alarms in the middle of the night, and the sound is that of a swan."

On the screen of his shaking phone, Hannah's search record at three in the morning was clearly displayed: "Best time for bird watching at Guyuan Swan Lake".

As the folding tent was stuffed into the trunk of the taxi, the driver, Lao Ma, sniffed the air and said, "Bring the honey, right? The black-necked cranes will be greedy for it later."

Hannah subconsciously pressed the canvas bag, where the jar of jujube honey that Lu Yong had taken from the breakfast table was indeed hidden.

The asphalt road suddenly broke into gravel in the heart of the prairie, and Hannah's straw hat was blown onto the windshield by the wind.

When Lu Yong jumped out of the car to chase the hat, three hooded cranes were flying over the roof of the car, and their feather tips brushed the hair on the back of his neck.

"Lower your head!" Hannah suddenly pulled him down.

On the shallows twenty meters away, seven swans were preening their feathers. Their curved necks were brighter than the silver spoon that Lu Yong polished last night.

He reached out for the camera but Hannah held his hand back: "Remember it with your eyes."

When the sun split the clouds, the leading swan suddenly flapped its wings, and the splashing water droplets condensed into a miniature rainbow in the air.

Hannah's scarf was blown toward the lake by the wind, and Lu Yong's action of rushing over to grab it startled a flock of birds.

Later she found the wet silk scarf in his trouser pocket, folded into a crooked paper crane.

When setting up the tent behind the bird-watching platform, Lu Yong's trekking pole suddenly got stuck in the ground.

Hannah squatted down to check and found that he had tied the bracket into a Chinese knot with shoelaces.

"This is a windproof knot I learned from the herdsmen on the grassland." He argued with red ears and blood drops from his fingers cut by the wire dripped onto the canvas.

Hannah paused in tearing off the Band-Aid and suddenly took his injured fingertip into her mouth.

When Lu Yong was frozen like a sculpture, the tent was suddenly blown over by a gust of wind. At the moment the canvas covered the two people, five sand martins happened to fly by, casting bird-shaped spots of light on the cloth.

After re-fixing the tent, Lu Yong took out an iron box from the interlayer of his backpack: "It's an apology."

Hannah opened it and found it was a burnt cookie with an abstract swan painted on the icing - the footage of him secretly using the oven in the early morning on the hotel kitchen surveillance suddenly provided the answer.

While chewing on dried beef and chasing the shadows of the clouds, Hannah suddenly pointed to the horizon: "That moving white cloud!"

Hundreds of sheep came out from behind the hill, and the barking of the sheepdog startled Lu Yong so much that he knocked over the honey jar.

The flock of sheep licking the grass leaves turned around instantly, and amber honey drops drew snake-like tracks on the green carpet.

"Run!" Lu Yong grabbed Hannah and rushed up the hillside. The old shepherd smiled with his silver teeth showing.

When they hid in the prayer flag pavilion, the three fattest ewes were pushing the canvas bag back and forth.

Hannah laughed so hard that she couldn't straighten her waist: "Your sunscreen is giving sheep a spa treatment!"

While spreading the tablecloth on the meadow full of nasturtiums, Lu Yong suddenly produced an insulated bag.

Hannah lifted the lid and exclaimed, "Blueberry pie from the hotel buffet!" The missing corner of the pie crust proved that this was the plate of dessert that disappeared this morning.

Cloud shadows passed over the food on the tablecloth: pickles were cut into swan necks, boiled eggs were carved with smiley faces, and even the mineral water was labeled by Lu Yong with a hand-painted label: "Hannah's Special, Shake to Make a Rainbow Before Drinking." Just as she was about to take a photo, two brave cranes snatched away the mayonnaise.

Lu Yong ran half a mile after the grey crane, and when he came back his trouser legs were covered with cockleburs.

He took out a crane feather from his pocket and stuck it on the brim of Hannah's hat: "That guy used this to exchange for our mayonnaise."

Tiny iridescence crept up the tip of her nose as the sun shone through the quills.

The old Bartel who rented the horse insisted that they ride together: "This horse is called Zhuiyun, and it is the best at finding bird eggs."

Just as Hannah got on the saddle, Zhuiyun suddenly rushed towards the river beach full of wild flowers.

Lu Yong suddenly tightened his arms around her, and the reins left red marks on his palms.

As the horse's back rocked, Hannah's back pressed against his pounding heart.

Zhuiyun suddenly stopped in front of a reed marsh. More than twenty swan eggs were hidden in a grass nest. The patterns on the eggshells looked very much like the plaid on Lu Yong's shirt.

When he dismounted from his horse, he almost crushed the marker stone hidden by the shepherd.

When cumulonimbus clouds pressed over the lake in the afternoon, Lu Yong was lying on the plank road taking pictures of the reflections.

Hannah caught a glimpse of herself in his camera: her skirt was stained with grass seeds, she had the crane feather in her hair, and behind her, dark clouds were swallowing up a flock of swans.

Just as she was about to remind him, raindrops as big as copper coins shattered the tranquility of the lake.

Lu Yong dragged her into an abandoned bird-watching house. When the wooden door closed, the only sound between heaven and earth was the sound of rain whipping the iron roof.

Hannah touched the half-burnt candle on the windowsill, but Lu Yong took out the matches he had taken from the hotel: "Heavy rain and candlelight, romantic, right?"

The moment the fire lit up, they simultaneously discovered graffiti on the wall - on a certain day of a certain year, someone wrote "Xiaofang, more beautiful than a swan" with charcoal.

Lu Yong's chuckle shook off the dust on the wall: "This handwriting is not even as good as my handwriting when I was in elementary school."

Hannah used candle wax to trace their names on the mottled spots, and the rumbling of her stomach mixed with the sound of rain.

When the rain eased a little, the aroma of grilled fish wafted from the lakeshore.

The Mongolian woman who was setting up the stall lifted up the birch bark, and Hannah discovered that the grill was actually made from an old horseshoe.

"I exchanged it with the last three pieces of candy." Lu Yong proudly shook the oil paper bag. The fish belly was stuffed with wild onions and sea buckthorn.

While they were chewing the fish bones, the old lady suddenly handed over a silver bowl and said, "Young couple, have some mare's milk to ward off the cold."

Lu Yong's "We are not" was interrupted by Hannah's cough.

She took a sip of wine, and the blush spread from her collarbone to her earlobes, brighter than the sunset in the sky.

After the rain, the lake water rose to the edge of the plank road. When Lu Yong squatted down to roll up Hannah's trouser legs, he suddenly found a circle of sunburn marks on her ankles - the mark left by the silver chain he gave her last summer.

He stroked the pale white with his fingers: "I'll change you into a waterproof one when we get back."

The water splashed on his eyelashes. "How about changing the chain into a compass?"

She pointed to the swans returning to their nests, "This way they're even lost."

Before he could finish his words, he was carried on Lu Yong's back. He ran along the flooded plank road, and the startled water droplets chased after them, forming a string of glowing beads in the twilight. (End of this chapter)