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

Hannah's fingertips suddenly trembled.

She saw the light in Lu Yong's eyes through the viewfinder, which was brighter than the spotlight on the front of the Dragon locomotive - last night in the Eastern Qing Tombs, these eyes had gazed at the Danbi Stone three hundred years ago.

At this moment at Tangshan Banquet, these eyes are guarding the soul of the land beneath their feet.

"Mom, I want to see that brother perform magic!" The little girl suddenly broke free from her mother's hand and squatted beside the dividing line drawn by Lu Yong for the syrup.

He flipped his wrist, and the steamed bun box folded into the shape of a Dragon locomotive in his palm, and the sour plum soup turned into steam and rose from the "chimney".

The mink-skinned woman's face turned from red to white. She was about to speak, but was interrupted by the shadow puppet handed to her by Hannah: "Madam, do you know why the story of Third Sister Yang has been passed down for a hundred years?"

She gently placed the doll in the child's arms, "Because true romance is not about the size of the diamond ring, but about—" She suddenly held Lu Yong's hand, which was stained with sugar juice, and held the lotus ring under the sunlight, "when someone is willing to turn the starlight in the coal dust into a fairy tale in your daughter's eyes."

The crowd suddenly burst into applause.

The old man in Tang suit walked forward with a cane and stuffed a string of candied haws into the little girl's hand: "Young man, you are right! The soul of our Tangshan Banquet is not in the abundance of gold and jade, but in--"

He suddenly knocked the ground with his cane. "In the first ray of light chiseled out by the Kailuan miners, in the hoarse singing voice of the shadow puppet artist, and in the love in the eyes of you young people!"

The mink woman's high heels suddenly stumbled.

She dragged her daughter to leave, but she heard the child say crisply: "Mom, that brother's ring is more beautiful than the diamond ring, because..."

She suddenly held up the shadow puppet Sun Wukong, and the sunlight shone through the thin paper, casting flowing spots of light on her face. "Because the spring of Tangshan City lives inside!"

Hannah's tears suddenly hit the viewfinder of the Leica camera.

She turned to look at Lu Yong, only to see him carefully wiping the sweet and sour sauce off her camera with a tissue. The lotus ring reflected a colorful halo in the sunlight, like a rainbow sealed in resin.

"Painter Lu," she suddenly grabbed his sleeve and pointed the camera lens at their overlapping palms, "Do you want to take a comparison photo of "Snobbish Eyes and Twin Lotuses"? You play the Twin Lotuses, and I play——"

She deliberately wiped her finger, which was stained with sugar juice, on his face, "Be the Tangshan chivalrous woman who specializes in dealing with snobs."

Lu Yong suddenly picked her up and carried her sideways, and walked to the backstage of the shadow play amid the laughter of the crowd: "The heroine needs to touch up her makeup first--"

He deliberately rubbed her earlobe with his lips stained with sweet and sour sauce, "After all, my Miss Rose, even her eyelashes tremble when she is angry."

When the two slipped out of the side door of the stage, there was a string of candied haws in Hannah's canvas bag.

Lu Yong suddenly paused while chewing on a hawthorn, and took out a small motorcycle made of the leftovers of a steamed bun box from his trouser pocket: "Miss Hannah, would you like to try the 'love token' specially provided by Tangshan?"

"Guide Lu," she deliberately rubbed the icing on the candied haws on the tip of his nose, "Are you sure this can last until the Civil Affairs Bureau?"

Before he finished speaking, the scream of the mink woman suddenly came from a distance.

Everyone looked over and saw her running around the field chasing her daughter who was holding a shadow puppet. Her diamond-encrusted cell phone slipped out of the pocket of her mink coat and made a crisp sound when it fell on the blue brick floor.

"It seems that some people's 'BMW love'," Lu Yong suddenly stuffed the small motorcycle into Hannah's palm, "needs to learn to roll in the coal dust of Tangshan City first."

Hannah suddenly stood on tiptoe and kissed his lips stained with sweet and sour sauce, and bit off the hawthorn between his lips amid the exclamations of the crowd: "Then my 'Love of Two Lotuses'——"

She deliberately stuffed the candied haws into his mouth, "to turn all the snobs into icy bits on the candied haws, so sweet that they tremble."

.........

On the last day of their trip to Tangshan, the two decided to go to the hot springs.

"So this is what you call a 'surprise'?" Hannah's canvas shoes sank into the cobblestone path of the Tangquan Palace Resort. The setting sun stretched her shadow long, casting it on Lu Yong's washed-out jeans.

"The ultimate Easter egg of the Tangshan trip." He suddenly bent down and plucked the catkins from her hair, his fingertips touching the warmth of the hot spring water vapor, "I heard that the hot springs here contain thirty-eight trace elements, enough to water your rose into--"

He deliberately dragged out the last word, and when he saw her ears turn red, he added the second half of the sentence, "Watered to make Tangshan roses that can bloom in the cracks of volcanic rocks."

Hannah smiled and kicked the pebbles at her feet. The pebbles bounced and rolled into the sulfur spring on the side of the road, causing a string of pearl-like bubbles.

She looked at the rising hot air and suddenly grabbed the drawstring of his sweatshirt: "Lu Yong, what do you think...if we were like this hot spring vapor, sleeping underground for three hundred years, and then someone chiseled the rock to release us..."

"Then I will wrap Miss Hannah in my ripped jeans the first second I see the light of day again." He suddenly picked her up horizontally, and she was so surprised that she hugged his neck tightly. "After all, the fate that could not be shaken away by the Tangshan earthquake cannot be diluted by a mere three hundred years."

As soon as the wooden door of the locker room closed, Hannah heard exaggerated exclamations coming from next door.

Two middle-aged women in floral swimsuits were taking selfies in front of the mirror. One of them suddenly turned around and shouted at her, "Girl, your boyfriend's muscular figure is good enough to be the Tangshan Tourism Ambassador!"

Hannah's face instantly became hotter than the hot spring pool.

She was about to retort when she saw Lu Yong poking his head out of the men's locker room. He had changed his sweatshirt into a loose linen shirt, and there were still drops of water on his collarbone. "Aunties, you have good eyes. I was planning to write a letter of self-recommendation to the Tangshan Culture and Tourism Bureau—"

He suddenly winked at Hannah and said, "The theme is '108 Ways to Check in Tangshan with Your Girlfriend'."

"Lu Yong!" She grabbed the bath towel and threw it at him, but he caught it with one hand and wrapped it around himself.

The linen fabric was stained with the sulfur smell of the hot springs, mixed with the faint scent of mint candy on his body, which was more alluring than any perfume.

By the Angelica Medicinal Bath Pool, Hannah dipped her toes into the milky white water, but was suddenly burned so much that she pulled her feet back.

Lu Yong squatted down and tested the water temperature with his palm: "Forty-two degrees, just right."

He suddenly held her ankles and gently placed her feet in the water, "Just like the warmth of your palms when we first held hands."

"Who wants to compete with you in water temperature!" She blushed and tried to pull her feet away, but he held them tightly.

In the hot steam, the lotus ring on his ring finger glowed with a warm light, contrasting beautifully with the blue and white porcelain vase fired in the traditional way by the pool.

"Miss Hannah, do you know the most magical place in Tangshan Hot Springs?" He suddenly drew circles on the back of her feet with the pool water, and the water dripped down his forearm into his cuffs. "Every drop of water here has heard the explosion sound of the Kailuan Coal Mine three thousand meters underground."

She suddenly became quiet.

The sounds of other tourists playing and laughing could be heard in the distance, but the Angelica Pond where they were was like amber forgotten by time, sealing up the residual warmth of a century-old mineral vein.

She looked at the water droplets condensing on his eyelashes, and suddenly remembered that he had used a Leica camera to take a photo of her sleeping face in the hotel last night. Her breathing in the camera was in sync with the misty rain of Nanhu Lake outside the window. "Lu Yong, I want to hear the truth from you." Hannah suddenly immersed her entire calf in the hot spring, and the splashing water wet the hem of his linen shirt, "Why Tangshan?"

He was using a wooden spoon to scoop up a spoonful of angelica soup. Hearing this, his hand paused, and the soup dripped down the edge of the spoon, creating small ripples on the surface of the pool: "Because this place looks like you."

He suddenly handed the wooden spoon to her lips. The bitter smell of medicine mixed with the mint on his fingertips. "It looks like it was shattered by an earthquake, hollowed out by a mine, and burned by war—"

He suddenly held her steamy hand and pressed it against his chest. "But as long as you are willing to peel off those scars, you will find that there is a fire that is hotter than coal."

Hannah's tears suddenly fell into the angelica pool, and she tasted a hint of sweetness in the bitter medicine soup.

She remembered that three days ago in the Eastern Qing Tombs, he stood in front of the Danbi Stone holding a ginkgo leaf and said, "Hannah, I want to watch the dawn and dusk of China for three hundred years with you."

Recalling last night at Nanhu Lake, he raised a glass bottle of sour plum soup and clinked it with the spotlight of the Dragon locomotive.

Thinking back to this moment by the hot spring pool, the warmth from his palms was seeping into her blood through the angelica soup.

When night fell, the two of them slipped into the private hot spring courtyard wrapped in bathrobes.

Hannah was about to turn on the light, but Lu Yong held her wrist and said, "Wait, close your eyes first."

She heard a rustling sound, as if he was fiddling with something, and suddenly warm light seeped in through her eyelids.

"Open your eyes, my Miss Hannah." His voice was wrapped in hot spring vapor, three times gentler than usual.

She opened her eyes and saw countless sky lanterns floating outside the bamboo curtain.

No, not Kongming lanterns - they are hundreds of mineral water bottles tied with LED light strings, each of which has photos of their three days posted on it: the ginkgo leaves of the Eastern Qing Tombs, the willow catkins of Nanhu Lake, the coal dust of the Kailuan Mine, the shadow puppets of the Tangshan Banquet, and her reflection by the Angelica Pond at this moment.

"You...when did you get ready?" She turned around to hug him, but he gently pushed her back to the pool.

He suddenly knelt on one knee, holding in his palm a ring box made from the lens cover of a Leica camera. On the inside of the box cover was a photo of them taken in the mine.

"Hannah, I know that proposing with a mineral water bottle is not romantic enough, and using a lens cap as a ring box is not decent enough—" He suddenly took out a ginkgo leaf bookmark from the bottom of the box, with tiny zircons embedded between the veins, "but every stone in it was picked up by me in the streets and alleys of Tangshan.

This one is broken glass from the Earthquake Relics Park, this one is pebbles from Nanhu Lake, and this one is coal from the Kailuan Mine..."

"Lu Yong!" She suddenly covered his mouth, her fingertips touching his hot breath, "Why do you think I came to Tangshan with you? Because you said in front of the earthquake site, 'To live is to turn the ruins into a monument, just like Tangshan.'

Because you said in the mine, 'The blood and sweat of our predecessors are not coal dust, but the starlight that illuminates us.'

Because..." She suddenly grabbed his hand and pressed it against her chest, "Because a Tangshan soul named Lu Yong has long lived here."

At midnight, the two sneaked into the empty red wine pool.

Hannah sank into the dark red water, leaving only the area above her eyes exposed. "Lu Yong, do you think we look like someone who has secretly drunk the mango nectar from the Guanyin Bodhisattva's bottle?"

"No, we are like the aged wine under the Tangshan Earthquake Memorial." He suddenly splashed the pool water onto her collarbone, and the water droplets slid down her shoulders into her bathrobe. "Hannah, do you know why the largest city central park in the country was built here after the Tangshan earthquake?"

"Because..." She suddenly held his rebellious hand, and her fingertips unconsciously stroked the calluses on his palm, "Because the people of Tangshan want to turn scars into medals?"

"Yes." He suddenly pulled her into his arms, the undercurrent of the red wine pool wrapped around their intertwined bathrobes, "Just like I want to turn your tears into wine that is more intoxicating than Nanhu Lake."

The next morning, Hannah woke up in Lu Yong's arms.

The morning light shone through the gaps in the bamboo curtains, dancing on her eyelashes like pieces of gold.

She was about to get up, but he pulled her back into his arms: "Sleep a little longer, there is no schedule today."

"But our flight this afternoon..." She suddenly paused, remembering what he whispered in her ear by the hot spring pool last night: "Hannah, stay in Tangshan."

"You were lying." He suddenly rubbed her head with his nose. "The flight ticket has been rescheduled to tomorrow. Today -" He suddenly opened the bamboo curtain, revealing the Leica camera hidden behind the screen, "Today we have to take 108 photos of 'The Last Memorial of Tangshan'."

As the two walked in the morning dew toward the vegetable garden of the hot spring resort, Hannah suddenly grabbed the corner of Lu Yong's clothes and said, "Look at that cabbage. Does it look like the Danbi stone in the Eastern Qing Tombs?"

"Wrong, it's like your swollen toes yesterday." He suddenly raised the camera. In the camera, she was squatting beside the vegetable patch, gesturing the similarities between the cabbage and the red stone. The ends of her hair were covered with dew, like a thin layer of snow.

"Lu Yong!" She smiled and tried to grab the camera, but he pulled her under the cucumber rack.

The dew on the vine suddenly fell, splashing tiny drops of water on her nose. He suddenly lowered his head and kissed the dew, tasting the sweet cucumber fragrance on his tongue.

"Hannah, do you know why after the Tangshan earthquake, this place became the national vegetable base?" He suddenly trapped her between the cucumber rack and himself, and his linen shirt was stained with morning dew and stuck to his back. "Because the people of Tangshan turned the ruins into fertile soil, just like..."

He suddenly grabbed her wrist and pressed it against his chest, "Just like I want to turn our quarrels into fertilizer for our love."

In the private hot spring courtyard in the afternoon, Hannah was using her Leica to take pictures of the ginkgo leaves floating on the surface of the Angelica Pond.

Lu Yong suddenly hugged her from behind and placed his palm on her hand holding the camera: "Hannah, look here--" He suddenly pressed the shutter, and the overlapping reflections of the two people in the camera shattered into ripples in the pool water.

"You took a secret photo of me!" She deliberately splashed him with pool water, but he suddenly took out a small cloth bag from his bathrobe pocket.

When I opened it, I found a ring woven with Tangshan sesame candy. The sugar threads glowed amber in the sunlight.

"Miss Hannah, you have three choices now—" He suddenly knelt on one knee, and the water in the pool flooded the linen cloth at his knees, "One, eat this candy ring; two, wear it; three..."

He suddenly looked up at her, his eyes filled with the spring scenery of Nanhu Lake, "San, come with me and tell the story of Tangshan to the world."

As the plane broke through the clouds, Hannah suddenly put her forehead against the window.

Under their feet was the city of Tangshan gradually receding. The chimneys of the Kailuan Mine turned into matchsticks, the weeping willows of Nanhu Lake turned into emerald chips, and the Tangquan Palace where they had lived was emitting the never-ending warmth that belonged to this city.

"Lu Yong, look—" She suddenly pulled his sleeve, her fingertips unconsciously stroking the lotus ring on her ring finger, "Tangshan is swimming in the sea of ​​clouds."

He suddenly took her hand and put the two rings together.

The sweet fragrance of the sugar ring mixed with the copper rust of the lotus, brewing at an altitude of ten thousand meters, a hymn to eternity that belongs only to them. (End of this chapter)