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

When the closing announcement sounded, the three were trapped in the dome observation deck.

The 360-degree surround screen was playing a video of the Northern Lights, and the artificial aurora flowed on the glass like an emerald river.

Hannah curled up in the "tent" that Lu Yong made with his coats, listening to him talk about his night diving experience at XSQD: "At that time, I thought, it would be great if I could take you to see the real aurora..."

"But now I feel," Hannah pressed the ice crystal pendant against his chest, "the starlight in Xibaipo, the fluorescence in the aquarium, the aurora here - as long as I see them with you, they are all the same light."

She suddenly took out the shell whistle and said, "Remember the dolphin code you taught me? I adapted it into a 'marriage proposal version'."

She blew the whistle, and the rhythm of three long and two short notes echoed in the dome.

A moment later, the entire aquarium's voice control system was suddenly activated - the lights in all the aquariums lit up at the same time, spelling out the huge words "MARRY ME".

Xiao Lin took out a ring box from his penguin suit. Inside the lid were bamboo leaf specimens from Xibaipo and shells from the aquarium. "Lu Yong asked me to keep it. He said if it doesn't freeze into an ice sculpture today, I can use this."

Lu Yong knelt on one knee on the artificial snow, with an ice crystal ring in his palm: "It was frozen with snow water from Xibaipo, and our hair is sealed inside."

The tips of his ears turned red like the aurora. "Although it's not as good as diamonds, but...if you like, I'll melt it into a wedding ring next spring."

Hannah's tears hit the ice ring, but she heard a crisp "click" sound - the ring cracked under body temperature, revealing the jadeite hidden in the ice.

"This is the Aurora Emerald, the treasure of the aquarium," Lu Yong said with a smile, "The curator said that only true love can make the thousand-year-old ice bloom."

.........

On the last day of their trip to Shijiazhuang, the two went to the Pilu Temple Museum together.

"Lu Yong, look!" Hannah pulled her boyfriend's sleeve and ran forward, her canvas shoes tapping out a brisk rhythm on the bluestone slabs.

The vermilion lacquered door of the Pilu Temple Museum was slowly opening. The morning light slanted across the mottled gilded plaque on the door lintel. The copper bells on the eaves tinkled in the wind, startling two gray doves, which fluttered over the crown of the thousand-year-old cypress.

Lu Yong grabbed Hannah's hand with his backhand, the warmth of the hot soy milk from the breakfast stall still remaining on his palm: "Run slower, don't bump into the incense burner." Before he finished speaking, Hannah had bumped into a group of tourists holding selfie sticks.

Tourists were taking photos around a stone lion. The copper bell in the lion's mouth was jingling. Hannah's hair brushed across the bell, and the crisp lingering sound created ripples in the morning mist.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" She apologized and hid behind Lu Yong, but saw him staring at the stone lion base in a daze - in the mottled carvings, there was a cute stone panda with a half bamboo branch in its claws. "Look!" Lu Yong wiped the moss with his sleeve, and the panda's eyes were two round agates, "Is this stonemason from our hometown?"

Hannah giggled, her blue eyes curved into crescents: "Maybe we are fellow travelers who traveled through time and space." She suddenly stood on tiptoe and patted Lu Yong on the shoulder, "Let's go! If you dawdle any more at the mural, it will be burned by the incense!"

The moment she stepped into the Sakya Temple, Hannah's breathing stopped.

The Ming Dynasty murals on three walls woke up in the morning light, and the sleeves of the five hundred arhats and the ribbons of the flying goddesses flowed in the light and shadow, as if they were about to fly away with the wind in the next second. She subconsciously grabbed the corner of Lu Yong's clothes, but saw that he was pointing his mobile phone at the corner of the mural: "Look! Does the arhat holding the candied haws look like you?"

"Nonsense!" Hannah took a closer look and found that there was indeed an Arhat wearing a round-necked robe on the edge of the mural, with his left hand holding a string of bright red candied haws and his right hand stuffing hawthorns into his mouth. She suddenly laughed and fell on Lu Yong's shoulder: "It's obviously you who are greedy, right? You said last night that you wanted to lose weight..."

Before he finished speaking, a ray of sunlight suddenly penetrated the glazed tiles on the roof of the temple and hit the statue of Sakyamuni in the center of the mural. The white hair between the Buddha's eyebrows shone with the luster of mother-of-pearl, and Hannah's eyelashes trembled in the light spot, as if she was the flying fairy playing the guzheng in the mural. "Lu Yong, look!" She pointed at the golden lotus on the Buddha's knee, "The pattern of the petals is similar to the fluorescent jellyfish in our aquarium!"

Lu Yong took out a portable microscope from his backpack and pointed the lens at Jin Lian. "More than a resemblance. This pigment is mixed with mica powder and malachite, and the overlap rate with the luminous algae cultivated in the laboratory is as high as 70%."

He suddenly turned the camera around, and Hannah's pupils turned into two deep blue pools in the lens. "Would you like to try 'micro-dating'? I'll count to three, two, one, and we'll open our eyes together and look for similarities?"

"Childish!" Hannah said disdainfully, but her finger secretly hooked around his little finger. The world under the microscope unfolded in their eyes: the veins of golden lotus and the tentacles of jellyfish intertwined into a galaxy, and the mica fragments and the cell walls of luminous algae refracted light at the same angle.

When Lu Yong counted to "one", the tips of their noses almost touched, and their breath condensed into tiny rainbows on the lenses.

As she turned around the corridor, Hannah was stopped in her tracks by a statue of Guanyin.

The Water Moon Guanyin in the center of the Pilu Hall lowered her eyebrows, and the tears in the corners of her eyes shone faintly in the incense, as if they would drip into the Yangzhi Ganlu in the celadon bottle at any time. "Is this really paint?" She reached out to touch it, but was gently blocked by Lu Yong with his folding fan.

"Be careful, 'Buddha's Tears' may burn your hands." Lu Yong took out a silk handkerchief from his canvas bag, wrapped it around his fingertips and tapped the tear marks. "This is 'Love Tears Glaze' made with pearl powder and coral powder, it changes color when exposed to heat." He suddenly blew air on the handkerchief, and a touch of rouge red slowly spread across the tear marks. "It's like some people who say they want to lose weight, but can't walk when they smell the aroma of sugar-roasted chestnuts."

Hannah pretended to be angry and hit his chest, but she saw that the tear marks on her handkerchief had turned into sunset clouds. The sleeves of the Guanyin statue fluttered in the light and shadow, and she suddenly found a tiny panda pattern hidden in a corner of the mural, holding a bamboo stick and looking into the Guanyin bottle. "Look!" She pulled Lu Yong to squat, "Is this panda drinking holy water?"

Lu Yong took a picture of the details with his mobile phone and enlarged it, and found that there was a seal script of the word "Yong" engraved on the panda's ear.

"This..." He was about to speak when an old man's laughter suddenly came from behind him: "You two have good taste! This panda was secretly added by a painter during the Guangxu period. It was said that it was intended for the Buddha to ride on."

The two turned around and saw an old monk leaning on a dragon-headed cane looking at them with a smile.

The old monk's robe was patched, but the cuffs were embroidered with delicate cloud patterns: "My Buddhist name is Mingchen, and I have been guarding the murals in this temple for sixty years. This panda, you and I are destined to be together."

As Hannah followed Master Mingchen through the Moon Cave Gate, the heel of her canvas shoes got stuck in the cracks between the blue bricks.

Lu Yong knelt on one knee to help her pull off her shoes, and when he looked up, he saw the octagonal caisson of the Revolving Wheel Pavilion rotating above his head.

The seven-layer wooden scripture cabinet is stacked one on top of the other, with different Buddhist stories painted on each layer. The flying fairies on the top layer are throwing flower petals towards them - in fact, they are spots of light shining through the hollow carvings.

"This is a hand-cranked sutra cabinet from the Song Dynasty." Master Mingchen turned the copper handle on the outside of the cabinet, and the wooden shaft made a long squeak. "One turn is equivalent to reciting the sutra ten thousand times. Would you like to try it?"

Hannah grabbed the handle first, but found that the cabinet did not move at all.

Lu Yong hugged her from behind and placed his hands on the back of her hands: "It takes two people to turn together." His breath swept past her ears, "Just like our research project, no one can be missing."

When the scripture cabinet began to rotate slowly, Hannah suddenly discovered that the illustrations of Buddhist scriptures on each layer of the cabinet were changing: from a newborn lotus to a blooming peony, and finally to a phoenix in nirvana.

The door of the bottom cabinet suddenly popped open, and a small bamboo sachet rolled out, filled with dried bamboo leaves and seaweed.

"This is..." She picked up the sachet and found a poem embroidered in German and Chinese on the inside: "Although the mountains and seas are far away, the painting is our bond." Master Mingchen chuckled as he twisted the Buddhist beads: "Last year, a female donor from Germany said she wanted to leave her regrets at the Pilu Temple. This sachet is waiting for the destined person."

As they walked along the corridor toward the frescoed gallery, the strap of Hannah's canvas bag caught on the hitching post.

When she bent down to untie the knot, Lu Yong suddenly pointed at the mural behind her and exclaimed, "Look! Is that you?"

Hannah turned around and saw that in the painting of Indra and Brahma covering the entire wall, the Flower-scattering Goddess, who was ranked last among the gods, had a western face, with a crabapple in her golden hair, and a basket of flowers in her hands, which contained not only lotus flowers but also a few bamboos. "This..." She stroked the mural with her fingertips, "It's exactly the same as the portrait of the donor I copied in Dunhuang when I was twenty years old, even the pattern of the earrings is exactly the same!"

Lu Yong scanned the mural with his mobile phone, and AR technology made the goddess suddenly "come alive".

She winked at Hannah and threw the green bamboo in the basket to Lu Yong. The bamboo branches fell to the ground and turned into two pandas embracing each other.

"This is the 'Love Contract Easter Egg' of Pilu Temple." Master Mingchen's voice came from behind, "When lovers see their past life portraits at the same time, the mural will bestow blessings."

Hannah suddenly stood on tiptoe and kissed Lu Yong. From the corner of her eye, she saw the goddess on the mural hiding her face with her sleeves and laughing.

As the sun was setting, Master Mingchen led the two to the vegetarian hall behind the Sutra Library.

In the dining hall with green tiles and white walls, the eight-immortals table was emitting the aroma of tung oil. A pomegranate flower slanted in from the window lattice, and its petals fell on the edge of the coarse porcelain bowl, like adding a cinnabar seal to the vegetarian meal.

"The two donors, please try the 'Luo Han vegetarian noodles.'" The master opened the bamboo food box, and the hot steam wrapped in the fresh aroma of mushrooms hit us. Hannah stirred the amber mushroom soup with a silver spoon and found that the bamboo fungus slices at the bottom of the bowl were arranged in the shape of a panda hugging bamboo.

As soon as Lu Yong's chopsticks poked the tofu bubble, hot matsutake juice gushed out and splashed on the back of his hand, scalding it and making him gasp: "This vegetarian version of 'Buddha Jumps Over the Wall' is even more powerful than the mushroom soup cultivated in our laboratory!"

Hannah smiled and put a piece of Hericium erinaceus into his bowl. "Even a great researcher can be tricked by delicious food?" She bit into the translucent dumpling, and the shepherd's purse mixed with walnut crumbs burst out between her teeth, exuding a bitter and sweet taste. "This filling... is like wrapping up the whole spring."

Master Mingchen brought two cups of almond tea, with tiny osmanthus flowers floating on the surface of the tea soup: "The temple uses spring water from Xibaipo Mountain, and the sweetness comes from wild vitex honey."

He suddenly pointed out the window and said, "Look at that pair of sparrows, they are always waiting for diners' leftovers under the eaves of the dining hall."

Hannah looked in the direction where she saw two gray sparrows jumping and pecking at the rice grains on the stone steps.

One of them suddenly tilted its head and stared at her. Its black eyes rolled around, and it flapped its wings and landed on her shoulder.

"It, it's not afraid of people!" Hannah froze and dared not move. Lu Yong had taken out his mobile phone and took several pictures. In the camera, the sparrow's tail feathers swept across the bamboo leaf hairpin in her hair.

"The donor has a connection with these living beings." Master Mingchen sprinkled a handful of millet into Hannah's palm. The sparrow immediately jumped onto her palm and pecked at the food, scratching her palm with its claws, making it itchy.

Lu Yong took the opportunity to feed the almond tea to her mouth: "Open your mouth, Sparrow's special afternoon tea."

After having the vegetarian meal, the two walked along the bluestone road towards the mountain gate.

When the sun sank into the cypress forest, the entire temple suddenly became quiet, and even the lingering sound of the bronze bells became long.

The sound of Hannah's canvas heels hitting the stone slabs was particularly crisp, and every step seemed to be stepping on Lu Yong's heartbeat.

"Would you like to touch the thousand-year-old cypress before you leave?" Lu Yong suddenly stopped and pointed at the old tree next to the mountain gate.

The bark was cracked like the lines on an old man's palm, and the branches were tied with faded red ribbons, which fluttered in the evening breeze like a colorful cloud.

Hannah reached out and touched the tree trunk, and felt a rough vibration at her fingertips, as if there were countless untold stories hidden under the bark.

"This tree has seen so many separations." She rested her forehead against the bark. Lu Yong hugged her from behind and gently rubbed his chin against the top of her head: "But it has also seen more reunions."

He suddenly took out a pencil and drew a mini panda on the depression of the bark. "Leave a mark and come back to find it on our golden wedding anniversary."

Hannah smiled and twisted his ear: "Golden wedding? Then you have to live to be seventy-eight first!" She took out the sketchbook she carried with her, tore off a page of blank paper and folded it into a paper airplane. She blew a breath at the nose of the airplane, "Look at my 'Red Dust Love Contract'!" The paper airplane flew over the branches of the ancient cypress, startling a few gray magpies that were returning late. The flapping sound of their wings shattered the last ray of sunset.

When we returned to the hotel, neon lights had dyed half of the night sky red.

Hannah kicked off her canvas shoes and threw herself into the soft bed. The bamboo leaf hairpin in her hair hit the pillow, making her giggle.

Lu Yong took out a glass jar from his suitcase, which contained pine cones and ginkgo leaves he had picked up at Pilu Temple. "Do you want to make a 'love contract specimen'?"

The two knelt on the carpet and put together collage materials. Hannah used ginkgo leaves to make a dolphin with its wings spread, while Lu Yong used pine cones to make the shape of a panda chewing bamboo.

As they scattered the bamboo leaves and seaweed fragments from the sachets into the glass jar, Hannah suddenly said, "I was actually a little scared when I saw my past life on the mural today."

Lu Yong paused as he was fixing the specimen with glue. He looked up and saw the warm yellow light of the bedside lamp reflected in her eyes: "What are you afraid of? Are you afraid that you are really a ghost walking out of the mural?" He deliberately poked her nose with his finger covered in glue.

"I'm afraid that's another me in a parallel universe." Hannah grabbed his wrist and pressed his palm against her cheek. "That 'me' couldn't eat vegetarian food, play with sparrows, or make paper airplanes with you... But the me in this universe wants to make every tomorrow into an Easter egg with you."

Lu Yong leaned over and kissed the teardrop mole at the corner of her eye. The glue can was knocked to the ground, and pine cones and ginkgo leaves rolled all over the floor.

The faint sound of chanting drifted in from outside the window, mixed with the hum of the hotel's air conditioner, forming a strange lullaby.

Hannah murmured in the deepening night: "Where are we going tomorrow?"

"Let's go to Hutuo River to watch the sunrise." Lu Yong pulled the air-conditioning blanket up to her chin, "Then go to Zhengding Night Market to eat fried sesame cakes with almond tea - just like the one we had at Pilu Temple, but this time I want to steal the walnut pieces in your bowl."

Hannah smiled and bit his index finger. The moonlight climbed up through the gaps in the curtains onto the pine cones in the glass jar, casting tiny stars on the panda and dolphin specimens.

As the electronic clock on the bedside ticked towards midnight, the sound of the ancient temple bell outside the window happened to arrive, startling the roosting birds and sending them flying across the city night sky. The feathers from their wings happened to fall into their intertwined palms. (End of this chapter)