A young boy from the 1970s, separated from his family, fled famine and led his younger brother into

Su Nianci's back tensed slightly in Lu Xingzhou's arms.

She turned her head and looked at the young woman standing at the alley entrance.

A black coat, long hair, snow falling on her shoulders without being brushed away.

Lu Xingzhou put her down, the hem of his military overcoat dragging on the snow.

Su Nianci steadied herself and pulled her coat up a little tighter.

Who is your mother?

Zhou Mingyue pulled her hand out of her coat pocket and was holding something.

The thing wasn't big; it was wrapped in a piece of old, dark blue cotton cloth, the floral pattern on the cloth so faded that the original color was no longer visible.

She held the things to her chest, her voice a little lower than before.

"Guiying."

As she finished speaking those two words, Su Nianci clenched her fingers inside the sleeve of her coat.

"My mother worked at the orphanage for 32 years, from the age of 20 until her retirement, and she never left."

Zhou Mingyue lowered her gaze for a moment, and it fell on the cotton bag in her arms.

"I married someone from another province when I was sixteen, so I haven't had much contact with her. I can count the number of times we've met on one hand over the years."

Her mouth moved, and something in her throat went down and then came back up.

"She passed away last month. When I went back to sort through her belongings, I found this in the bottom drawer of her bedside table."

She handed over the cotton bag.

Su Nianci answered.

The cotton bag was lighter than she had imagined; it felt almost weightless in her palm, but the cloth was still warm, as if it had been warmed by her body heat for a long time.

"She kept repeating a name before she left, but it wasn't my name."

Zhou Mingyue's nostrils twitched slightly, and a layer of water welled up in the bottom of her eyes, but it didn't fall.

"It's 'Lin Xi'."

Su Nianci's fingers tightened on the cotton bag.

It was packed very slowly, inch by inch, as if afraid that if it was too fast it would crush the contents inside.

"I later found out that it was a child she raised."

Zhou Mingyue wiped the tip of her nose.

"I found some old photos and a few unmailed letters among her belongings. In the letters, she called the child 'my Xiaoxi'."

Su Nianci's lips moved slightly, but she didn't make a sound.

Lu Xingzhou stood half a step behind her, without saying a word, but his hand was already on her lower back.

The warmth of my palm, transmitted through the thick cotton layer of the military overcoat, was only a tiny bit.

But that little bit is enough.

"Miss Zhou, please come in and have a seat."

Su Nianci's voice remained steady.

Zhou Mingyue shook her head.

"I won't sit down. Just deliver the things. My mother told me to drop them off and leave, so as not to cause trouble for others."

Her lips curved slightly, a thin layer of sourness in her smile.

"Just like her personality, she's always been afraid of causing trouble for others."

Su Nianci stood at the door, holding the cotton bag, watching Zhou Mingyue turn around and walk back to the car.

The car door opened.

Zhou Mingyue bent down to get into the car, then straightened up and looked back.

"Ms. Su, my mother wrote a lot in the letter. I read some of it, but I didn't finish reading some of it."

Her voice was muffled by the wind.

"But one thing I remembered was what she said: 'The person I've been most true to in my life is that girl.'"

The car door closed.

The engine started with a muffled sound in the snow, the tires rolled over the snow, sending up a few bits of ice flying, and the car slowly drove out of the alley and onto the main road before disappearing from sight.

Su Nianci stood at the courtyard gate for a while.

The snow started falling again, a bit heavier than before, falling in flakes onto her hair and her cotton bag.

Lu Xingzhou walked up and reached out to brush a few snowflakes off her head.

"Let's go inside."

Su Nianci nodded and turned to walk into the courtyard.

She didn't go to the living room or the bedroom.

He went straight into the study and closed the door.

The table lamp was turned on.

The cotton cloth bag was placed on the table.

She sat in the chair, her hands resting on either side of her bag, and paused for a full minute before untying the old cotton thread that was tied to the outside.

The cotton cloth was peeled off layer by layer.

Inside was a metal box.

It was almost exactly the same as the one her father left her—palm-wide, three fingers-thick, rusty, with the lacquer on the box worn down to just a little dark red residue in the corner.

She opened the metal box.

A blurry black and white photo was pasted on the inside of the box lid, held together with transparent tape that had yellowed and was peeling up at the edges.

The photo shows a group of children standing in two rows. In the middle of the back row stands a middle-aged woman who is not tall and slightly overweight, with her hands on the shoulders of the two youngest children in the front row.

In the front row, on the far left, there was a girl with two small braids, about three or four years old, with her head tilted and her mouth open, as if she had been amused by the person taking the picture.

Su Nianci touched the girl's face in the photo with her fingertips.

There were other things in the box.

The three handmade paper flowers have faded and the petals are wrinkled, but the creases are neat, showing that the person who made them put a lot of care into them.

A red string was braided into a simple knot, with something strung on its end.

Su Nianci took out the red thread.

A glass bead was strung on the end of the thread.

It's about the size of a thumbnail, transparent, with a blue pattern inside that refracts a small shard of light under the lamp.

She clenched the glass bead in her hand, squeezed it briefly, and then released it.

At the very bottom of the box was a letter.

The envelope was old, the paper was yellowed, and there was a water stain in the lower right corner, as if it had been wet and then dried.

The seal was not closed.

Su Nianci took out the letter.

Five pages of letter paper, each page filled with writing. The handwriting was not very steady, the strokes were shaky, and in some places the ink had bled and smudged, and in other places it had been written and crossed out and rewritten, densely packed.

It begins with—

"Lin Xi, I don't know where you are or how you are doing, but I want to write you a letter. I'll keep it and you'll see it someday."

Su Nianci's eyes began to sting.

She continued reading.

"When you came to us at the age of three, you were barely bigger than a cat, so skinny you could count your ribs. The first time your nanny gave you a bath, you bit me, and the tooth mark stayed there for days."

"You learned to fold blankets when you were four years old. You folded them crookedly, with one corner higher than the other, but the first thing you did every morning was fold them. After you finished, you would stand by the bed waiting for me to praise you."

On your fifth birthday, you ran to the street stall by the door, spent your allowance saved up for half a year, bought a glass bead, and said, "Happy birthday, Grandma." Grandma said that today is your birthday, not mine, and you said, "Your birthday is too far away, I can't wait."

Su Nianci's hands trembled.

She placed the letter on the table, holding both ends of the paper down with her hands to prevent it from wobbling.

She continued reading.

Turning the pages one by one, each page was filled with those trivial, insignificant details.

When Lin Xi was six years old, she lost her first tooth and ran to her crying, saying, "Grandma, am I going to die?"

When Lin Xi was eight years old, she learned to knit sweaters for other children. She knitted a scarf and gave it to her nanny. The scarf was too short, only enough to wrap around once, and her nanny wore it all winter.

When Lin Xi was ten years old, she got first place in her class. When she came back, she put the certificate on the wall above her nanny's bed and said, "I will put one up every year and cover the whole wall."

Turn to the last page.

The handwriting was more shaky than the previous pages, and the ink color was different, as if a different pen had been used and the writing had been delayed for a long time.

The last paragraph was pressed down so deeply that each word left a clear indentation on the paper.

"Lin Xi, you didn't look back at me the day you left."

"It's alright, Granny has been watching over you."

"No matter who you become or where you are, Granny will recognize you."

Su Nianci pressed the letter to her chest.

The thin letter paper clung to her collarbone, trembling with each beat of her heart.

Her breath hitched.

It broke into two pieces.

The first half got stuck in his throat, while the second half dissipated in his nasal cavity, turning into a very soft and short gasp.

She looked down and saw that there was something pressed down at the bottom of the metal box.

A glass bead strung together with a red thread.

It's exactly the same as the one she just picked out.

No, it's the same one.

She just took it out for a quick look and then put it back in the box.

Now it lies quietly at the bottom of the box, its blue patterns refracting fragmented light under the lamp.

When Lin Xi was five years old, she used the pocket money she had saved for half a year to buy a birthday gift for her nanny Guiying at a street stall.

Untouched.

He carried it for a lifetime.

He carried it with him until the very end of his life.