Chapter 83: Heavy Snow |
The alarm went off right on time.
He woke up from the soft bed.
The room was dim. Opening his eyes, Zhang Shutong stared at the ceiling for a while.
A dreamless night.
He was actually starting to get used to this bed.
The villa had a fresh air system installed, but even so, the air that had settled overnight still felt somewhat stale. He squinted toward the window—the curtains were thick enough to block out the light completely.
If he could, he really wanted to sleep in.
But the fact was, he couldn't. If there was one good thing about staying home, it was not having to wake up early, but his current identity was that of a student, and he still had to run to the classroom for morning reading in a bit.
Zhang Shutong got out of bed barefoot, his soles meeting the soft, spongy texture of the carpet. With a "swish," he pulled open the curtains. The morning light descending from the sky made his eyes sting.
It feels so close...
His mind felt a bit muddled as he thought this.
More precisely, it felt like the position he was standing at had gotten lower, much closer to the ground.
The guest room was on the second floor. He thought it was the expanse of white making him lose his sense of distance, but after looking carefully for a while, Zhang Shutong realized it wasn't an illusion—it was that the snow had piled up too high.
He instantly became fully awake.
Just how long had this snow been falling?
He pushed open the window. Cold air rushed into the collar of his pajamas. Zhang Shutong shivered and leaned out to look.
He was searching for a reference point, finally settling on the villa's fence.
About a quarter of its height had been buried by the accumulated snow.
"Is this for real..."
Zhang Shutong murmured.
Today was December 7, 2012.
This Friday had become completely different.
He didn't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing.
He turned on the light and quickly got himself ready. The time came to 6:40. Teacher Song had said there was no need to get up too early, so he'd set his alarm a bit later last night.
Some kind of incense was burning in the hallway. Zhang Shutong looked toward Gu Qiumian's bedroom—the door was tightly shut. She probably hadn't gotten up yet.
Wait, she hadn't gotten up, right?
The heavy morning snow made him less certain.
Zhang Shutong thought strangely: was it possible that, like Sunday morning, she'd been abducted again?
In the previous timeline, would the bodyguard and housekeeper have kept thinking the young miss was sleeping in her room, only to discover at noon when she still hadn't woken up that she'd gone missing when they went upstairs?
So Zhang Shutong stopped walking toward the elevator and came to stand in front of Gu Qiumian's door, knocking.
Knock knock knock.
Zhang Shutong counted silently in his mind. After quite a while, a sticky voice came from inside:
"Mm... mm? Who is it..."
The voice's owner spoke unclearly, obviously not fully awake.
Zhang Shutong knew she had low blood sugar, so he stopped disturbing her.
As long as she was still in the room, that was good.
He went down to the first floor. There was no one in the living room—Teacher Song wasn't there, and neither was the housekeeper.
Had he gotten up too early?
Zhang Shutong had wanted to sit alone on the sofa for a bit, but he sniffed and smelled the aroma of cooking oil.
Walking over to look at the dining table, he saw several fried eggs laid out.
Where had that person gone?
Zhang Shutong wandered around. This was the downside of a big house—who knew which room someone might be hiding in. He spotted Teacher Song's car keys on the coffee table. Walking to the balcony, he finally discovered two figures in the yard.
The two of them were shoveling snow.
Not noticing would have been fine, but once he did, not going to help would make him feel guilty.
As the saying goes, melting snow is colder than falling snow. The coat he was wearing was a bit thin. He prepared himself to endure the cold. But just as he stepped outside, his foot sank unexpectedly—it turned out the snow had piled up too thick. He couldn't walk fast and could only advance with a swaying gait.
Teacher Song heard the sound and turned around, waving his hand first:
"Shutong, don't come out yet. There's good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear?"
Though he said this, his tone didn't sound serious.
So Zhang Shutong didn't take it seriously either. While pulling his shoes out of the snow, he replied:
"Then the bad one, I guess..."
"The snow's too heavy. When I got up this morning, I almost couldn't even open the side door. The dogs were nearly trapped in their kennel."
"And the good news?"
"Go back and change into boots, then come out and do some work with us." Teacher Song smiled.
The housekeeper hastily said there was no need. Teacher Song waved his hand:
"He's already this grown up, not a little kid. Besides, we still need to trouble you with preparing breakfast. The two of us out here will be fine."
He turned his head again:
"Shutong, have Auntie go back and find you some clothes. Let's shovel the snow, otherwise by tonight it'll all be frozen solid."
Zhang Shutong had no objections.
It had nothing to do with who was the guest and who was the host—the housekeeper simply wasn't young anymore.
So he stopped walking. After hearing the two of them decline back and forth a few times, the housekeeper ultimately couldn't insist. As she walked back, she said somewhat embarrassedly:
"Thank you, child. Having to trouble you and Teacher so early in the morning..."
No need to thank me, Auntie. This is what a little brother should do.
Zhang Shutong thought to himself with amusement.
Auntie Wu didn't rush to find him gear but first poured him a glass of warm water to drink. Zhang Shutong found it quite heartwarming.
Auntie then pulled out a down jacket from a cabinet.
The jacket was black, short-cut. He marveled that wealthy families really were different—not only did they have spare slippers and pajamas, they even had coats for guests.
But only after putting it on did he realize the down jacket was way too short, even exposing a small section of his waist, and it had a faint, familiar scent.
"This is Gu Qiumian's?"
Zhang Shutong was stunned.
"It's Mianmian's. These are ones she doesn't wear anymore. I've been keeping them for her." The housekeeper said apologetically, "Is it a bit small? I specifically looked for the biggest one. Should Auntie go out instead?"
Well, so there was no such thing as a "guest coat" after all.
He immediately realized that usually only one man lived here. Mr. Gu probably wasn't lacking in clothes, but without the man's approval, the housekeeper wouldn't dare make the decision on her own. She could only give him one of Gu Qiumian's discarded items.
Zhang Shutong shook his head and said no need. As long as it kept him warm, that was fine. He wasn't so particular as to look down on anyone's old clothes. It was just that the scent on the down jacket came and went, as if Gu Qiumian was constantly hovering around him. That was strange.
The master and disciple met up outside. Teacher Song assigned him a task. Though they called it sweeping snow, they really only needed to clear out the areas outside the two doors and shovel out a passageway. As for other places—the yard was simply too big for them to bother with.
He continued working. As they swept their way to the front yard, Teacher Song suddenly said:
"Shutong, is this the snake you mentioned yesterday?"
The man held up something rod-shaped in his hand.
Zhang Shutong looked over and nodded.
"It is kind of scary." Teacher Song muttered. "Just now while I was shoveling, I found something hard underneath. When I picked it up, I thought it was a tree branch. Should we feed this thing to the dogs?"
Better not.
Zhang Shutong talked him out of it. The dogs didn't get poisoned this time—don't let you feed them to death.
"Forget it then." Teacher Song threw it outward forcefully, tossing the snake stick outside the fence. "Better throw it far away. Come help me out—let's sweep the snow at the bottom of the fence gate. Once that's done, we can call it quits."
The main gate opened inward. If they didn't clear out the buried portion, they couldn't even push the door open. Soon they had dug out a pit in front of the gate, with snow piled high around the edges.
The two of them put away the shovels and wiped their sweat. On the way back, Teacher Song suggested whether they should build a snowman. His childlike innocence hadn't faded.
"What childlike innocence? You're just not getting it, kid." Teacher Song sighed. "It's not like we'd build it for me. Of course it's for the young lady. Let me tell you, back when I was chasing girls, I did this. I'm telling you, there's nothing more romantic than this. Think about it—if you were that girl, after a night of snow, getting up in the morning and running to the window to look, suddenly there's a snowman down below. Wouldn't you be moved to death? I guarantee she'd absolutely run down without a second thought."
Zhang Shutong turned to look around. This area was wilderness. He didn't see what was moving about it. More like scary as hell.
But he understood what Teacher Song meant.
This was the front yard. Looking up, you could just see the window to Gu Qiumian's bedroom. Presumably if she woke up and looked down, she could also see what was happening here.
Right now the curtains were tightly closed.
Zhang Shutong looked thoughtful.
"Action speaks louder than words." Teacher Song encouraged.
"No, I'm thinking about something else." Zhang Shutong brushed him off with a line and headed inside first.
He'd just ruled out another hypothesis.
Last night when he'd gone to Gu Qiumian's room, it was to confirm whether she could see what happened outside the main gate.
The answer was yes.
Then there was the question of how likely it was that Gu Qiumian would run out on her own initiative.
Not long ago, Zhang Shutong had been thinking it wasn't necessarily that she ran to the Forbidden Zone. What the culprit needed to do was simple—since they couldn't climb in, they just needed to make her run outside the protection of the fence.
Like the snowman Teacher Song mentioned, for instance. If they used a flashlight to shine around outside the fence to catch her attention, then after she came to the window, they could do something else. Of course, they couldn't actually build a snowman, but rather make her see something else, lure her to run out the door voluntarily, then kidnap her. That also seemed like a method.
But now this hypothesis was ruled out, because she closed her curtains when she slept.
Zhang Shutong sighed and returned to the living room with his confusion. The housekeeper had already brewed hot tea, and the sound of hot oil sizzling came from the kitchen.
He poured himself a glass of water. He'd wanted to sit down and catch his breath, but then noticed he was still wearing that down jacket. He needed to take it off quickly, lest he be laughed at later.
Zhang Shutong pulled out his phone for a look—just past seven o'clock. The phone's battery still had over thirty percent. He asked the housekeeper for a charger, not really expecting much, but there actually was one.
Though both he and Gu Qiumian used Apple products, the iPhone 4 and 5 had different charging ports. He'd forgotten to ask yesterday. Who knew Miss Gu was a loyal Apple user who replaced her phone with every new model, accumulating quite a few chargers.
Finally feeling a bit more at ease with the phone charging, and by coincidence, he'd just rubbed his stiffened face and sat down on the sofa when the elevator doors opened.
Gu Qiumian walked out impeccably dressed. Her clothes were never repeated. Today it was a black turtleneck sweater. Her snow-white chin nestled into the collar, making her look very aloof.
Zhang Shutong took the initiative to greet her and got glanced at. She didn't respond.
"Don't want to talk to you."
Though she didn't say it, her eyes were full of that meaning.
Was this low blood sugar or her period?
Zhang Shutong couldn't tell anymore.
For an instant, he even wondered if it was because of the so-called "snowman," but that didn't make sense either, because judging by the time, she simply hadn't opened her curtains. So Teacher Song was still unreliable—what snowman, what moved to death. She simply hadn't planned to look outside.
She came to sit on the sofa and picked up the water glass. Zhang Shutong had wanted to say that was his, but she'd already picked it up and taken a sip, squinting her eyes. She seemed to find the water temperature just right and was quite satisfied.
Of course it was just right. I poured it ages ago.
Until Teacher Song also came back and said to the two of them:
"Now there's bad news and good news. Which do you want to hear first?"
Zhang Shutong's movements paused. He almost suspected he'd regressed.
"The bad one." That was Zhang Shutong's habit.
"The good one." But Miss Gu said this instead.
The two of them looked at each other. Zhang Shutong indicated he didn't care.
"Then I'll announce the good news first."
Teacher Song cleared his throat:
"Just received notice—the snow's too heavy. School's canceled today."
"And the bad news?" Zhang Shutong immediately followed up.