A short memory scene emerged.
The hospital is located on the edge of the town. Outside the window, the mountains are hidden in the darkness, like black clouds piling up in the night sky. The outline of the town is like a lake, and the lights are the stars reflected in the sky.
Nan Youxi hated this peaceful night sky. What he longed for was wind and waves. He wanted the biting cold air, the icy current that hit his face, the wind that swept across the world, stirring the clouds in the sky into white fragments that would fall like goose feather-like snow!
However, no matter how determined his will was, he could not influence the majestic nature.
He closed the curtains and looked at Reina next to him.
The wife was lying on the hospital bed. The medical equipment she didn't want to get close to eventually touched her body. However, her beauty remained. The disease could take her life, but it could not hurt her elegance. The cold or transparent tubes were like the damp and gray vines and brambles in the forest, guarding her, the sleeping beauty.
During dinner, Reina was half awake for a while, listened to him talk for a while, and then fell asleep again. Her peaceful sleeping face a few days ago was now stained with some sorrow. Minami Yuxi couldn't wait to use the first snow in Yoshida Town to purify the nightmare that was invading his wife.
He kissed Reina's face and walked out of the room.
Next to the ward is the attending doctor's office. A woman in her fifties, of medium height, sits behind the desk, reading the medical report in her hand.
She told Nan Youxi: "It will only take a few days, at most half a month."
"… Can't it be longer?"
"We have all done our best."
The doctor sighed softly. She was usually a strict person, but at this moment, she spoke to Nan Youxi in the gentlest tone.
However, no matter how many layers of cloth are wrapped around the knife to cover it, it cannot stop its sharpness. The moment it touches people's hearts, the blade will pierce through layers of cloth and penetrate into the flesh.
The pain in his heart made him dazed, and he might have said something to the doctor. When he came to his senses, he was already standing on the rooftop.
He looked at the hills in the north, and across the dark shadow of the hills was the lake that Reina wanted to see. The lake was deep blue because of the color of the minerals, like the clearest sky in summer. Locals and tourists called it the Sky Pond.
When the first snow falls, the pond will freeze and the branches of the trees in the pond will be covered with white snow. It is a dreamlike scene, a scene that Reina has waited for and missed many times in her short life, and it is the regret of her life.
Will she miss it this time too
Nan Youxi thought about last year. At this time last year, Reina had already completed the surgery and was basically recovered. The girl said she wanted to come and see the snow. If he had not stopped her, the girl would not have died with regrets.
He clenched his hands on the railing. The sharp wind, wrapped in cold air, blew on his face. He pulled up the hood of his coat and put it on, looking at the darkness in front of him.
Everything was black, with different shades of black: the sky was lighter, the mountains were darker, the flower bed downstairs was darker, and the open space in front was lighter. His sight followed the boundary between the dark and light, looking for something he could not clearly see.
In this chaos of black, he suddenly saw a few spots of white.
At first he thought that he was hallucinating because he had been staring at the darkness for too long, so he rubbed his eyes, relaxed his mind, and looked into the distance.
More and more white fell from the sky.
It's snow.
Snowing.
The snow fell so suddenly that Nan Youxi couldn't believe his eyes. He stretched out his hand, scooped up a few flakes of snow, and took a closer look.
The white snowflakes were quickly turned into white ice by body temperature, and then into transparent water.
More and more snowflakes fell on his palms. He put a small piece of white snow on the tip of his tongue, and a little coldness spread on the tip of his tongue.
Along with the snowflakes, the sorrow that imprisoned joy also melted away, and happiness burst out.
Reina was still sleeping. He called his wife's name softly, but she didn't hear him and kept her eyes closed.
At this moment, Nan Youxi felt regretful. He wanted to watch the snow with his wife, share his joy, and share the hope he felt from the fine snow.
Soon, this regret turned into gratitude.
He was glad that he failed to wake his wife up and did not let the teasing of fate on him affect his wife.
Two hours later, the snow stopped.
This short and fine snow could not cover the dead branches of the Sky Pond, nor could it freeze the water of the Sky Pond.
The next morning, the sun rose and the little snow left on the grass quickly melted.
By noon, there was no trace of snow.
[You were ecstatic. You had never been to Hokkaido before, so you thought the first snowfall was the first snow. You soon learned your lesson. The snow only fell for a while, and the next day, the sun shone, and there was no trace of it.]
[You understand how your wife once felt, and the cruel and despicable tricks of fate that she often suffered.]
[Three days after the first snow, the sky was clear.]
[You hang snow dolls by the window, you pray to the gods at the shrine, and you seek guidance from tarot cards in the fortune-telling house.]
[At the end of November, the temperature drops sharply. If you ask the oldest local resident, he will tell you that the real first snow is about to fall.]
[But the wife couldn't wait any longer.]
[My wife hasn't woken up for two days. Her life is like an origami boat drifting on the river in the rain. The wind and waves can swallow her up at any time. In the dead of night, you can hear her painful gasps.]
[At noon on December 3, my wife passed away.]
[It snowed in the early morning of December 4th.]
[It snowed all night, and by the time you and her two families arrived in the daytime, the snow was already above your ankles.]
[You held a funeral in the snow. You had already prepared her coffin and her grave. You buried her on the hillside opposite the Sky Pond.]
[Put a bunch of hydrangeas in front of her grave. When you stand up, you see the empty pond not far away.]
[From the hillside, the frozen lake is not azure blue, but a slender green. Snow covers the dead branches of trees that died due to the flooding of the lake. From a distance, the trees look like crystal clear crystals, and the snow seems to be floating on the slender green lake.]
[Above the Sky Pond, the sky, which looked light due to the snow, was quietly upside down, and white clouds were floating behind the mountain. It was hard to tell whether it was snow that had not fallen or the mountain peak covered by snow.]
[The blue of the lake and the white of the snow, the blue of the sky and the white of the clouds, the sky and the lake, the clouds and the snow, the blue and the white, meet and blend in your vision. You are in a trance. The snow is your wife's skin, the clouds are her faint smile, and the sky and the lake are the light blue hydrangeas that fill the background.]
[You saw the beautiful figure of your late wife in the first snow of the Sky Pond.]
(End of this chapter)