But he had already refused to carry out the mission, and he raised his eyebrows and said to me: "You can ask him if he can speak Chinese."
Seeing that I had reached the end of my rope, the uncle turned his gaze to Mu Chenghe. Perhaps because he was afraid that the journey would be too boring, he started to chat with Mu Chenghe, during which he probably asked about me.
I saw Mu Chenghe turned his head and looked back at me, smiling slightly, and said to the uncle: "Этомоя девушка."
This time I understood.
Этомоя девушка is equivalent to the English "She's my girl".
Such a simple sentence, but for some reason it caused some ripples in my heart.
At this moment, the plane's engine started up and began to accelerate on the runway, faster and faster.
I nervously gripped the armrests on both sides of the seat, and just before I left the ground and lost weight, Mu Chenghe reached out and held me.
After visiting Moscow, we went to St. Petersburg, and then continued to fly north to the last stop of the trip - the port of Murmansk on the Arctic Ocean.
I had never heard of this place before coming here.
Mu Chenghe smiled and said, "You will love this place."
"Why?"
“Here’s the Northern Lights and the best caviar.”
When I heard about caviar, my eyes lit up. "If I eat and drink as much as I can, you won't be so poor that you can't even afford a return ticket, right?"
"You can eat less." He glanced at me.
I chuckled, “Have you been here before?”
"Yeah. But it's too far. I've only been here once."
"It's actually not as cold as the Arctic Circle I imagined," I said.
"There is the warm current of the North Atlantic here, and the sea water will not freeze in winter. It will be warmer than other places at the same latitude." Although he said this, after I put on all my equipment, he still took a blanket and wrapped me in another layer before allowing me to go out.
After sunset, the temperature dropped very low and it was extremely cold.
Coming out of the camp, I pointed to the sky and said curiously, "Look, look, what star is so bright?"
Here, due to the influence of the polar night phenomenon, the sun appears for a very short time during the day, and it will be dark if you are not careful.
It was only afternoon on the watch, but the sky was already dark. A bright, shining star hung in the sky directly above our heads, eclipsing all the other stars.
Mu Chenghe looked in the direction I pointed: "It's the North Star."
“It’s so close to us.”
"Because this is the Arctic Circle," he laughed.
I sighed, "Can we really see the aurora?" I couldn't hold his hand because of my thick gloves, so I had to hold his arm and continue walking.
"not sure."
"There must be one every year, right?" I kept asking.
"Yes, the month we came is the easiest to see. If we wait, we can definitely wait, but we can't stay for too long."
The next day, when the sun came out, Mu Chenghe took me to fish on the ice lake.
On the third day, we went to the beach.
I look forward to it with hope every day, but still haven't seen the northern lights that I long for day and night.
In fact, apart from this, I have other expectations.
When we were in St. Petersburg, he went out alone for more than an hour. I thought he was meeting an old friend until I found his diamond ring at the airport. At that time, the security personnel asked him to take off his coat and take out all his belongings. I was in front of him and had passed the security check. I turned around and saw him put a black diamond ring box in his pocket into the belongings box.
The blonde lady at security looked up at him with a smile on her face and curiosity in her eyes.
He seemed a little embarrassed, and quickly put the ring box away after the procedure was completed.
No doubt, it's for me.
However, I waited for three days, but he was still secretly hiding on his body, not moving at all.
I'm worried about him.
On the fourth day, I caught a bad cold.
While feeding me medicine, Mu Chenghe blamed himself and said, "I shouldn't have brought you to such a cold place. We will go back tomorrow."
I had a stuffy nose and had just sneezed, so I pleaded with him pitifully, but he remained unmoved and insisted on ending the trip. After confirming the bad news, I was no longer interested in the caviar on the dinner table.
After dinner, I desperately asked him to let me go out for a final walk. He hesitated and reluctantly agreed. After wrapping me up like a polar bear walking on two legs, he took me out.
The two men walked out of the camp, one step deep and one step shallow in the snow.
After a while, I felt like even my eyelashes were freezing into ice.
At this moment, someone screamed, and then the crowd not far away started to make a noise.
I didn't understand the situation and was slightly stunned.
Mu Chenghe reacted faster than me. He immediately lifted my face up to face the sky on the right and said, "Tongtong, Aurora."
I looked up at the sky and saw a green band of light appearing at the treetops. It was very light at first, and then the background of the sky slowly turned from black to lavender, mixing with the green band of light, changing rapidly, just like two colors in watercolor constantly overlapping, merging and separating, turning into beams of colorful light.
So beautiful.
I held my face in my hands, and was so overwhelmed by the beauty of nature that I burst into tears and couldn't help myself.
Seeing this, Mu Chenghe hugged me from behind.
His action brought me back to my senses, and I quickly reached for my pocket.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
“I’m going to take a picture of it with my phone.”
He smiled and stopped me, "What you see with your eyes is the most beautiful. I'll just accompany you and watch it quietly." After saying that, he turned my body over to face him and held me in his arms.
My face was pressed against his chest, and I tilted my head to look at the aurora in the sky, which was changing colors instantly.
The colorful light sometimes converges and sometimes spreads.
Not far away, a couple continued to kiss under such beautiful scenery.
I couldn't help but call him, "Chenghe."
"Um?"
"It really is like the eyes of God." I remembered what he had said before.
"Yeah." He rested his chin on the top of my head and looked at the aurora and responded without saying anything else.
"Chenghe." I called him again.
"Um?"
"Do you think I love you more, or do you love me more?"
He put his arms around me and tightened them slightly, but didn't answer.
I was a little discouraged when I didn't get his response in time. I was the one who had a crush on him first, and he later found out and rejected me implicitly, so I was always a little timid, and even when facing his proposal, I was a little unconfident...
Just when I was alone with my thoughts, he lifted his chin and pecked me again, then uttered three words: "Яваслюбил."
If these words had not left such a deep impression on my heart, I might have misunderstood that what he said was merely the past tense of "I love you".
But I know this is not it, this is Pushkin's poem.
I was immediately surprised and asked, "How do you know this?"
In excitement, the blanket wrapped around my shoulders slipped off, and Mu Chenghe frowned and wrapped me back in his arms.
"I told you last time that I followed you when you came out of the cafe. You went home first and then arrived at school. I drove with you all the way. When the little girl recited this poem, I was standing at the door of the basketball hall," he said.
"You were sitting on the bus, and I couldn't see whether you were crying or not. Later at the party, the light was too dim and I was quite conspicuous so I couldn't find your seat," he added.
I was very surprised to hear what he said.
I always thought this was the biggest secret hidden deep in my heart. It was such a humble and desperate moment. I hid in the darkness, crying unrestrainedly along with this poem.
I have loved you silently and without hope,
I suffer from shame and jealousy,
I once loved you so sincerely and tenderly...
At that time, this poem was like a ritual, I said my final goodbye to him in my heart. But I didn't expect that he was standing so close to me at the same time, looking for me, afraid that I would cry.
After a while, the gorgeous aurora disappeared on the horizon and the sky fell into darkness again.
I stood in the snow, hugged him tightly, my eyes were wet, and my head was buried in his arms.
The other people in the camp who had just come out to see the aurora have already gone back one after another.
After the footsteps around me disappeared, Mu Chenghe moved. When I thought he was going to urge me to go back to the city, he recited the poem:
"любовь еще, быть может,
В душе моей угасла не совсем;
Но пусть она вас больше не тревожит;
Я не хочу печалить вас ничем.
Я вас любил безмолвно, безнадежно,
То робостью, то ревностью томим;
Я вас любил так искренно，так нежно，
Как дай вам бог любимой быть другим.”
By the last sentence, I was already in tears.
He put some distance between us, took off his gloves in the cold air, held my face, wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes with his fingertips, and looked at me with his head down.
"Xue Tong."
"Um?"
That look fell on my face warmly.
Although it was dark, his eyes looked deep and bright against the light reflected from the snow. If he looked at me like this normally, I would have kissed him. But I had a cold now, and I was afraid of infecting him, so I just endured it.
He said slowly, "Do you know that without you, my life is like this Arctic winter night, long and cold. I waited for thirty-one years before I finally got the only aurora you gave me. I am such a selfish person. Now that I have the aurora, I never want to go back to the polar night of the past. I don't want to let you go again."
His fingertips caressed my cheek.
After saying this, he lowered his face and gently kissed the eyelashes at the corner of my eyes, then the tip of my nose, and finally slid the kiss to my lips.
After the light kiss, he continued, "I am so much older than you, so I am always worried that I will get old first, or die suddenly one day, leaving you alone in this world. But you can't leave me alone. So I want you to marry me quickly and become my real other half. Then we will have children, and when I die one day, they will accompany you. Xue Tong, what do you say?"
With tears in my eyes, I couldn't say a word, so I just nodded.
"Is it okay?" Mu Chenghe still held my cheeks with his hands, staring at me and asking persistently.
His fingers had not been exposed to the cold night for too long, but they were already very cold. However, the words he spoke seemed to have a warm magic that wrapped my heart warmly.
I nodded again and replied, "Okay."
"Answer me again, will you marry me?"
"good."
"Is it okay?" he asked again.
"Okay," I said.
As I continued to confirm, the smile on his face became brighter and brighter, and then as if he suddenly remembered something, he took out the black velvet ring box from his pocket.
After he took off the glove on my right hand, he immediately put the diamond ring on me, and then put the glove back on. He did a series of actions in one go, so that the ring was covered by the glove before I could see it clearly, as if he was afraid that I would change my mind.
Then he lifted my hand and kissed the place where the ring was through the thick gloves on my hand with satisfaction.
After the kiss, he asked again, "Let's have four children, okay?"
I burst into laughter and said, "You will be expelled from school."
"That's three."
"One is enough trouble."
"Two, no less." He looked as if he was reluctant to give up something.
"one."
"two."
"one."
…