After bidding farewell to Andrei, Song Yu and the others arrived at the airport only to learn that the flight to Ny-Ålesund had been delayed by a blizzard on that end. They would have to wait an extra two hours before takeoff.
Kiruna’s airport was small. Aside from a convenience store with sparse stock and a tiny gift shop, there were no other stores.
Since they were heading back a day later than planned, Pei Zhi sat in the airport terminal, fielding one call after another to arrange and handle work matters.
Bored out of her mind, Song Yu pulled out her phone to fiddle with it.
The phone she had brought wasn’t built for low temperatures. In the extreme outdoor cold, it often shut down on its own. And aboard the Snowfield Ship, there was hardly any signal most of the time, so Song Yu only checked it every few days.
The moment she opened WeChat, she was bombarded by hundreds—even thousands—of messages.
She scrolled through them idly. No matter how long she swiped, the feed seemed endless, mostly filled with work group chats.
Xu Zhouxu had sent her a greeting text the night before, asking if everything was okay.
Song Yu felt a flicker of puzzlement. She replied with a simple “?”, then exited the chat and kept scrolling.
Her assistant had sent over several scripts the week before. Song Yu read two pages of each and lost interest. Every story opened in a lavish villa or aboard a yacht at some glitzy party— all champagne excess and restless indulgence.
Song Yu suddenly realized that during the month-plus she had spent aboard the Snowfield Ship on the Arctic research expedition, she hadn’t spent a single cent. It was nothing like her old self, when a bad mood would send her on a shopping spree for bags and shoes, chasing fleeting highs through material indulgence.
It felt just like her time in the rainforest. She had sunk into a deeper calm, as if drawing real strength from closeness to nature.
Right then, Xu Zhouxu replied—with another “?” He followed up: “Didn’t you check Weibo?”
The word “Weibo” made Song Yu bristle. Good news doesn’t travel far, but bad news spreads like wildfire. Invitations to check it out were rarely good omens.
She tapped open Weibo. The splash screen featured Chen Jia endorsing a Bulgari watch. Ever since starring in the film Song Yu had directed, Chen Jia had racked up awards and solidly entered A-list territory, with resources pouring in.
No need to search; the hashtag #SongQiliangCheating sat at the top of the hot search list.
She clicked in. Nine consecutive GIFs loaded.
In an underground parking garage, Song Qiliang had his arm around a woman’s waist as they entered his luxury Shanghai apartment. They didn’t leave separately until the next morning.
The GIF had a red circle drawn around the woman’s belly. Even bundled in a coat, her pregnancy was obvious.
Song Yu skimmed a couple and kept her expression utterly neutral. She had less reaction than the furious netizens in the comments.
She glanced at the time at the top of her screen. Xu Zhouxu had asked yesterday. With Song Qiliang’s PR team’s speed, there was no way the story would still be hanging naked at number one.
Even if they couldn’t suppress it, Shen Shuzhi would step in to save face. Heaven knew how many photos she had bought from entertainment media over the years.
Song Qiliang had been a player for ages, but his public image stayed spotless. At every event, he never failed to drop mentions of Shen Shuzhi and Song Yu, playing the dutiful family man to perfection. His team had built that persona, complete with the “devoted husband and father” angle.
He just had more than one family to tend to. Song Yu’s lips curved in a sardonic smirk.
Pei Zhi finished his call and walked over from across the terminal. “We should be able to board soon.”
Song Yu locked her phone and stood. “Let’s go,” she said flatly.
–
The flight from Kiruna to Ny-Ålesund climbed ever higher in latitude, heading away from the sun this time, unlike the journey in.
Song Yu had the window seat. She raised the shade and gazed outside. Amid the vast expanse of snow, human cities looked utterly insignificant.
The clouds were thin, visibility excellent.
Then Song Yu spotted two enormous, deep craters pockmarking the earth below—sunken pits so vast they stood out clearly even from several thousand meters up.
She turned to Pei Zhi. “What’s that?”
He followed her pointing finger and saw the craters too.
“Diamond mines.”
Song Yu leaned closer to the window, staring at the deep gashes.
“They look like scars,” she said.
Scars on the earth’s body, impossible to erase—wounds inflicted by the very children it had nurtured, all for a few shiny, useless rocks.
Pei Zhi lifted his gaze to her profile. Her eyes shone bright and limpid, her voice soft and warm as it drifted through the quiet cabin. Comparing a diamond mine to a scar carried such innocence, such profound empathy. It pierced him straight through, setting his chest humming in resonance.
His lashes lowered as he peered through the small window at the craters. “That area used to be permafrost. As it thaws bit by bit, if Arctic shipping lanes open in summer, more and more mineral deposits will become viable for extraction.”
Song Yu pursed her lips. “Is that good or bad?”
Pei Zhi fell silent for a long moment. “I don’t know.”
“The Arctic is warming year by year. It makes life easier for some animals—including humans. But for others, like polar bears, it gets harder and harder.”
“I can’t tell you if it’s better or worse.”
In the grand timeline of Earth’s life, it might just be a fleeting pang, like a single second.
But for the humans living through that second, when the pain hit, no one had a choice left.
“Then it’s worse,” Song Yu declared.
Her tone bristled with indignation, radical and almost childish in its fervor.
Humans were all such hypocrites. One breath worrying over the Arctic like a canary in a coal mine, the next secretly wishing it dead to unearth its riches for the greedy to plunder.
Pei Zhi couldn’t help a soft chuckle. “Yeah. Worse.”
“Exactly.” Validated, Song Yu grew even angrier. “And remember the Amazon fires? The news said it was arson—left Kasi and the others homeless.”
“Some people were probably thrilled in secret.” Her guess carried a vicious edge.
Pei Zhi watched her get more worked up, reminding him of his own fiery younger days. Youth burned hot, after all.
“Alright, let it go. Hypocrites like that aren’t worth your energy,” he soothed calmly.
He conveniently forgot that he wasn’t much better these days—snubbing that sanctimonious American scholar just the other week.
“But like you said about Andrei—if they can’t rely on the iron mine, how do they make a living?” Song Yu reconsidered, her voice dropping as conflict twisted inside her.
The plane continued climbing into the stratosphere. Clouds thickened, hiding the diamond mines entirely, as if the earth’s scars had been plastered over and shoved from mind.
Song Yu shook her head with resolve. “Anyway, I’m never buying diamonds again.”
Who knew one diamond mine could hit her so hard.
Pei Zhi tore open the seal on a waste collection bag and casually looped the long, narrow paper strip around his index finger into a circle. “Not even diamonds in a ring?”
Song Yu froze. Was she overthinking, or had she caught his drift perfectly?
In a moment like this, most people would play dumb—give a casual yes or no, leave it unspoken, and let things burst open at the right time.
With no reply forthcoming, Pei Zhi unlooped the paper and fixed her with a quiet gaze.
Song Yu met his eyes. His were dark and intent, his head tilted slightly as he waited for her answer.
The words caught in her throat, turning timid. She stammered twice before finally speaking.
“I really like you.” It wasn’t the answer he expected.
Pei Zhi went still. Hearing her confess so directly, without restraint, made his heart skip a beat. He wasn’t sure how to respond.
Song Yu gave him no time to recover. “I know you really like me too.”
She paused, then added softly after a beat, “But there are some things I want to make clear first.”
Pei Zhi picked up on the shift in her tone. The easy banter turned solemn in an instant.
Song Yu rested her hands on the tray table in front of her, fiddling with her fingers as she stared down.
“I don’t know how long you’ll like me. You might get tired of it quick.”
Pei Zhi’s brows furrowed. His voice came low and firm, cutting her off.
“I won’t.”
Song Yu looked up at him. In the man’s obsidian eyes—bright and fathomless—she saw unyielding resolve, like a steady blaze.
She yearned for that warmth but shrank from drawing near.
After a long silence, she murmured, “I might.”
“I’m no good at keeping a relationship going long-term.” It was raw self-analysis. No one had ever taught her how to build a healthy intimacy.
When it came to love, she was a thorough pessimist, never believing in any future. The last thing she wanted was to end up mutually sick of each other with Pei Zhi.
“If one day you like me less—or if I feel that way about you—I hope we tell each other right away. No wasting time.” Her tone was negotiating, rational, restrained.
She glanced at Pei Zhi. He was lightly pursing his lips, his profile tense. After a moment’s hesitation, he continued candidly, “So marriage and all that isn’t part of my life plans either.”
“You saw it back in the rainforest—Takwar and Havana, Meyer. Even though we defined them as a married couple, their relationship had no legal ties binding them. If they weren’t happy, they could simply choose to part ways.”
Song Yu had heard from Kasi that Meyer had once been another man’s wife in the tribe before she took up with Takwar.
Her words were blunt and unvarnished—they might wound someone—but at least Song Yu believed she was being honest.
She was laying bare her truest thoughts, giving him a chance to choose before they ventured into anything deeper.
Pei Zhi gazed at her quietly. “Is that really how you feel?”
Song Yu nodded.
Another long silence stretched out.
The cabin temperature had plummeted, the light dim and oppressive.
Pei Zhi looked away, sinking back into his seat, his eyelids drooping until he closed his eyes completely.
“Understood,” he said, his voice distant and cool.
Song Yu blinked, staring at his profile. His thin lips were pressed together lightly, his expression flat and detached—he was clearly displeased.
Just an armrest separated them, yet it felt like a wall had sprung up between the two.
She was the one who had started this conversation, but even so, Song Yu felt a sharp tug at her heart.