Song Yu grinned and waved cheerfully at him in greeting.
Pei Zhi’s thin lips pressed together slightly as he silently withdrew his gaze and turned to speak with the man.
Song Yu pursed her lips.
He still hadn’t cooled off yet.
“It’s taken three days of burning, but we’ve finally melted the snow and the permafrost,” Sana said. He had just returned from the forest and was stamping his feet against the cold.
“Set for today?” Pei Zhi asked.
Sana nodded.
A brief silence fell. Sana lowered his head, his eyes falling on the pile of scattered firewood on the ground.
“You chopped so much today.” Normally, that amount would last two days.
Pei Zhi let out a faint “mm” and bent down to stack the wood neatly, layer by layer. “There’s one more person staying here now, and she’s afraid of the cold.”
“The girl you brought back yesterday?” Sana asked.
He shook his head helplessly. “Tourists these days are so reckless, daring to come to Oymyakon in this weather.”
“I stopped by her car on my way back this morning. The fuse must have blown. It’ll be stuck on the road all winter.”
Sana looked troubled. “I checked with the inns—they’re fully booked until next month. How are we going to house her in the meantime?”
“She was probably a handful last night, right? Making her sleep in the living room?” Sana thought for a moment. “I could ask around, see if anyone has room for her for a while. Money’s no issue.”
“No need. She’s staying with me,” Pei Zhi explained. “We know each other.”
Sana was genuinely surprised. “Did she come all this way just to find you?”
Pei Zhi’s gaze shifted slightly, peering past Sana’s shoulder through the window at Song Yu, who sat on the sofa lost in a daze.
He gave a soft affirmative hum.
Sana laughed, his expression one of understanding. His eyes narrowed into slits, deep wrinkles forming. “That’s one brave kid, coming out here all alone.”
Pei Zhi stared through the window and shook his head helplessly. “Sometimes she’s too brave.”
Reckless, really.
“Take her along this afternoon when we see Lei off. Lei always liked a crowd,” Sana said seriously.
Song Yu swung her legs idly, bored out of her mind.
The wooden door creaked open.
Song Yu instinctively looked up toward the doorway.
Pei Zhi stood in the entryway, peeling off his gloves one finger at a time.
Song Yu watched him for a moment, then hugged her body pillow tighter and looked away. After getting the cold shoulder from him several times, she wasn’t about to greet him first.
But unexpectedly, Pei Zhi spoke up this time. “Come out with me this afternoon.”
Song Yu buried her face in the body pillow and mumbled a muffled “oh.”
In wintertime Oymyakon, daylight was fleeting—by three or four in the afternoon, darkness had already fallen.
They finished lunch and headed out.
Lunch was simple: dry bread and coffee.
Song Yu had observed that the kitchen in this house was spotlessly clean, without a trace of grease or smoke. Pei Zhi probably never cooked. In her memory, he wasn’t picky about food—as long as it filled his stomach, anything would do.
But it made for a miserable meal for Song Yu. She spent ages gnawing on two slices of dry, tasteless bread, like chewing cardboard.
“Hurry up. We need to leave once you’re done,” Pei Zhi urged. He had already cleared his own plate.
Song Yu chewed slowly, washing down the last piece of dry bread with a big gulp of coffee.
He seemed to be in a real rush. The moment she finished, Pei Zhi swiftly cleared the remaining dishes and tidied the kitchen in a few efficient motions.
They followed the village paths, crossing through a stretch of forest.
The trees in the forest towered straight and bare, with fine snow occasionally shaking loose from the branches.
When they reached their destination, Song Yu realized with surprise that she was attending a funeral.
Two or three dozen people arrived gradually at the funeral site.
Even as the crowd grew, the forest seemed to grow quieter still. No one spoke; everyone went about their tasks in silence.
The ground was frozen hard as rock. To dig the grave for the deceased, they first had to thaw several meters of ice and permafrost.
With the extreme cold making it impossible to linger outdoors, the ceremony wrapped up quickly.
The villagers exchanged brief farewells and dispersed in various directions from the forest.
Sana walked with them for a stretch, murmuring occasionally to Pei Zhi in low tones. The heavy atmosphere from the funeral lingered.
Unable to follow the conversation due to the language barrier, Song Yu simply trailed behind.
As they parted ways, Sana suddenly turned to Song Yu and said something.
Song Yu blinked in confusion and glanced instinctively at Pei Zhi.
Pei Zhi translated: “He says you’re luckier than Lei.”
Song Yu recalled that Lei was the name of the person they had just laid to rest.
Before she could puzzle it out, Sana said more.
“In Oymyakon, we live alongside the cold, always staying vigilant so it doesn’t claim our lives at any moment,” Pei Zhi translated in a low, steady voice.
Song Yu met Sana’s eyes. Though the harsh environment slowed his aging, his pupils held the clear, sharp awareness of the elderly.
Though she didn’t fully understand, she nodded instinctively.
Sana smiled reassuringly and turned away, vanishing into the vast, barren landscape in the distance.
Watching his retreating figure, Song Yu blinked and turned to Pei Zhi. “What did he mean by that?”
Pei Zhi’s gaze dropped to her, his long lashes dotted with tiny ice beads formed from the moisture in the air, fluttering like little fans. He looked utterly innocent and oblivious.
Clearly, even though she had admitted her mistake last night, she had no idea what she had actually done wrong.
“Last week, Lei drove to the neighboring village without checking the fuel gauge. The car ran out on a stretch with no signal. By the time someone found Lei the next day, it was too late—frozen solid.”
“If Sana hadn’t been burning charcoal in the forest yesterday to melt the snow and spotted your car by chance—”
Pei Zhi trailed off midway, unwilling to continue. His brow furrowed slightly as he strode ahead with long, urgent steps.
“…”
Song Yu hadn’t realized Lei had died that way. No wonder Sana said she was lucky.
Her thoughts grew complicated. Only now did she truly understand why Pei Zhi had been so angry with her yesterday.
Having lived in the city for so long, she had mistaken the comforts of a greenhouse for the norm.
Whether in the Amazon Rainforest before or here in the Arctic, she had always been well-protected, convinced that humanity could easily conquer the land beneath its feet, losing all natural reverence for it.
She stood there in a daze for a long moment before snapping out of it and hurrying after him.
Pei Zhi’s strides were fast and purposeful.
Song Yu fixed her eyes on his long legs, matching his pace step for step, practically jogging to keep up.
“I’m sorry, okay?” she said earnestly, owning up to it.
Pei Zhi kept walking.
Song Yu struggled to follow.
After a long silence, Pei Zhi finally spoke slowly. “So tell me, what did you do wrong?”
“I shouldn’t have driven here to Oymyakon alone.”
Pei Zhi shot her a sidelong glance. “And bringing someone else would make it safe? You’d just drag them down with you.”
“…”
Song Yu was speechless. Why was everything she said coming out wrong? When Pei Zhi was in a bad mood, his words had real bite.
“But I had no choice,” she said, pursing her lips.
Pei Zhi frowned, his gaze sweeping faintly over her, waiting to hear what excuse she would come up with.
Song Yu hung her head and muttered softly, “You weren’t coming to find me, so I had to come find you.”
Her voice was soft and, light as a whisper, carrying a hint of accusation.
“…”
Pei Zhi’s steps faltered.
Unaware, Song Yu was hurrying to catch up and slammed right into his broad, solid back.
The impact sent her tumbling backward, landing her squarely on her butt in the thick snow.
“Why’d you crash into me?” Even though she had walked into him, she looked up with irritation in her eyes and accused him first.
Song Yu wasn’t particularly even-tempered herself. After holding back all day and enduring Pei Zhi’s cold treatment, even if she was in the wrong, resentment had built up inside her.
“If you don’t want me here that badly, I’ll just leave.” Song Yu scrambled up from the snow and stormed off in the opposite direction.
“…”
Pei Zhi was caught off guard for a moment, stunned that she had turned the tables on him so quickly. The momentum between them shifted in an instant.
He watched as Song Yu trudged farther away, each step leaving a deep imprint in the snow—like a child sulking after getting in trouble.
He shook his head helplessly and hurried after her.
“Come back.” Pei Zhi grabbed her arm.
Song Yu jerked to a halt. She twisted her arm, but couldn’t shake him off. She refused to look at him, staring straight ahead.
“No way.”
Seeing her sulky expression, Pei Zhi couldn’t help but chuckle. “So now I have to coax you, huh?”
Song Yu caught the softening in his tone and struggled less fiercely. It was about time to climb down from her high horse.
As she twisted, one of her loose gloves slipped halfway off.
Pei Zhi took her hand, rubbing his thumb gently over the exposed skin on the back, then pulled the glove back on properly.
“You’re not even bothered by the cold. Come on, let’s head back.”
Pei Zhi kept hold of her hand without letting go.
Song Yu stared at the hand gripped in his and huffed lightly. “Fine, we’re going back.”
Pei Zhi lifted his eyelids, meeting her bright, gleaming eyes—proud and smug, like a little scheme had succeeded.
He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or get angry.
Really, he was too lazy to argue with her.