Song Yu tilted her head back and asked, “Do you still remember that day?”
Pei Zhi stared at the photo, frowning. It looked utterly unfamiliar. “What?”
“It was the time our crew clashed with the tribe,” Song Yu recalled. “Late at night, they surrounded the entire farm and even shot arrows into our house.”
Hearing her describe it that way, Pei Zhi finally remembered. That night, he and Takwar had gone more than ten kilometers away to visit another tribe. By the time they returned, the conflict had already died down on both sides. He hadn’t realized it had been that intense.
Song Yu still felt a lingering fear and muttered softly, “It was really scary that day. I even slept with my gun in my arms.”
Pei Zhi let out a soft scoff. “Yeah, if your aim had been a little better, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
Song Yu blinked, then burst into laughter. “You still remember that?” He had seemed so calm at the time, his expression unchanging even as bullets whizzed past him. She had thought he might have forgotten all about it.
“Still laughing.” Pei Zhi pinched the back of her neck, as if settling old scores, though he didn’t use much force. “No more touching guns from now on.”
Song Yu loved his touch and let out a lazy, whiny “Hmph,” full of playful coquettishness.
She continued scrolling through the photos.
Gradually, familiar faces appeared.
There was Takwar, Havana, Meyer, and Kasi.
Their skin was a healthy wheat tone, and they wore the simplest cotton clothes, living in makeshift huts built from palm fronds. Yet their faces always bore bright smiles, carefree and without a worry in the world.
Song Yu lowered her head and picked up the man’s hand draped around her waist, toying with it.
Pei Zhi’s hands were exceptionally handsome—long fingers, clean and slender. His skin was much fairer now than when they had first met. If she saw him today, she certainly wouldn’t mistake him for a Native American.
At that thought, Song Yu pouted and leaned down to bite the fleshy part of his palm, leaving a faint ring of teeth marks.
The tip of Pei Zhi’s index finger twitched slightly, but he didn’t pull away. Instead, he teased in a low voice, “What was that for, little puppy?”
“Hmph.”
“For tricking me,” Song Yu grumbled, displeased.
Pei Zhi understood immediately what she meant.
His thumb and forefinger gently cupped her chin, rubbing it softly, as if soothing an upset pet.
“I didn’t trick you. I just didn’t say anything. We weren’t close back then.”
“And we’re close now? You can do that sort of thing with someone you’re not close to?” Song Yu grew even angrier at his explanation. He certainly hadn’t held back because they were strangers when they ended up in bed together.
Pei Zhi frowned, turning his palm upward to cover the girl’s nonsensical mouth.
“It’s not that I could. It’s that you could.”
She had so casually taken the initiative with someone whose background and identity were unclear. Of course, he wasn’t exactly a saint either—he hadn’t exactly held back when the mood struck.
But afterward, he had wanted to talk about it. Instead, she had eaten her fill and walked away without a backward glance, nearly driving him mad with anger.
“Wasn’t it you who ran off after?” Pei Zhi still got annoyed thinking about it. “You even said you’d come back to see me. What am I, Director Song’s secret lover kept on the side?”
Song Yu’s expression froze. Back then, she truly hadn’t had any good intentions—just a momentary indulgence in pleasure with someone who lusted after her beauty.
“Aiya.” Her voice turned unmistakably guilty. “Let’s just let bygones be bygones. No need to bring it up.”
They had both been at fault, so best to drop it altogether.
Pei Zhi shrugged.
Song Yu cleared her throat lightly and hurriedly scrolled further through the photos.
There were so many rainforest pictures that even she had forgotten how many she had taken.
Quite a few featured Pei Zhi, mostly from a third-person perspective. There were others clearly shot from a great distance, zoomed in as much as possible, leaving his face blurry.
One showed him leaning against a palm tree, asleep. Another captured him helping the Old Witch Doctor roll a corn husk cigarette. There was even one of him studying the murals in the rock cave.
Song Yu always skipped these photos quickly whenever she came across them, double-clicking past in a flash.
But Pei Zhi’s sharp eyes caught them anyway. As he watched, he let out a soft chuckle. “You took so many of me.”
Song Yu’s cheeks flushed with the embarrassment of having her secret photos discovered by the subject himself. She tried to defend herself. “I didn’t. They just happened to be in the frame by accident.”
“Uh-huh, sure. Keep going.” Pei Zhi’s tone was casual and unconcerned.
Found out, Song Yu simply stopped bothering to scroll manually. She hit autoplay and nestled deeper into his embrace.
Pei Zhi wrapped both arms around her waist, pulling her even closer.
The wooden cabin was quiet, save for the occasional crackle of burning firewood. The room gradually warmed, dry and cozy.
The photos were arranged in chronological order.
Next came shots from their trip to the Paso market together. The crowds bustled, the atmosphere vibrant and lively.
Looking at these photos, Song Yu felt an inexplicable warmth and comfort.
“I really want to go back there again,” she sighed wistfully.
As she spoke, Song Yu suddenly twisted her head, nearly bumping into Pei Zhi’s chin.
Pei Zhi freed one hand and pressed his large palm gently against the top of her head.
A smile tugged at his lips, and he was about to reply when his peripheral vision caught the next photo switching on the screen. He froze.
The image was no longer the overwhelming green that fatigued the eyes. Instead, it was a desolate, charred blackness.
The fire had raged, leaving devastation in its wake.
Even the air seemed filled with ash floating like willow fluff.
Song Yu froze too, her heart clenching.
She realized that even if she wanted to go back now, she couldn’t.
The footprints they had left in the rainforest, Takwar’s tribe, the Paso market—all of it had vanished in the flames.
The slideshow continued, every subsequent photo much the same.
A long silence stretched between them.
“Did you take this when you came looking for me?” Pei Zhi asked.
Song Yu’s mood sank, and she gave a soft “Mm.”
“I only got the outskirts. The areas hit hardest by the fire—I couldn’t get into them.”
“There were some things I didn’t photograph…” Song Yu recalled the scenes she had witnessed: animal corpses everywhere.
They had fled from the depths of the rainforest outward but hadn’t escaped the fire’s clutches—not by much.
The image burned clearest in her mind was a small monkey, charred black, its body shape eerily like a burned infant.
And that was just the outskirts. She could hardly imagine the horror inside.
Pei Zhi’s hand rested on her head, his fingers slowly stroking her hair, one pass at a time. His movements were gentle and deliberate.
The atmosphere in the wooden cabin grew heavy.
The photos kept playing. Song Yu hadn’t taken many of the rainforest fire, so they passed quickly. They were replaced by images from their journey aboard the Snowfield Ship for the Arctic expedition.
Departing from Shanghai’s port, crossing the Bering Strait, entering the Arctic Circle.
The scenery in those photos was stunningly beautiful, but Song Yu barely registered it.
She squeezed Pei Zhi’s hand on her waist and whispered, “I wonder if Judy is still alive.”
That mischievous little monkey, always clambering onto Pei Zhi’s shoulder like an annoying child.
Pei Zhi pressed his lips together and didn’t reply for a long moment. His large hand simply gripped hers in return, enveloping it completely in his palm with a tight squeeze.
They sat in silence, watching the photos change.
The final ones were glacier shots Song Yu had taken: massive chunks of ice calving from the glacier and crashing into the sea to their death.
Suddenly, Song Yu didn’t want to look anymore. She snapped the laptop shut with a “thud.”
“So frustrating,” she grumbled in the helpless tone of someone powerless to change things.
Pei Zhi pulled her closer into his arms, resting his chin atop her head.
“Song Yu,” he murmured, calling her name.
The two syllables rolled off his tongue beautifully, striking straight to her heart. She froze.
“These words, I only want to say them once, so listen carefully.” His voice was low and measured as it reached her ear.
“Most people in this world are hypocritical and cowardly. They’ve turned the Earth into a mess.”
He too had once grown so weary of it all that he distanced himself from society for years, developing a rootless malaise. When he returned to the civilized world, he felt lost instead.
“I’ve studied many groups—those that still exist and those long gone. Society might eventually evolve into a world of singular modern civilization.”
A world like that would be dreadfully boring.
“But with you, somehow everything doesn’t seem quite so bad.”
The majestic mountains, the restless seas, the unknown societies hidden in forests—their allure for him was fading.
In their place, he found himself captivated by a rose grown in a greenhouse, drawn back to civilization in a way he hadn’t anticipated.
“I want to make studying you my…” Pei Zhi paused. He had meant to say “lifelong,” but fearing it might pressure her, he chose different words. “…long-term project.”
“You say you lack confidence in yourself, that you might fall for someone else someday.”
Song Yu frowned. These were clearly words she had said herself, yet for some reason, hearing them left her feeling uncomfortable. She turned her head away, parted her lips, and hesitated before murmuring, “I—”
“Listen to me finish first,” Pei Zhi interrupted, his deep, dark eyes utterly serious. “If you fall in love with someone else, then go ahead and fall in love. Do whatever makes you happy.”
“But I definitely won’t end my pursuit first.” Pei Zhi raised his hand and brushed the stray hairs from her forehead behind her ear, his thumb lightly pinching her delicate earlobe. “Got it?”
“…” Song Yu tilted her head back, staring at him in a daze. Her mind went blank for an instant, leaving her utterly at a loss from his sudden words.
The man’s voice was low and husky, each sentence and every word carving forcefully into her heart and bones.
That night, heavy snow began to fall in Oymyakon, swirling thick and fast.
Yet the wooden cabin remained perfectly quiet, like a tiny world cut off from the rest of existence.
Even the firewood burned more slowly now, as if time itself had come to a standstill.
The warmth of the man’s body seeped into her back.
A shiver ran up her spine, and Song Yu suddenly realized how terribly wrong this was.
The wise do not fall in love.
But she seemed to have turned into a fool.