Since we are all reborn, let’s arrest the senior!

The late October sunlight, like melting toffee, flowed thickly through the greenhouse glass. Jiang Zimei squatted in front of the wooden flower stand, the tips of her tweezers gently parting the volcanic rock at the base of the "Blue Stone Lotus." In the damp scent of decaying leaf soil, she suddenly touched a maple leaf specimen as thin as a cicada's wing. Memories from fifteen years ago were reflected by the gold-leaf-like veins of the leaf: Lu Mingze squatting on the old warehouse floor, carving "Mei's Autumn" on the bottom of a terracotta pot with a carving knife, acrylic paint splattering on his eyelashes like scattered gold dust.

"As the aroma of roasted chestnuts wafted over the wooden fence, she heard the rustling of a brown paper bag." Lu Mingze's voice, carried on the autumn breeze, carried the unique bustling atmosphere of the market. As he pushed open the door, the maple leaf ornament on the brass door knocker swayed gently, and a red leaf landed precisely in her black hair, its veins forming a subtle symmetry with the silver strands at her temples.

"Be careful, it's hot." His fingertips brushed against the downy hair behind her ear, still warm from the sun. As Jiang Zimei took the chestnut, she noticed the bandage wrapped around his index finger—the edges were frayed, oozing very faint bloodstains, like a small, fading flower blooming on pale gauze. This was the third time she had noticed his new injuries today, from the cut on his hand when he was fixing the picture frame in the morning, to the iodine stain on his cuff when he was mixing ochre paint at noon.

Peeling back the parchment paper, the chestnuts, coated in caramel, steamed, the icing reflecting iridescent light in the sunlight. Biting into one, the warm, sweet aroma mingled with the subtle scent of osmanthus honey exploded on the tongue. Jiang Zimei suddenly recalled a late autumn day twenty years ago, when they huddled on a wooden bench in an old movie theater. Lu Mingze, nervous, spilled popcorn all over his jeans, yet insisted on catching the crumbs with his jacket, saying, "I can't waste your favorite sweets." Now, he sat opposite her in a wicker chair, his knees slightly bent, the posture exactly the same as back then, except his washed-blue jeans had been replaced with dark gray wool trousers, the cuffs bearing the stitches she had mended the night before.

"Do you need any help with the exhibition setup?" She wiped the sugar coating from his fingertips with a tissue, touching the calluses on his palms—thicker from years of handling cameras and easels. Lu Mingze shook his head, his silver hair gleaming like mother-of-pearl in the sunlight. "The curator said the 'Autumn Light' series should be framed in walnut wood, so I went to the lumber market this morning and picked out a piece of old wood with burl." He rolled up his sleeves to drink water, the pale blue veins on his forearm resembling those of autumn leaves, the edge of a newly applied bandage curled up, revealing unhealed abrasions underneath.

Jiang Zimei suddenly reached out and pressed down on his wrist, the force so strong it startled him. "Mingze, your low-grade fever..." Her voice was broken by the wind outside the greenhouse, her gaze falling on the faint flush on his neck—an unusual red that spread from his collar to behind his ears, like cinnabar blurred by watercolor. Lu Mingze turned his face away, his fingertips tracing the rim of the glass: "It's just allergic dermatitis, look." He lifted his trouser leg, revealing a pale red rash on the inside of his knee, its edges irregularly round, trembling slightly under Jiang Zimei's gaze.

At 4:45, dusk began to bathe everything in an amber hue. Jiang Zimei sat on the windowsill, her sketchbook resting on her lap, the pencil tip tracing the profile of Lu Mingze peeling chestnuts. When he lowered his eyes, his eyelashes cast small, fan-like shadows beneath them, and his knuckles, tinged with a pale red from the effort, resembled white jade soaked in red wine. Remnants of ochre paint from the previous day lingered under his fingernails, subtly echoing the dark brown chestnut shell he was currently holding.

"Are you drawing me?" He suddenly looked up, his silver hair ruffled by the draft, revealing pale blue veins behind his ears. In her haste, Jiang Zimei's pencil scribbled across the paper, adding a jarring diagonal line next to his lips, which unexpectedly resembled a sly smile. "Drawing the cover of your new poetry collection." She turned the paper around, the maple leaf specimen in the corner trembling slightly in the wind. "《The Frosting of Time》 needs a male protagonist peeling chestnuts."

Lu Mingze suddenly put down the chestnuts and reached out to take her hand that was holding the pen. His palm was covered with a thin layer of sweat, two degrees cooler than usual, but it suddenly warmed up when he touched the silver ring on her ring finger. "How about we make a collage of fallen leaves?" His voice was as soft as falling maple leaves. "Like the bench where we first kissed, with your favorite ginkgo tree next to it, and..." His Adam's apple bobbed, and the tips of his ears turned slightly red, "...the moment I bumped into your headband and knocked it over."

Before she could finish speaking, he suddenly coughed violently. As he leaned forward, Jiang Zimei noticed a new age spot on the back of his neck—larger than the one from last week, with irregular, jagged edges, like a withered leaf riddled with insects. She hurriedly handed him a thermos; condensation on the cup fell onto the back of his hand, mingling with fine beads of sweat. "Go to the hospital tomorrow," she said, pressing her hand on his shoulder, feeling the prominent contours of his shoulder blades; he had lost at least three kilograms since spring.

Lu Mingze shook his head, took out a mint from his pocket, and popped it into her mouth: "Come with me to pick up fallen leaves first." In the cool sensation of the candy exploding on her tongue, she tasted a faint hint of rust. As he stood up, the back of his sweater lifted up, revealing a fever patch on his lower back—the blue non-woven fabric edges were curled up, like the last leaf swaying precariously on a branch in late autumn.

At seven o'clock sharp, the first snow arrived as expected. Jiang Zimei was stirring the fritillaria and pear soup in the kitchen, the bubbling of the medicine pot mingling with the muffled sounds coming from the glass greenhouse. When she rushed out, she saw Lu Mingze kneeling on one knee in the snow, a snowman sprawled at his feet, its carrot nose rolled into a succulent planter. "Your nose's crooked again," he said, looking up and smiling, the ice crystals hanging from his eyelashes falling away. But as he looked up, Jiang Zimei noticed an unusual redness in his eyes—not from the cold, but a sickly flush.

"Get up." She reached out to help him up, touching the skin beneath his sleeve, which was alarmingly hot. As Lu Mingze used the support to stand, he suddenly stumbled and crashed into the glass of the greenhouse with a dull thud. Jiang Zimei then noticed that his left leg could barely bear weight, and the fabric around his knee was soaked with dark red—not snow water, but blood.

"I fell last week while climbing the ladder to hang posters." He was helped to a chair in the kitchen, letting her cut open his trouser leg, "thinking it would heal before the art exhibition." The skin around the wound was red, swollen, and shiny, showing signs of suppuration. The coolness of the snowflakes made Jiang Zimei's eyes sting. What made her heart pound even more was the many light brown lines crisscrossing his calf, like a dried-up riverbed, marks left by long-term edema.

Suddenly, Lu Mingze coughed violently, his body curling up like a shrimp. Jiang Zimei hurriedly reached for cough medicine, but knocked over his briefcase. Among the scattered documents, a blood test report made her dizzy: white blood cell count 320×10^9/L, far exceeding the normal range, the diagnosis of "chronic myeloid leukemia" was starkly displayed, the report dated three months ago, precisely when she was busiest preparing for her solo exhibition.

“Zimei.” His voice was forced out from his throat, a smear of bloody foam clinging to the corner of his lips. “Don’t worry, it’s low-risk, the doctor said.” Jiang Zimei pressed her hand to his mouth, her fingertips brushing against his trembling lips. She remembered that for the past three months, he had always disappeared in the afternoons, saying he was going to develop film, but it turned out he was going to the hospital for chemotherapy each time. She remembered him insisting on picking up the package himself because “the art supplies are too heavy for you to carry,” but actually he was afraid she would discover the portable medicine box he carried with him.

The emergency room corridor was bathed in a cold blue light late at night, like a chilled sapphire. Lu Mingze lay on the gurney, the IV line in his hand swaying gently as the bed moved.

“Do you remember the first time we came to the ER?” he suddenly spoke, his voice as soft as snow. “You broke your right wrist in the art studio, but you were protecting your newly finished painting, ‘Starry Night.’ I carried you for three blocks, and you whispered in my ear, ‘Your shoulder blade is hurting me,’ but your eyes were fixed on the canvas.” Jiang Zimei wanted to laugh, but tears fell onto the back of his hand. “Now it’s my turn to carry you.” She bent down to tuck him in, smelling the scent of chemotherapy drugs mixed with the fresh fragrance of Blue Moon laundry detergent on his sweater.

At one in the morning, the clock in the infusion room ticked dully. Lu Mingze was asleep, his head turned to the right, revealing the pale blue veins on the back of his neck, like an unfinished traditional Chinese painting. Jiang Zimei gently pulled her hand away from his grasp and took out a velvet box from the bottom of her canvas bag—a gift she had kept hidden for three months, intending to give it to him on their wedding anniversary.

She opened the box. The silver-plated shutter release cable gleamed warmly under the corridor lamp, its surface engraved with tiny maple leaf patterns, and tied at the end with a red string braided from their hair. She remembered the first time he took her picture twenty years ago. He held the camera upside down without realizing it, and the final photo only showed half of her smiling face against a backdrop of cherry blossoms. Later, he saved up to buy his first SLR camera, saying he wanted to "capture your beauty into eternity." "This is for you," she said, placing the shutter release cable in his palm and gently closing her fingers with her fingertips. "I'm sending it three months early because I wanted you to use it to photograph the first snow." Lu Mingze stirred in his sleep, his thumb unconsciously tracing the texture of the shutter release cable, as if focusing on a distant scene. Jiang Zimei suddenly remembered the expired film that he always kept in his camera—time capsules that could no longer take pictures, but which he couldn't bear to throw away.

The snow outside the window was falling heavier and heavier, pattering against the glass with a soft rustling sound. Jiang Zimei took out her phone and scrolled to the private folder in her photo album. The latest photo was taken secretly this morning: he was watering the "Blue Stone Lotus" in the greenhouse, his silver hair tinged honey by the sunlight, and he wore a ginger-yellow wristband she had knitted on his left wrist, with half a medicine box peeking out from the edge—she had written "14:00 Imatinib" on it in red pen.

"Zi Mei." Lu Mingze suddenly opened his eyes, the reflection of the IV tube in his pupils. "What if one day I forget how to mix paints?"

“No.” She pressed her fingertips to his lips, the salty taste mingling with the scent of disinfectant. “You said my palette would always have the gold dust you ground.” He wanted to laugh, but the pain aggravated the wound in his throat, and his brows furrowed into tiny peaks. Jiang Zimei leaned down and kissed his forehead, smelling the lingering scent of cedar shampoo in his hair, exactly the same as on their first date twenty years ago.

As the morning light pierced the clouds, the nurse came to change the IV bag. Lu Mingze watched the clear medicine slowly flow into his veins and suddenly chuckled, "Like loading film into a camera." Jiang Zimei adjusted his pillow and noticed a new bruise on his collarbone, like a late-blooming, dark flower. She leaned close to his ear and whispered as if speaking sweet nothings, "From now on, I'll be your film, every frame imprinted with your gaze."

As they left the hospital, the snow had stopped. A crack appeared in the eastern sky, and the morning star trembled slightly in the gradually brightening heavens. Lu Mingze pointed to that star, his fingertips turning bluish-white from the effort: "Look, that's our first painted star." Jiang Zimei followed his fingertip, the star's glimmer falling into his pupils, overlapping with the look in his eyes when they first met twenty years ago in the old warehouse. He pulled her closer to him, the scent of Chinese medicine from his wool coat mingling with the fresh air after the snow: "When I'm better, we'll go to the mountaintop to watch the sunrise. You'll paint the dawn, and I'll take pictures of you mixing colors, bringing roasted chestnuts as paint."

She nodded and buried her face in his scarf. A dried osmanthus blossom was nestled among the cashmere fibers; she had dried it last autumn.

As the morning star's glow faded, Lu Mingze suddenly pointed out the emergency room window: "Look, the plum blossoms are blooming." Jiang Zimei turned to look; the branches of the winter plum blossoms in the corner reached into the window frame, their golden petals covered with unmelted snowflakes, like scattered gold dust on rice paper. She remembered last winter, when he used a macro lens to photograph the ice crystals on the winter plum blossoms in the greenhouse, saying, "Every snowflake is God's macro filter," and while he was focused, she had painted the frost on his eyelashes into her "Winter Light" series.

“Want some plum blossom cakes?” She held his slightly cool hand, her fingertips tracing the ring on his ring finger—it was bought with the money from their first painting sale, engraved with “M&L 2005” on the inside. Lu Mingze chuckled softly, a faint breath escaping his throat: “You always remember what I want to eat.” He suddenly coughed, his knuckles pressed against his lips, and Jiang Zimei noticed that the skin peeking out from his sleeve was even paler than last night, like Xuan paper soaked in snow water.

When the nurse came in to change the IV drip, Jiang Zimei took the opportunity to look through his medical records. On the long-term medical order sheet, the words "Imatinib 400mg orally" were glaringly obvious, while the chemotherapy record showed that he had silently endured six intrathecal injections.

She recalled those afternoons when he said he was "going to develop the film," but in reality, he was lying alone in the chemotherapy room, watching the medicine drip into her veins. And when she was mixing colors in the art studio, she always felt that something was missing—it turned out that what was missing was the ochre paint can he handed her from behind, and the off-key folk songs he occasionally hummed.

"Zimei, come here." Lu Mingze's voice interrupted her thoughts.

He gestured for her to come closer, then pulled a crumpled paper bag from under the pillow. Inside were a few roasted chestnuts: "I kept them in my pocket to keep them warm, in case you got hungry." The chestnut shells still held his body heat. When he peeled them open, the aroma of caramel mixed with the smell of disinfectant from the hospital, yet it was unexpectedly comforting.

Jiang Zimei took a bite, and the warmth spread from the tip of her tongue to her heart. She suddenly remembered the scene twenty years ago when he warmed her hands in the snow. At that time, his fingertips were also so cold, but he stubbornly said, "My hands are a natural heater."

At three in the morning, Lu Mingze finally fell into a deep sleep.

Jiang Zimei covered him with the blanket and noticed the new purpura on his ankles—pinpoint-sized red dots, like cinnabar paint that someone had accidentally spilled.

She gently lifted his sleeve and saw that his forearm was covered with tiny needle marks, like an abstract pointillist painting.

(End of this chapter)