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

The sunlight at the end of October, like melting toffee, seeped in through the diamond-shaped lattice of the greenhouse glass, weaving sticky patches of light on the wooden floor.

Jiang Zimei squatted in front of the flower stand, gently prying open the volcanic rock clumped at the base of the "Blue Stone Lotus" with the tip of her tweezers. The damp smell of the decaying leaf soil mixed with the plant's unique bitterness, and she suddenly touched the maple leaf specimen that was as thin as a cicada's wing.

She had just moved into the old warehouse when Lu Mingze was squatting on the cement floor, making flower pots for her.

The three characters "媚的秋" (Mei De Qiu) on the bottom of the terracotta basin are crooked and twisted, with golden acrylic paint embedded in the marks left by the carving knife, like a handful of gold dust sprinkled on dark brown soil.

"Be careful not to prick your hand." She remembered squatting beside him, blowing away the clay fragments, watching the sunlight shine through his slightly curled eyelashes, casting a fan-shaped shadow under his eyelids. She suddenly remembered the almond candies she ate as a child, with such fine lines on the inside of the wrappers.

"As the aroma of roasted chestnuts wafted over the wooden fence, she heard the rustling sound of brown paper bags rubbing together."

Lu Mingze's voice came on the autumn wind, carrying the unique lively atmosphere of the market.

When Jiang Zimei looked up, she saw his silhouette as he pushed open the door—his broad shoulders and narrow waist were gilded by the sunlight, and the maple leaf ornament on the brass door knocker shimmered with light. A red leaf fell perfectly into her black hair, and the veins of the leaf formed a subtle symmetry with the new silver lines at her temples, like a natural collage.

"Did you get scratched again?"

As she took the brown paper bag, her fingertips touched the band-aid on his index finger.

The non-woven fabric at the edges was frayed and stained with very faint bloodstains, like a small, fading flower blooming on pale gauze.

This is the third time this month that he has been found with new injuries. The last time was when he cut his hand while mixing titanium white paint, and the time before that was when he scraped his knee while climbing a ladder to hang picture frames.

"The protective gloves in the art studio need to be replaced," she complained, but as she peeled back the oil paper, the sweet aroma of caramel brought a smile to her face—he always remembered to buy her favorite osmanthus honey flavor.

Lu Mingze pulled out a rattan chair and sat down opposite her, his knees slightly bent in the same posture as twenty years ago.

She swapped her light blue denim jeans for dark gray wool pants, with stitches from the previous night at the hem, the fine lines resembling the outline of a small maple leaf.

His cuffs were still stained with ochre paint, clearly indicating he had come directly from the studio. The calluses on his fingertips brushed against the back of her hand, revealing the rough texture of years of holding paintbrushes.

Biting into the sugar-coated chestnut, the warmth mingled with the subtle aroma of osmanthus honey exploded on her tongue. Jiang Zimei suddenly recalled the late autumn of 1995, when they were crammed into an old movie theater to watch "Legends of the Fall." Lu Mingze was so nervous that he spilled popcorn all over his jeans, but insisted on catching the crumbs with his jacket, saying, "I can't waste your favorite sweets."

At that moment, he was intently picking out the caramel crumbs from the chestnut shells for her. His silver hair shimmered with the luster of mother-of-pearl in the sunlight, and the shadows under his eyelashes trembled gently with the opening and closing of his eyelids, like butterflies fluttering their wings.

"How's the art exhibition setup going?" She wiped the sugar frosting off his fingertips with a tissue, touching the calluses on his palms—thicker than last year, with a new oval-shaped hard callus on the base of his thumb, the result of years of holding a camera lens.

Lu Mingze rolled up his sleeves to drink water, the pale blue veins on his forearm resembling the veins of an autumn leaf. A newly applied bandage beside it had its edge peeling back, revealing an unhealed abrasion underneath. "The walnut wood picture frame just had its third coat of beeswax," he tapped the flower stand with his knuckles, "Tomorrow we should hang the 'Autumn Light' series. What do you think about putting 'Maple Shadow' on the corner wall?"

Jiang Zimei smiled and slapped away his hand as he tried to pin a red leaf on her, but her fingertips secretly tucked the palm-shaped maple leaf into her apron pocket. Dusk seeped in through the cracks in the greenhouse glass, and the 4:45 sunlight began to gild everything with an amber hue.

She opened her sketchbook, and dried osmanthus blossoms tumbled from between the pages. The pencil tip traced the silhouette of Lu Mingze peeling chestnuts: his eyelashes cast small fan-like shadows beneath his eyes as he lowered them, his knuckles flushed a pale red from the effort, like white jade soaked in red wine; traces of ochre paint from the previous day lingered under his fingernails, subtly echoing the dark brown chestnut shells.

"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 scribbled a pencil 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 said, turning the paper over so the maple leaf specimen in the corner trembled in the breeze. "'The Frosting of Time' needs a male lead peeling chestnuts; you need to include the gold dust on your eyelashes."

Lu Mingze suddenly put down the chestnuts and reached out to take her hand holding the pen. His palms were covered with a thin layer of sweat, two degrees cooler than usual—this always happened when he was nervous. "How about we make a leaf collage?" His voice was as soft as falling maple leaves, his fingertips tracing the drafts in her sketchbook, "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 flushed, "...the moment I bumped into your headband and knocked it askew."

A gust of wind outside the greenhouse suddenly swept up a ginkgo leaf, which rustled against the glass.

Jiang Zimei recalled the autumn of 1998 when they picked up fallen leaves on the path behind the old library.

She was wearing a caramel-colored coat, and she squatted down to look at each leaf against the sunlight. The veins in the leaves looked like transparent blood vessels in the halo of light.

Lu Mingze chased after her with his camera, completely unaware that the lens cap had fallen off. In the end, the photos developed from the film were all shaky light spots and her back view as she squatted in a pile of fallen leaves.

“This one is like amber.” She remembered holding up a reddish maple leaf, sunlight filtering through the leaf and turning the fine veins into a golden net. Lu Mingze suddenly leaned close to her fingertips, his warm breath brushing against her wrist: “More translucent than amber.” As he said this, his eyelashes brushed against the back of her hand, like a butterfly gently alighting. Later, they used that leaf to make a specimen, pressing it in *Stray Birds*, with a button he had torn from his shirt still attached to the bookmark.

“Want to see our first collage?” Lu Mingze suddenly stood up and took a ceramic jar from the top of the flower stand. The surface of the clay still bore his original carving of “Charming Autumn,” the paint peeling away to reveal the rough texture of the clay beneath, like an abstract map of time. The jar was filled with maple leaf specimens, each leaf bearing the year written in pencil on its back: 1995, 1998, 2003. The newest leaf was collected last autumn, and a piece of the shutter release cable, accidentally dropped while photographing “Autumn Light,” was still tucked between its veins. His fingertips brushed against a leaf with yellowed edges; the character “Charming” on it had turned brown with age, the strokes still showing traces of gold from the acrylic paint of that year. “Do you remember how you pieced it together?” He suddenly looked up, his eyes reflecting the warm yellow light of the greenhouse, like two small oil lamps. “The bench was made from sycamore bark, and we collected three whole sacks of ginkgo leaves, but we didn’t have enough glue, so we ended up using my rice paste.”

Jiang Zimei remembered, of course. That painting, "Autumn Whispers," still hung in the entryway of her studio; she saw it every time she entered. The texture of the sycamore bark resembled the wood grain of a bench, and the golden hue of the ginkgo leaves remained vibrant even after twenty years, though the glue had yellowed slightly, adding a layer of nostalgia to the painting. She reached out and pulled out an orange-red maple leaf, its tip chipped, as if someone had bitten it: "This looks like the sunset you photographed in Qinghai, remember? You said the clouds looked like an overturned palette."

Lu Mingze suddenly grasped her hand and pressed the maple leaf onto his sketchbook: "Let's make another one tomorrow, using this year's red leaves, and..."

He paused, a faint blush spreading from the tips of his ears to his cheeks. "And there's the new flower pressing technique I've learned, which can lock in the color for longer." The old-fashioned clock in the greenhouse struck seven, and twilight suddenly deepened. His shadow was cast on the glass, overlapping with hers, like a breathing silhouette painting.

Steam from the kitchen blurred the glass windows as Jiang Zimei stirred the fritillaria and pear soup, listening to the muffled sounds coming from the glass greenhouse.

She peeked out and saw Lu Mingze kneeling on one knee in the snow, carefully putting a carrot nose on the snowman.

The snowman's body was crooked and twisted, obviously he had propped it up with an easel and piled it up. The scarf was a ginger-yellow yarn she had knitted last year, and it was wrapped crookedly around the snowman's neck.

"A little to the left, it's off-center!"

She called out with a laugh, the ladle clinking against the edge of the pot. Lu Mingze looked up to explain, ice crystals clinging to his eyelashes falling like scattered diamonds under the streetlight. As he stood up, the back of his sweater lifted, revealing a fever patch on his lower back—this time with a cartoon bear pattern, clearly picked up specifically at the pharmacy. "You said it was just a cold?" she said, feigning seriousness, but turning to grab a dry towel when she saw the snow-covered cuffs of his trousers.

The sweet aroma of pear soup mingled with the crisp air after the snow. Lu Mingze pushed open the door, snowflakes clinging to his shoulders, carrying a brown paper bag with the "Corner Bookstore" logo printed on it. "I saw it while passing by," he said, handing the bag to her, a snowflake still clinging to his ear, "The instructions for pressing flowers inside say to soak them in glycerin so the leaves won't become brittle." Jiang Zimei opened the book; a ginkgo leaf bookmark was pasted on the title page, with the words "To my Autumn Poet" written in pen between the veins.

The studio was bathed in warm yellow light late at night. Lu Mingze sat in front of the easel, applying the final layer of varnish to "Autumn Light · Five".

Jiang Zimei leaned against him and used a cotton swab to adjust the angle of the picture frame.

The maple leaves on the canvas were bathed in the glow of the setting sun, the golden hues between the veins echoing the scattered gold on his eyelashes. "Add a touch of warm ochre here," she pointed to the upper left corner of the canvas, "like the sunset falling on the maple treetops, just like when we saw it in Qinghai."

Lu Mingze suddenly put down his paintbrush and pulled a velvet box from his pocket. When he opened it, 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—her black hair intertwined with his silver hair, like two gentle rivers. “Sending it three months early,” he said, placing the shutter release cable in her palm, his fingertips tracing the silver ring on her ring finger, “because I wanted you to use it to photograph the first snow, to photograph our twentieth autumn.”

Jiang Zimei recalled the winter of 2005 when they took their first snow scene photos in the old warehouse.

Lu Mingze's camera was bought secondhand, and the lens cap never quite closed properly. She wore his sweater as a skirt and twirled around in the snow.

He held the camera upside down when he pressed the shutter, and the final photo only showed half of her smiling face and a screen full of falling cherry blossoms—at that time they did not know that cherry trees do not bloom in winter, but the red light in the darkroom made the snowflakes turn pink.

“Silly boy,” she whispered, her fingertips brushing against his, “I’ve already taken countless pictures of you with my eyes, and they’re stored here.” She pointed to her heart, when suddenly she heard the snow outside the window pattering against the glass, the rustling sound remarkably like the sound of film being developed in a darkroom back in the day. Lu Mingze suddenly pointed to the ginkgo tree outside the window: “Look, doesn’t the snow on the leaves look like frosting?” Jiang Zimei looked over, and saw golden ginkgo leaves cradling the white snow.

As the morning star rose, Jiang Zimei gently pulled her hand away from Lu Mingze's grasp.

He murmured in his sleep, his fingertips unconsciously stroking the back of her hand, like adjusting the focus of a camera. She covered him with a wool blanket, her gaze falling on the silver ring on his ring finger—engraved on the inside, "M&L 2005," bought with the money from their first sale of paintings, the ring face polished smooth by time, like a gentle moon.

The old-fashioned grandfather clock in the corner of the studio struck twelve. Jiang Zimei took out her phone and scrolled to her private folder in the photo album. The latest photo was taken secretly this morning: Lu Mingze 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—but it only contained ordinary cold medicine. As he bent over, a corner of a fever patch on his lower back was visible, the bear pattern faded slightly by the sunlight.

She gently pulled out her sketchbook and drew Lu Mingze asleep on the latest page: he was curled up on the sofa, the silver hair at the back of his neck peeking out from under his sweater collar, his eyelashes casting delicate shadows beneath his eyes, his right hand still clutching her sketch pencil. Beside him was written: "The icing sugar of time is every autumn day you've been by my side." The snow outside the window was still falling, but it was gentler than ever, because she knew that some things would never be frozen by time.

The next morning, sunlight streamed through the blinds, casting golden patterns on the floor. When Lu Mingze awoke, he found himself lying on the sofa in the studio, covered with Jiang Zimei's caramel-colored coat, the cuffs still carrying her lavender scent. He sat up and noticed an unfinished painting on the easel: the first snow fell on maple leaves, the background a warm yellow greenhouse, and the figure in the painting held a silver-plated shutter release cable, a snowflake resting on her eyelashes.

"Awake?" Jiang Zimei walked in carrying a cup of coffee, her apron stained with ochre paint, clearly having just finished working in the studio. The coffee cup was imprinted with a ceramic design they'd made in Jingdezhen last year, the characters "Mei & Ze" written crookedly among the maple leaves. "Try it," she said, handing him the cup, her finger tracing his earlobe, "I added your favorite caramel syrup."

Lu Mingze took a sip of coffee, the familiar sweetness on his tongue—she always remembered to add two spoonfuls of sugar to his coffee, just as he remembered to put a slice of lemon in her tea. "Let's go buy some roasted chestnuts first," he said, getting up and noticing a few maple leaves scattered on the ground, the very ones he had arranged in a heart shape last night. "And I also need to buy your favorite plum blossom cakes; the shop on the corner has a new osmanthus filling, they might still have some."

"And the maple leaf brooch you secretly hid in your camera bag?" Jiang Zimei interrupted him with a smile, pulling the small box out of his camera bag.

(End of this chapter)