Winter Returns

Chapter 181 Retracing the Winds of the Past (Part 1)
Zhang Shutong quickly said it was no trouble at all. The man was wearing a white vest. He used to be a gymnast, but now he had a slight beer belly.

Time is not forgiving.

He entered the living room, where a middle-aged woman was finding a pair of slippers. Who else could it be but Ruoping's mother?
"Shutong, it's been so long! Auntie thinks you've gotten even more handsome!"

Ruoping's mother is a cheerful woman.

Zhang Shutong smiled awkwardly, wanting to say, "Auntie, we just met a few hours ago."

"You've become more handsome! You've become more handsome!"

Just then, another hoarse voice rang out.

Zhang Shutong wondered who this was. He quickly turned his head and saw a huge birdcage hanging on the balcony, inside which lived a red and green parrot.

"You've become more handsome! You've become more handsome!"

The parrot happily mimicked what it heard.

It's quite cute, with big, bright eyes.

Zhang Shutong then remembered who this little guy was. She remembered that Ruoping had mentioned him in the Wild Dog storyline because her mother was always urging her to get married, and even the parrot had learned to do it.

“Ping’er, look at it,” the woman said with delight, “It hasn’t spoken since you left.”

"It only learns bad things and not good ones." Ruoping sighed, walked over to the parrot, and blinked. "I'll watch TV for a while longer—"

"What are you looking at!" Suddenly, the parrot's attitude changed. "What time is it? If you're not going to sleep now, you'll be sleeping on the sofa tonight!"

Zhang Shutong was completely bewildered by this turn of events. Seeing that Ruoping's mother's face immediately showed embarrassment, he quickly raised his voice:

"Shutong, do you want some ice cream? Auntie will get you some. Ping'er, you too, when your friends come over, why aren't you entertaining them? What are you saying to a parrot..."

Ruoping giggled, as if she had successfully pulled off a prank. "Let's go, let's go wash our hands and eat," she nudged Zhang Shutong and whispered, "This is a daily conversation between my mom and dad. Even the parrot remembers it."

"Does your parrot have this kind of special ability?"

"Hmm." She said proudly, "Impressive, isn't it? Other parrots can only repeat one sentence, but mine can finish the sentence after you finish the previous one."

After some commotion, the four of them sat down at the dining table. Ruoping's family ate very happily, except for Zhang Shutong.

For some reason, the conversation at the dinner table revolved around him. People kept asking him how his university life was and whether he had a girlfriend. Zhang Shutong felt a bit uncomfortable and could only force a smile to brush it off. Suddenly, the dinner table fell silent.

"Where are Qingyi and Dukang? Why didn't they come?"

Ruoping's father asked.

Zhang Shutong, who was biting into a steamed bun, also perked up his ears upon hearing this.

"Qingyi can't get away; he's a very busy man."

"Where is Du Kang?" the woman asked again.

"There was something else going on, but I didn't ask in detail."

Ruoping answered casually.

Zhang Shutong seemed to be deep in thought.

But reality didn't give him time to think. After finishing his meal, Zhang Shutong finally remembered today's topic—

move.

Actually, before we even entered, most of the furniture had already been pulled out and placed in the living room, leaving no place to sit.

His task was both easy and difficult: to move large pieces of furniture to the van outside.

Zhang Shutong was soon covered in sweat. During a break, he stared at the ceiling and thought, "Just a few hours ago I was clearing debris in the tunnel, and now I'm still clearing debris. This is really terrible..."

The move wasn't in a rush, so it was a busy period followed by breaks. Zhang Shutong only recently learned that her family had moved away from the island last year.

So now he's homeless and can only stay at Ruoping's house tonight.

"Ice cream?" Ruoping asked. "Little Pudding or Green Tongue?"

A few minutes later, Zhang Shutong licked a green tongue and went up to the second floor.

The second floor is Ruoping's room, which has a very girlish feel, with celebrity posters, fluffy dolls, and various bottles and jars that look like cosmetics.

"Stop looking." Ruoping blushed slightly.

Zhang Shutong withdrew his gaze:
"What exactly is going on between you and Du Kang?"

He asked directly.

"Why are you being so fussy? I've already said it's nothing, it's nothing. Do we have to be together all the time to be considered normal?"

Zhang Shutong choked for a moment.

His intuition told him that something was definitely wrong, but neither of the parties involved would say anything, and Qingyi wouldn't answer the phone.

"Alright, you should rest for a bit." Ruoping said, turning on the air conditioner. Her back was also soaked with sweat. "Lie down if you want. I don't mind you being dirty today. I'll go clean up next door..."

Next door is a general storeroom.

Zhang Shutong had just settled into his chair when Ruoping suddenly pushed open the door:

"Don't look around."

Zhang Shutong innocently raised his hands.

He listened until Ruoping's footsteps faded into the distance before his gaze returned to the furniture in the room.

What first caught his attention was a picture frame.

Inside was a group photo of several people, five of them in total.

Besides the four of them, Lu Qinglian was also in the group photo.

The four people in the photo are wearing short sleeves, and the background is a school, so it should be from the second semester of the fourth year of junior high school.

This isn't exactly nostalgic.

Zhang Shutong thought that when Ruoping asked him for a photo on the boat, he assumed that Ruoping had lost all her old photos.

But there's a subtle sense of incongruity in this group photo.

There are five people in total, but the one on the boat shows Gu Qiumian standing to the side.

The school's photo was replaced with one featuring Lu Qinglian.

The one on the boat is from winter, but the one at school is from summer.

Is this some kind of spot-the-difference game? Zhang Shutong shook his head, amused.

For example, everyone is laughing heartily in the group photo on the ship, but in this picture...

Zhang Shutong finally realized where that sense of unease came from.

All five of them remained calm.

Five teenagers looked calmly at the camera, without smiling.

Zhang Shutong frowned.

He could understand why Lu Qinglian didn't smile, and he could even understand why he and Qingyi didn't smile, but why were Du Kang and Ruoping like that? It was already good enough that they didn't deliberately make funny faces when taking pictures, but why didn't they even smile?
The ringing of the cell phone broke Zhang Shutong's thoughts.

It is serene and elegant.

"Hey, you've arrived on the island?" Qingyi yawned, looking sickly. "Have you seen Ruoping?"

How did you know that?

"Just arrived."

"Good luck, and please take care of yourself these next few days."

"You sound like you're working overtime?" Zhang Shutong asked curiously.

"No, we're not working overtime," Qingyi said, puzzled. "We're only sophomores, why would we be working overtime?"

Zhang Shutong breathed a sigh of relief. Thank goodness, Qingyi hadn't turned into a workaholic.

"I'm doing an internship." Qingyi replied calmly the next second.

Zhang Shutong nearly dropped his phone. "Internship?"

"My relative's company is short-staffed, so my resume will look better... But let's not talk about that now, what's up?"

"...I'd like to ask you something. Something seems off between Ruoping and Dukang." Zhang Shutong asked in a low voice.

He had anticipated Qingyi's doubts, but he still wanted to find out the truth.

"Those two, they're the same as always." To everyone's surprise, Qingyi's tone wasn't one of surprise. "They've been doing this for so many years."

"What happened?" Zhang Shutong pressed. "...I don't know."

Zhang Shutong was somewhat surprised. How come Qingyi didn't know either?
“We discussed it before, but we couldn’t reach a conclusion. We even guessed that they would break up, but neither of them admitted it.”

Qingyi paused for a moment:

"So you've found a clue?"

Zhang Shutong glanced at the air conditioner vent, where cool air was blowing.

"Once we find a clue, we don't need to ask you anymore."

“That’s true.” Qingyi remained silent for a moment.

The two were speechless for a moment while talking on the phone.

Even after hanging up the phone, Zhang Shutong still hadn't gotten a single useful piece of information.

In Qingyi's words, Du Kang and Ruoping "broke off their friendship" starting from the fourth day of the Lunar New Year.

Everyone tried to repair their relationship, but to no avail.

Zhang Shutong glanced at the photo album again, and he seemed to have found the answer to why none of the people in the photos were smiling.

But where exactly does the problem lie?
If it were a breakup or something, Qingyi wouldn't be unaware of it.

Or did you miss some clues?

This timeline seems perfectly fine...

He lay back in the chair, suddenly feeling a sense of powerlessness.

There was a loud thud, like something falling to the ground.

The sound came from next door.

Zhang Shutong rushed over. In the dimly lit storeroom, Ruoping was covering her other hand, and beads of blood were gushing from her tiger's mouth, dripping onto the floor.

"what happened?"

Zhang Shutong looked around and saw a hammer on the ground. There was a wooden box at Ruoping's feet. It turned out that Ruoping had tried to open the box but accidentally cut her hand.

"It's okay, can you get me some paper from inside..." Ruoping endured the pain, "Never mind, I'll go downstairs and rinse it off with water first, don't tell my dad..."

“There are nails, and they’re rusty.” Zhang Shutong shone a flashlight on them. “It’s safer to go to the hospital.”

"I already said no." She was as stubborn as ever. "I was scratched by wood. Don't I know my own hand?"

Zhang Shutong thought for a moment:

"Or I'll tell your parents."

“You…” Ruoping’s eyes widened.

The woman in the red dress, who exuded a faint air of maturity, instantly transformed into the little girl she once was.

After going downstairs, Zhang Shutong threw the ice cream stick into the trash can. Ruoping followed behind him, forcing a smile and waving.
"Mom, I'm taking Shutong out for a walk, we'll be right back..."

Do you need the car keys?

"No need, I'll just ride my electric bike for a spin."

"Aren't you guys hot?"

"I used to wander around like this a lot in the summer..."

The moment Ruoping stepped out of the house, her smile vanished, replaced by a gritted teeth:
"Zhang Shutong, you've got some nerve, daring to threaten me?"

Zhang Shutong shrugged and got on the electric scooter parked at the door.

As the wheels rolled, a gentle breeze finally stirred the stagnant air, though it wasn't refreshing.

Ruoping was still complaining behind him that he was making a mountain out of a molehill, but Zhang Shutong pretended not to hear her. He squinted at the sun and walked through streets that were either unfamiliar or familiar, feeling as if he were traveling through time and space.

"It's been a long time since I've ridden around like this." Ruoping also quieted down.

"Then I'll show you around," Zhang Shutong said with a smile.

When Zhang Shutong arrived at the hospital, the layout had changed a lot. The wards had been moved to the first floor. Naturally, Zhang Shutong ran into a young nurse. She was only about thirty years old and hadn't changed much since then, except that her hair had grown from short to long.

Zhang Shutong thought the nurse wouldn't remember him, but to his surprise, she said:
"It's you! Long time no see. You should be in college now?"

Zhang Shutong also felt a bit emotional, and he nodded:
"I'm coming back to play during summer vacation."

"That's bad luck, coming back to play and then running to the hospital. But luckily, my sister is a head nurse now."

She had a smug look on her face, like a daughter-in-law finally becoming a mother-in-law after years of hard
"Say it, what's wrong? I'll take care of everything within my capabilities, except for running away halfway through giving you an injection."

Zhang Shutong thought to himself that he couldn't escape this title:

"A friend cut her hand, she..."

He gestured, but the nurse joked:
"Hey, speaking of this, do you remember that time you brought two female classmates to the hospital? It really startled me. We even made a bet back then that you could bring a third one, but unfortunately, you weren't up to the task..."

She shook her head, a mix of mischief and nostalgia, just as Ruoping walked into the dispensing room.

"Uh……"

"You deliberately?"

The young nurse blinked, just as bewildered as she had been years ago.

Ruoping needs to get a tetanus shot.

You need to be observed at the hospital for a while after the injection.

"Would you like some water?" Zhang Shutong asked her.

"I don't want to drink it, I don't want to drink it!" Ruoping pouted. "It hurts so much, it hurts so much..."

Her little face scrunched up, Zhang Shutong said:

"I thought you had grown up."

"You're the one who hasn't grown up yet."

"When I grow up, injections won't hurt anymore."

"Go away, who dragged me here? Did they think I was that little girl from back then? The 'warm guy' thing isn't popular anymore, handsome guy..." Ruoping laughed after saying that.

The two of them were sitting in the hospital corridor, where there were fewer people than before.

“You remember that tunnel, right?” Ruoping twisted her body and looked out the window. “It took us a lot of effort to find it. Back then, the three of you were determined to find out what was hidden inside.”

"It felt like the word 'tired' didn't exist in our dictionary back then," Ruoping recalled. "No matter how crazy I was, I didn't feel tired, and I could still muster the energy to go to school the next day."

"You were clearly the first one to back down."

Zhang Shutong exposed him without any mercy.

"You guys are the ones who cause all the trouble! I'm just worrying about everything!"

Ruoping was not to be outdone.

"Then I'll go out for a walk, don't worry about me?"

"Whatever you want. She's not your mother or your girlfriend, so what's there to worry about?" Ruoping waved lazily.

Zhang Shutong no longer hesitated.

He left the hospital, turned into a small alley next to it, and walked a few steps through it. In a wasteland surrounded by buildings, an old house stood quietly.

Zhang Shutong stared at it quietly for two seconds.

Besides what happened on this timeline, he also needs to find a way back.

Perhaps the time has come to verify our conjecture.

That is, the entrance still exists.

Zhang Shutong took a deep breath and walked to the front of the old house. It was already locked, but the wooden door was rotten and dilapidated. He pushed the door hard, and the entire wooden door collapsed to the ground with a crash.

Zhang Shutong gritted his teeth and pulled open the tunnel door with both hands. No one had been here for a long time. A cloud of dust rushed into his face, and he quickly covered his mouth and nose.

Once the dust had mostly settled, he turned on his flashlight and quickly walked towards the left side of the tunnel.

Soon there is a platform, and beyond the platform is a natural cave with a rock carving of five foxes on one side.

Finally, Zhang Shutong stopped and subconsciously held his breath.

(End of this chapter)