How did hiring someone to press a pig image during Chinese New Year become a top trend?

"arrive."

The red heavy truck let out a heavy sigh and stopped at the intersection of Yingze Street in Taiyuan.

The city's neon lights dyed the night sky a dark red, and the traffic flowed like a river, with horns blaring incessantly.

Zhang Fugui didn't turn off the fire; he shoved the jar containing the pothos plants into Xu An's arms.

"Take it."

Xu An was taken aback. The bottle was still warm, and the leaves of the pothos were covered with coal ash that couldn't be washed off.

"This thing is tough; it can survive breathing exhaust fumes in the cab."

Zhang Fugui grinned, revealing his two rows of signature white teeth, a cigarette between his fingers, and pointed to the bustling cityscape outside the window.

"It follows me, but it can only see the Black Mountain Gully."

"Following you, I can see the lights of this big city."

"Let's go!"

Before Xu An could utter a single sentimental word, Zhang Fugui slammed on the gas, and the Steyr roared, spewing out a plume of black smoke from its exhaust pipe, disappearing into the vast flow of traffic like a knight-errant leaving in the dust.

Xu An was left alone, holding a pot of coal-ash green ivy and carrying a bag of sesame cakes, standing at the crossroads in the biting cold wind.

In her hand, she still clutched that pink letter that smelled of aged dried flowers.

The atmosphere in the live stream suddenly changed.

[ID Plants vs. Zombies]: I'm so touched, brothers! This guy gave Anzi his only passenger seat and his only pothos plant!

[ID Single Dog]: Stop with the sentimentality! Look at the letter in Anzi's hand! It's pink! It's so flamboyant under the streetlights!

[ID Community Death Scene]: Anzi, you look like a naive country bumpkin who just came to the city and is about to meet his online love interest.

Xu An looked down at the pink envelope.

It's really pink.

It was that gaudy, flesh-pink color typical of the 1980s, with two simple line drawings of intertwined flowers painted on the closure.

To passersby dressed in fashionable down jackets, Xu An, wrapped in a military overcoat, his face covered in soot, and holding a cigarette, attracted a 200% turn-around rate.

"What are you looking at...?"

Xu An hunched his shoulders, stuffed the letter into his sleeve, and wished he could disappear into a crack in the ground.

"Family members, stop laughing."

"I feel this letter is heavier than a hundred-pound sesame seed cake."

"Old military camp residential area... Building No. 3."

Xu An turned on the navigation and reluctantly walked in.

Laojunying is one of the most vibrant and lively old communities in Taiyuan.

There are no skyscrapers here, only a maze of alleyways and air that is always filled with the aromas of cumin, vinegar, and stir-fried dishes.

The road is narrow and crowded.

Xu An walked close to the wall, like a deserter afraid of being conscripted.

Building No. 3 isn't hard to find, but finding "Old Liu the Flower-Obsessed" is.

This building is a typical Soviet-style red brick building, with withered ivy climbing all over the exterior walls and sausages and mops hanging on the balconies.

Xu An stood downstairs, looking up like a fool, gazing up floor by floor.

"anthomaniac……"

"Since you're called a flower fanatic, your house must be full of flowers, right?"

He was looking for greenery.

On a cold winter night in the north, searching for a patch of green that shouldn't exist.

Sudden.

A sharp-eyed viewer in the live stream posted a comment.

[ID: Leeuwenhoek]: Anzi! Third floor! Second balcony from the left! That's... a greenhouse?!

Xu An squinted and looked over.

really.

The balcony was completely sealed off with plastic sheeting, and warm yellow light shone from inside.

You can vaguely see that behind the glass, there are dense branches and leaves.

There were even a few red shadows stuck to the glass.

It's a flower!

On this winter night in Taiyuan, where the temperature was minus ten degrees Celsius, that balcony was practically a tropical rainforest.

"This is it."

Xu An took a deep breath, mentally prepared himself for a minute, and then walked upstairs with heavy steps.

"Thump, thump, thump."

The sound of knocking echoed in the old stairwell.

There was no movement.

"Is anyone there?" Xu An whispered. "I'm... the messenger."

Still nothing.

But a strong, even slightly pungent, smell of floral water wafted out from under the door.

Xu An knocked a few more times.

"Who is it?! So late at night! Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"

Suddenly, a furious roar came from inside the door. Judging from the voice, it was an old man with a temper even more volatile than that goose.

"Click".

The security door is open.

An old man wearing a tank top and floral shorts, holding a spray bottle, appeared at the door.

The old man was very thin, his hair was a mess like a bird's nest, and he wore glasses that were as thick as the bottom of a wine bottle.

The most outrageous.

In the dead of winter, his room was as warm as a public bathhouse, with the radiators hissing and the humidifier spraying out white mist that made the room look like a fairyland.

"What do you do?"

Old Liu pushed up his glasses, staring at Xu An's military overcoat with an unfriendly look.

"Is he selling fertilizer? Or collecting heating fees?"

"Let me tell you! I have no money! I won't even give you my life! I need to keep my life to serve these ancestors!"

Xu An was intimidated by the old man's imposing manner and took a half step back.

"Sir, I... I won't charge you."

"I'm here... to deliver a letter."

Xu An shakily pulled the pink letter out of his sleeve.

Under the dim hallway lights, the pink envelope looked particularly alluring. Old Liu squinted and leaned closer for a look.

next second.

The watering can in his hand fell to the ground with a clatter.

It was a pure copper spray bottle; when it hit the cement floor, the sound was so crisp it sent shivers down your spine.

Old Liu stared intently at the envelope as if struck by lightning.

His lips trembled, and a layer of mist suddenly welled up in his eyes, which had just been fierce, blurring his thick glasses.

"Jasmine...?"

Old Liu's voice cracked, trembling with disbelief.

"That son of a bitch... is he still alive?"

Xu An was stunned.

This tone... it sounds like he's both cursing someone and missing someone.

"Come...come in!"

Old Liu yanked Xu An into the house and slammed the door shut with such force that he almost knocked Xu An over.

The room was indeed a greenhouse.

The small one-bedroom apartment, apart from a single bed for sleeping, is completely filled with flower pots.

Clivia, orchids, azaleas, and even a few tropical plants that Xu An couldn't name.

"Sit down! Sit anywhere! Just don't step on my clivia!"

Old Liu hurriedly tidied up a small stool, but his eyes never left the envelope.

Xu An handed over the letter, and Old Liu's hand trembled even more when he took it than when Aunt Li Aijun took the sesame seed cake.

He didn't open it immediately, but instead held the letter under his nose and took a deep breath.

"Cough cough cough!"

Old Liu was choked and coughed repeatedly.

"This taste..."

"Dried osmanthus flowers?"

"This rough guy... is still so pretentious."

Xu An keenly grasped that word.

"A rough, unkempt man?"

Xu An pointed to the signature on the envelope, "Sir, this 'Jasmine'... is it a man?"

Old Liu rolled his eyes at Xu An, as if he were looking at an idiot.

"nonsense!"

"That was in 79, in our company."

"That guy is 1.9 meters tall, weighs 200 pounds, has a huge beard, and his chest hair is thicker than my head!"

"Just because his name is Li Moli!"

"When they were taking roll call, the company commander called out 'Li Moli,' and she stood up like a black bear! The whole company burst out laughing!"

The live stream chat exploded.

[ID Laughing Like a Pig]: Pfft—!! A 1.9-meter-tall Jasmine with a thick beard?! The imagery is too vivid!

[ID Contrast Cuteness]: Is this the legendary "a heart of a tiger, a delicate touch of a rose"? No, this is a heart of a tiger, named Jasmine!

[ID: Uncle Xujiacun]: Hahahaha! What a brilliant name! It rivals my dead brother's!

Old Liu cursed as he tore open the envelope.

The action was rough; the moment it was torn open, several dried petals fell out.

There was also a dark, murky object; it wasn't coal, but a piece of jet.

That is, the kind of coal that is the hardest and brightest, and can be used for carving.

It's only the size of a walnut, but it has a flower carved on it. The carving is not very fine, and it's even a bit clumsy, with deep knife marks.

But the way the petals unfold and the curve of the leaves curl exude a breathtaking vitality.

It is a jasmine flower, an immortal jasmine that blooms on a piece of black coal that has existed for hundreds of millions of years.

Old Liu held the coal sculpture in his hand.

He stopped cursing, and the only sound in the room was the hissing of the humidifier. Xu An watched as Lao Liu's shoulders began to shrug.

Tears streamed down Old Liu's wrinkled face, dripping onto the black stone and making the coal sculpture shine even brighter.

The letter was unfolded, and the handwriting was large and crooked, as if it had been written with a carrot dipped in ink.

【anthomaniac:】

Do you remember the bet we made?

You said there are only black rocks under a coal mine, and flowers can't grow there.

[I'm talking nonsense. If you have flowers in your heart, they can bloom anywhere.]

I lost.

Jasmine really can't grow in this awful place.

I've tried for thirty years, and killed over a hundred pots.

But I haven't completely lost.

[If it won't grow in the ground, I'll carve one myself.]

I dug this rock out of the well, 800 meters below the surface.

That's the deepest, darkest place in the earth.

I spent three whole years carving it.

Now I'm giving it to you.

Old Liu, please put it on your balcony for me.

Let it bask in the sun.

It had been cooped up in the darkness for too long.

Jasmine.

After reading the letter, Old Liu plopped down on the floor, ignoring the cold floor tiles.

He held the coal sculpture as if it were a newborn child.

"Idiot..."

"You big idiot..."

Old Liu cried his eyes out, snot and tears streaming down his face, completely losing his composure.

"Who made a bet with you...?"

"I was afraid you'd die at the bottom of the well... I wanted to trick you into coming back to the city..."

"You stubborn, two-hundred-pound idiot..."

"You spent your whole life in that dark abyss because of that stupid bet?!"

The live stream chat stopped.

Those who were just laughing at "Jasmine with the bushy beard" are no longer laughing.

[ID Geological Exploration]: 800 meters down the well... that's a place where you truly never see the light of day. There, he carved a flower.

[ID Art Student]: This isn't a coal sculpture. It's a light he lit for himself in the dark.

[ID Tears Uncontrollably]: Was that pink envelope his last act of tenderness towards life? Even when everything around him was dark, he still wanted to send a touch of pink.

After crying his fill, Old Liu stood up shakily and walked to the balcony.

There, in the sunniest spot, sits a pot of clivia in full bloom.

Old Liu moved the precious clivia plant aside and carefully placed the dark, rough coal-carved jasmine plant in the sunniest spot.

There was no sun tonight, but the neon lights outside shone in and shone on the coal sculpture.

That black flower seemed to come alive.

It was a deep, glossy black, and amidst the vibrant, real flowers in the room, it was dead.

But it seems more alive than anyone else.

"Family members."

Xu An held up his phone, the camera lens focusing on the small stone through the lush foliage.

His voice was very soft, as if he were afraid of disturbing the spirits of the flowers in the room.

"I used to think that romance was giving 999 roses."

"Now I understand."

"True romance."

"He is someone who has spent his entire life in darkness."

"With his darkest hands."

"I carved the whitest flower for this world."

When Xu An left the old military camp, Lao Liu insisted on giving him a pot of flowers.

Xu An didn't want it; he couldn't take it with him. But he did take a handful of seeds.

Old Liu gave it to him, saying it was a seed he had taken from the best flower in the house.

"Bring it back to Xujia Village."

Old Liu wiped away his tears, his eyes shining behind his glasses.

"Sprinkle it at the entrance of that cafeteria."

"That old fool named Jasmine can't go."

"Let his seeds go."

Xu An tucked the seeds into his inner pocket, the closest and warmest place to his heart.

The streets were still bustling with traffic.

Xu An tightened his military overcoat and glanced back at the balcony that was bathed in warm light.

In a gray concrete jungle, that window shone like a miracle.