When The Snow Falls In Autumn Chapter 53

Chapter 53

Ling Xueqing’s breathing gradually became long and even, and the painful wrinkles between her eyebrows were finally smoothed away by sleep.The cold edge of the antipyretic patch on my forehead glowed with a moist glow under the warm yellow light of the bedside lamp.Her cheeks were still sickly red, but her sleeping face showed a rare and unguarded softness, and her thick eyelashes cast quiet fan-shaped shadows under her eyes.

Ye Qiulan sat on the chair beside the bed, not daring to move for fear of disturbing her by making any noise.The room was extremely quiet, with only the extremely low sound of the air conditioning system and her own clearly audible heartbeat.Her eyes fell on Ling Xueqing’s face, then moved away, looking around this overly tidy, almost dust-free room.Bookcases, desks, beds, chairs, nothing else.No photos, no decorations, no superfluous colors.Like a well-maintained, fully functional prison, or a silent ship sailing alone.

She glanced at the bedside table, and besides the medicine and the empty water glass, she also saw an upside-down hardcover book, which was a collection of Liu Zongyuan’s essays.Half of the plain bookmark is exposed between the pages, and the edges are frayed.

His eyes moved again and landed on the corner of the desk.There was an open dark blue hard-shell notebook with a pen beside it.On the open page of the notebook, it seems that instead of words, there are… lines?

Ye Qiulan hesitated for a moment.Ling Xueqing was fast asleep and breathing steadily.She stood up gently, almost without making a sound, and approached the desk.

The open page of the notebook is indeed not text.A hand-drawn, extremely detailed… map?The lines are clean and neat and marked with different colored pens.You can see winding rivers (with “Old Road of Ruishui River?” written in small characters next to them), undulating mountains, and some unfamiliar place names marked with boxes or circles, mostly with question marks next to them.In the corner of the map, there is a line of small words written in finer handwriting: “My mother’s dictation, there are many discrepancies with the existing local chronicles. To be tested.”

Ye Qiulan’s heart trembled slightly.Is this the map of his hometown that Ling Xueqing drew privately?The map that carries her mother’s broken memories and the pain of her family’s separation, and that no one but her has ever seen?

Her fingertips hovered above the paper, not daring to touch it.My eyes moved slowly along the unfamiliar place names and the “migration paths” drawn with dotted lines, as if I could see a young Ling Xuequing, trying to piece together the territory of her hometown that had long since disappeared in reality and time in her mother’s sometimes sober and sometimes trance-like narration.Every stroke is filled with silent searching and loneliness.

There are still a few lines of scattered writing in the blank space next to the map. The ink is newer and seems to have been written recently.

“Zhaojiaba – Linshi – Guixi – Yiyun Pavilion…”

“Correlation? Or just geographical coincidence?”

“The rumor that the manuscript is hidden… points to it?”

The last few words were written a bit sloppily, and the ink was even blurred, showing a kind of irritability or urgency when writing.

Ye Qiulan held his breath.As expected, Ling Xueqing was still thinking about the library theft and Zhaojiaba.The rumored possibility of “manuscript hiding” was even listed.She did not give up completely by “leaving it to the school” as she told Ye Qiulan.She is still investigating and thinking in private.

This discovery made Ye Qiulan feel mixed emotions.On the one hand, she felt faintly distressed that Ling Xueqing had to bear all this alone; on the other hand, she felt a slight sense of being excluded because of Ling Xueqing’s “concealment”.Aren’t they partners who make reports and check information together?Why did Ling Xueqing choose to sort out these deeper doubts and clues silently by herself instead of telling her?

While he was in trance, a very soft, nasal murmur came from the bed.

Ye Qiulan was startled and took a step back in a hurry, almost hitting the chair.She looked towards the bed.

Ling Xueqing did not wake up, but moved her head uneasily in her sleep, and the antipyretic patch on her forehead was a little crooked.Her lips moved, and she spat out a few syllables vaguely. She couldn’t hear them clearly, but her brows furrowed again, as if she had dreamed of something bad.

Ye Qiulan hesitated for a moment, then walked to the bed, stretched out his hand, and gently smoothed the crooked antipyretic patch with his fingertips.Move carefully, trying not to touch Ling Xuequing’s skin.

Just when her fingertips were about to leave, Ling Xueqing suddenly raised her hand, grabbed it vaguely in mid-air, and then accurately grasped Ye Qiulan’s wrist before he could fully withdraw it.

Ye Qiulan froze.

Ling Xueqing’s palms were hot, wet with sweat from the weakness of the illness, but they were strong enough to hold her wrist tightly, with the fingertips touching the pulse point on the inside of her wrist.Her eyes were still closed, as if she was still asleep, but her brows were furrowed tighter, and her lips were pursed into a pale line, as if she had caught the only driftwood she could rely on in a nightmare.

“Don’t go…” Ling Xueqing murmured, her voice unclear, with heavy sleepiness and a trace of imperceptible… vulnerability?Or is it dependence?

Ye Qiulan’s heart beat wildly in her chest, and the blood rushed to the top of her head, and was held by that hot hand. The heat spread along the blood vessels, making her ears red and her fingertips numb.She could clearly feel the beating of Ling Xuequing’s pulse and the beating of her own wrist’s pulse, intertwined in a chaotic rhythm.

She tried to gently twitch her hand, but Ling Xueqing immediately clenched it tighter, and even unconsciously pulled her hand to her side. A few vague syllables came out of her mouth, like the names of places and people, but they couldn’t be heard clearly.

Ye Qiulan didn’t dare to move anymore.She stood frozen beside the bed, letting Ling Xueqing’s hot hands hold her wrist tightly.The temperature was scorching, and the force also made her wrists ache, but a strange feeling slowly penetrated into her limbs and bones along with her tightly grasped pulse.It’s not the momentary, panic-stricken and throbbing contact in gym class before, but a more continuous, closer, and more…private connection.

Ling Xueqing held her hand tightly in her unconscious state of illness.It’s no one else’s, it’s hers.

This knowledge, like a pebble thrown into a deep pool, stirred up increasingly turbulent ripples in her heart.

Time passed by minute by minute.Ling Xueqing’s breathing calmed down again, and her brows gradually relaxed, but the hand holding Ye Qiulan’s wrist did not relax at all.It was as if it was a real and reliable anchor chain between her drowsy dream and reality.

Ye Qiulan’s legs gradually became numb.She maintained an awkward posture, not daring to move, and her eyes fell on Ling Xueqing’s sleeping face.Up close, her eyelashes are incredibly long, casting thick shadows under her eyes.The bridge of his nose was straight, and his lips were chapped and peeled from the fever.Having lost her usual shell of calmness and alienation, Ling Xueqing at this moment is just a tired and fragile person who is troubled by high fever and seeks to snuggle in her sleep.

The light from the bedside lamp fell softly on the two of them, casting their shadows on the plain wall, overlapping each other.The night outside the window was as thick as ink and silent.

After an unknown amount of time, Ling Xueqing’s fingertips loosened almost imperceptibly.Ye Qiulan held his breath and carefully and extremely slowly pulled his wrist out of the hot confinement.There are still clear finger marks and a burning sensation on the skin.

Ling Xueqing softly said “hmm” in her sleep, turned over, turned her back to Ye Qiulan, and curled up like an insecure child.The quilt slipped off a corner.

Ye Qiulan exhaled gently and rubbed his numb wrist, where the skin was slightly red.She leaned over and helped Ling Xueqing tuck the quilt again, and her fingertips accidentally touched her long hair scattered on the pillow, which was soft and slightly cool.

After doing this, she sat back on the chair.His heartbeat was still very fast, and the heat on his wrists lingered for a long time.She looked at Ling Xueqing’s huddled figure with his back to her, then turned to look at the hand-drawn map spread out on the desk and the question writing next to it.

The ball in my heart is a mixture of worry, sourness, slight sweetness, and a new complex emotion that is completely dependent on but invisibly separated. It is like a ball of wool that has been scratched by a cat, and it is even more difficult to sort out.

She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.Fatigue gradually came over me.But she didn’t dare to sleep, so she had to watch over Ling Xueqing, pay attention to her body temperature, and be ready to give her water or change antipyretic patches at any time.

In the silent room, there were only the shallow breathing sounds of two people, and a subtle connection that was quietly drawn closer to each other in pain and sleep, but there was an invisible gap between wakefulness and secrets.

Outside the window, the deepest darkness before dawn is coming quietly.