① Snow falls where it used to fall in years past; I pay it no mind anymore. Things of greater weight than the falling snow have begun to descend upon my life. At thirty, I seem indifferent to the arrival of this winter, yet it is as if I have been listening all along to the sound of the falling snow, anticipating another silent blanket to cover the village and the fields. I sit quietly in my room. A few slices of steamed bread are roasting on the stove, and a small dish of pickled vegetables rests on the wooden stool nearby. The light in the room is dim. Long after, I would still recall how, on a snowy day just like this, I huddled around the stove, chewing on steamed bread with pickled vegetables, lost in deep and distant thoughts of certain people and past events.

② Only after passing through many winters did I gradually come to understand that I could no longer hide from the snow. Whether I huddle in my room or stand far away in another corner of winter, the swirling snow will inevitably fall upon the very stretch of time I am living through. When a person's years lie open like a barren wilderness, he can no longer take good care of himself.

③ I was fourteen that winter, driving an ox cart into the desert to gather firewood. Back then, the entire village relied on a desert shrub called suosuo (haloxylon ammondendron) to keep warm through the winter. My true understanding of cold began on those nights. The moment the ox cart left the village, the cold laid siege from all directions, mercilessly plundering every last ounce of warmth I had brought from home, leaving my entire body with nothing but the chill. The fierce wind of the open wilderness blew upon me, and me alone. It seemed the cold had wiped out everything else.

④ When dawn broke, the ox cart finally reached the firewood. One of my legs, however, was frozen stiff, entirely numb. Hesitantly, I hopped off the cart on my other leg, hobbled around leaning on a thick branch, and lit a fire to warm myself. Only then could I manage to walk. Yet, a bone in my leg began to ache fiercely—a pain I had never experienced before, like needles piercing the bone and drilling ruthlessly into the marrow. This pain lingered through all the winters to come, and even on the dreary, chilly days of summer.

⑤ Tonight, huddling around the stove, I can no longer warm the "me" of that distant winter; the "me" who accidentally fell into an ice hole on the way to school and ran back covered in ice; the "me" who stood shifting on frozen feet, clutching my ears in anxious wait outside a closed door... I can never again summon them back to the warmth of this stove. I have prepared plenty of firewood, meant for this winter. I am only thirty; I will surely make it through the winter.

⑥ But around me, there must be others who cannot survive the winter as I will. They have been left behind. Winter always chills a person year by year—first a leg, a bone, an expression, a mood... and eventually, a whole life.

⑦ On a freezing morning once, I invited a passerby, covered head to toe in frost, into my house and poured him a cup of hot tea. He was an elderly man, carrying the chill of many winters on him. The moment he sat by my stove, the fire seemingly turned pale. I did not ask his name. From the other side of the stove, I felt a bone-piercing chill radiating from the old man. He didn't say a word. I figured his words must have all frozen solid, needing time to thaw. After about half an hour, he stood up, gave me a slight nod, opened the door, and left. I thought he had warmed up.

⑧ The following afternoon, I heard that someone had frozen to death on the west side of the village. I ran over and saw an elderly man lying by the roadside, half his face buried in the snow. It was the first time I had ever seen someone freeze to death. I couldn't believe he was gone. Surely, a sliver of warmth remained hidden deep within his life, only we couldn't see it. We cannot see a person's last, feeble struggles; we cannot hear their cries and groans. The snow that falls across a person's entire lifetime cannot be entirely witnessed by others. Everyone winters alone in their own life. We cannot save anyone. My small stove fire was utterly inadequate for a man who had been impoverished and shivering his whole life. His cold was simply too immense.

⑨ I had an aunt who lived in the village across the river. In the winters of many years ago, my brothers and I would often hold hands and cross the frozen Manas River to visit her. Every time before we parted, she would always say, "When the weather warms up, have your mother come over for a chat."

⑩ My aunt was old and frail. She constantly worried she wouldn't make it through the winter. As soon as it turned cold, she would stay indoors, confined to a low earthen house, hugging the stove and waiting for spring. When someone grows old, they long so desperately for spring. Even though, when spring arrives, she has no leaves to sprout, no petals to bloom. Spring merely returns to the earth, returning to the lives of others. Yet she still yearned for spring; she was terrified of the cold.

⑪ She died during a winter a few years later. I was home for the Lunar New Year. I remember it was the fourth day of the new year, and I was walking back with my mother along a road that was just beginning to thaw. On that stretch of road, my mother told me of my aunt's passing. She said, "Your aunt has died." She said it so flatly, as if speaking of something entirely unrelated to death.

⑫ "When the weather warms up, have your mother come over for a chat." I recalled her words again. This spring would never belong to her anymore. She had endured so many winters, only to be detained by this one. I remembered that my grandparents, too, had died in the winters of years past. My mother was still alive. Our relatives in this world would only grow fewer. I told myself that, whether warm or cold, we must visit our mother more often and sit with her.

⑬ My mother raised seven children. She has grown old. Perhaps we seven, now tall and grown, can shield her from a fraction of the cold and bring her the warmth of a stove. Whenever her children return home, she is always overjoyed, and the house instantly fills with a bustling, lively air.

⑭ Yet, my mother's graying temples make it painfully clear to me that her own personal winter has arrived. That snow has ceased to retreat, and the frost refuses to melt—no matter if spring has come, or if her children offer their utmost filial devotion and warmth. Across the distance of my thirty years of life, I can feel the bone-piercing cold my mother endures alone in her winter. I am powerless to stop it.

⑮ The snow falls heavier now. The sky has turned completely pitch black. I sit hugging the stove, warming but a single moment of a long lifetime. I know that outside of this moment, the rest of my years, and the years of my loved ones, are out there in the heavy snow beyond the door, being blown completely through by the piercing cold wind.

(Excerpted from A Village of One's Own by Liu Liangcheng)