Winter Time Rendering

Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Abnormal Death

After eight long years, Zhang Shutong returned to the island where he grew up.

—To attend the funeral of a junior high classmate.

*

The funeral home was on the southern part of the island, next to the newly built road that circled the lake.

On a clear day, leaning on the roadside guardrail and gazing into the distance, the lake would reflect the vast sky like a sapphire jewel. A gentle breeze would send ripples across the clouds on the water’s surface, a truly refreshing sight.

Today, however, the lake was the color of cold steel.

The sky was overcast. The moment Zhang Shutong stepped out of the funeral home, he instinctively tightened his windbreaker.

It was freezing. He had left in a hurry and forgotten to add an extra layer. It was warmer inside the hall, but the mournful music was loud enough to make his head spin. He’d only stayed for a little while before deciding he’d rather be out in the cold.

Things were mostly taken care of, but they had all been classmates—a special kind of bond—so it wouldn’t be right to leave immediately.

To kill time, he glanced at his phone. It was a little after two in the afternoon. The funeral wasn’t over yet, and people were still trickling in.

Just then, for instance, Zhang Shutong saw two old women walk by, muttering to each other.

"Such a pity. She was such a pretty girl. I watched her grow up."

"I know. So young, what could have driven her to it? Now her family line is finished."

"Who knows? And what about that boyfriend of hers? Didn’t they say he called to break up with her just the day before? A real heartless bastard..."

Hearing this, Zhang Shutong sighed softly and bit the inside of his cheek—a small habit of his when he was at a loss for words.

He’d heard so many similar rumors today that he didn’t even have the energy to argue anymore.

Of the two people in their conversation, one was, of course, his deceased classmate.

And the other—that "heartless little boyfriend"—was, if he wasn’t mistaken, none other than himself.

That was precisely why he hadn’t dared to reveal his identity during the entire funeral, keeping his distance from the crowd. Otherwise, not even ten mouths could have cleared his name.

But the reason for this completely unfounded misunderstanding was a bit convoluted.

It all probably started a few days ago:

He received the obituary for his female classmate the afternoon before last.

It was all so sudden. By the time he had hurriedly booked his tickets, transferred several times from the city where he lived, and taken a boat to the island, it was already this morning.

But now, with the funeral almost over, his brain was still trying to process the news.

The shock outweighed the sorrow.

Zhang Shutong was twenty-four this year.

At his age, he had imagined his next encounter with his classmates would be at someone’s wedding. If they were one of the eager ones, he might even have gotten to eat celebratory noodles and tease them a bit.

But he never would have guessed that the first classmate event he’d attend after graduation would be a funeral.

Zhang Shutong had never been a sentimental person; otherwise, he wouldn’t have gone eight years without returning to the island even once.

Even so, a faint sense of regret had surfaced when he heard the news of her death.

Actually, describing her as a "girl" wasn’t quite accurate, but all his memories of junior high were frozen eight years in the past.

His junior high had a four-year system. He had moved to the island at thirteen due to his parents’ job transfer, then moved to the provincial capital next door after graduation. He was only sixteen when he left.

Naturally, his impression of his peers was a collection of young faces.

In his memory, she was a very pretty girl. She had a cool and distant personality, always wore her hair in a high ponytail, and got good grades.

But she didn’t fit the stereotype of a goody-two-shoes.

The young woman spoke very little, was used to being alone, and her movements were unpredictable.

Their school was built on the outskirts of the island. Outside the school gate, there were two paths: one leading to the town further in, and the other leading to the mountain behind it.

Every day after school, she took the second path.

It wasn’t clear if the mountain path led to her home. All he knew was that while everyone else was just heading home to do homework, she would sling her bag over her shoulder with the cool air of someone off to save the world.

It was this sense of mystery that made many of the boys in class like her.

But she always had an air about her that kept people a thousand miles away, so hardly anyone ever managed to talk to her. She didn’t even have any female friends.

In today’s slang, even if she wasn’t the ’white moonlight’ of his heart, she was at least the kind of person who, years later, could brighten the memories of those dim and hazy adolescent days just by being in them.

But the reason she was so memorable wasn’t just her looks; it was because she was much more "special" than the rest of them.

Just as every ’white moonlight’ girl has a legend behind her, the island named Yanlong Island was not without its own ancient tales.

The island was surrounded by water on three sides and backed by mountains on one.

On the mountain stood a Temple called the Cyan Snake Temple, its origins lost to time. He only remembered that the locals were devout believers, and the scent of incense never faded there year-round.

He later learned that, besides being a student, the girl’s other identity was that of the Cyan Snake Temple’s Temple Priestess.

Only she and her grandmother lived at the Temple. Whenever there was a major festival, she would have to take leave from class. On those days, her ponytail would be let down into long, shoulder-length hair as she returned to the Temple to help out for several days.

But the term "Temple Priestess" felt so foreign in modern life.

He and his close friends had even argued about it several times:

Someone said a Temple Priestess was a Daoist, another said she was a Buddhist nun, and yet another claimed she was a Catholic sister. Then someone else would jump in and say that was all nonsense—sisters were a foreign thing; she was obviously a Witch...

In any case, for a long time, his impression of this female classmate was always an imagined vision of a celestial maiden with flowing robes and dark hair cascading down.

Once, she came to class without changing, dressed in a long, cyan-colored robe.

She paid no mind to the others’ stares, looking like a young woman who had just returned from cultivating immortality.

It wasn’t quite a crush, but putting himself in their shoes, he imagined it should have been the kind of situation where, many years later, someone would find her wedding photo on their Moments, and a whole group of them would howl about their lost youth.

But what Zhang Shutong saw instead was a black-and-white funeral portrait.