Winter Time Rendering

Chapter 27: Chapter 9: The Mysterious Girl, Lu Qinglian

As evening fell, the light from his phone screen reflected on his face.

Zhang Shutong’s mouth fell open silently. The news was a bit of a shock.

’Why is she here?’

Her distinctive blue robe was impossible to mistake. The girl’s posture was surprisingly prim. The folding stool she sat on was very low, forcing most people to hunch over, yet she sat ramrod straight, almost as if she were in class. Patches of unmelted snow lay around her, giving her the air of someone angling alone on a frozen river.

However, Zhang Shutong wracked his brain. He’d long forgotten most things from his school days, but he was certain that Lu Qinglian had never once come fishing with them.

’Which butterfly flapped its wings this time?’

’It couldn’t have been me, could it?’

Zhang Shutong wasn’t the type to flatter himself. It was true that Lu Qinglian had sought him out after school to talk, but the thing was, he felt he’d already cleared the air about that whole incident.

He didn’t think she was the type to dwell on things, either. Besides, he wasn’t exactly universally loved. The idea that she would latch onto him just because of one silly mix-up was simply unrealistic.

Still, it wasn’t a big deal. He’d been on edge after spending so much time in that godforsaken restricted area. In truth, the restricted area wasn’t far from their fishing spot; during the day, you could almost see the opposite shore across the lake.

That’s why Zhang Shutong had been terrified for a moment, thinking Ruoping and the others had run into the murderer and met a terrible fate.

In comparison, Lu Qinglian’s arrival seemed far more harmless. He could just leave her for Du Kang to deal with.

The bike ride was less than ten minutes, and he soon reached the meeting spot.

Moonlight spilled through a thick blanket of clouds, reduced to a faint glimmer.

Zhang Shutong parked his bike in the dark and looked down. Through a dense thicket of reeds, he could see Ruoping idly scrolling on her phone.

Unlike the restricted area, here you couldn’t just walk from the road to the shore. The lake’s surface was much lower, requiring you to descend a dirt slope. This was also why the water nearby was shallow, making it a good spot for winter fishing.

The only catch was that they couldn’t leave their bikes on the road. They had to carry them down and tuck them into the reeds. That way, they wouldn’t have to worry about being caught by patrolling police. Sitting behind the reeds was like having a natural screen. Combined with the darkness, it was very private, ensuring no one would spot them.

Strangely, when Zhang Shutong looked around, he only saw two people. The closer one was the short-haired girl playing on her phone.

The girl had a delicate face, her short hair held back by a headband decorated with a flower petal. Her bangs were trimmed neatly across her forehead. When she wasn’t talking, she actually had the air of a well-bred young lady.

But on this serene face was a mouth that was a little on the large side. Zhang Shutong couldn’t call it a flaw, though. After all, there were several famous female stars with large mouths, and saying anything would just expose his own lack of taste.

He remembered a couple of years ago when she had dragged them to see a movie—he thought it was called *If You Are the One*, some romantic arthouse film. After it was over, she had pestered them for their thoughts, but Zhang Shutong and the guys hadn’t understood it at all. Or rather, even if they had, it wouldn’t have mattered; whatever they might have said wouldn’t have been what she wanted to hear. The moment they stepped out of the theater, she’d pouted, stomped her foot, and pointed at Shu Qi on the movie poster in exasperation. "Who says girls with big mouths can’t be beautiful?" she had demanded.

Of course, the guys had immediately nodded in agreement, flattering her to the high heavens. Just as expected, she had beamed like a flower in bloom.

This was Feng Ruoping: spirited and boisterous. Zhang Shutong had always thought she had the bearing of a swordswoman from a bygone era.

She seemed gentle most of the time, but in reality, she had a shorter fuse than anyone. All three of the guys were afraid of her. She was a professional at both bullying people and defending her own—though the targets of her bullying and her protection were usually the same three guys.

Right now, the girl was subconsciously biting her thumb, her other hand swiping across her screen, though he couldn’t tell what she was doing.

He had expected her to hear him approach and immediately give him a piece of her mind. To his surprise, she didn’t even look up as he walked over. Just as he was about to speak, Ruoping frowned and snapped:

"Go, go, go, we’ll talk in a bit..."

Zhang Shutong glanced at her screen. Under her finger was a fat red chicken... or rather, a bird. The bird was glaring from its place in a slingshot. As Ruoping finished speaking, the bird shot out with a TWANG, crashing pathetically against a concrete barrier, leaving only the green pig heads inside to snicker gleefully.

Level Failed.

The message appeared on the screen in large print.

"Zhang! Shu! Tong!" The girl’s head snapped up, her expression, as she gritted her teeth, not unlike the angry bird’s.

Zhang Shutong raised his hands innocently.

"Shutong, just ignore her. She’s been stuck on this level for days," a calm voice came from up ahead.

The owner of the voice was a boy.

He was wrapped in a khaki wool coat, a pair of fluffy earmuffs pressing his black, choppy hair down over his forehead. He sat by the water’s edge, holding a fishing rod in one hand and, incredibly, a book in the other. Paired with his deadpan expression, it was quite a look.

On a scale of one to ten, Zhang Shutong would give the outfit an eight.

"It’s your fault for showing up and not saying a word with those earmuffs on! What else am I supposed to do besides play on my phone? Go down and catch turtles?" Ruoping immediately shifted her fire, fuming. "Besides, why are you wearing earmuffs in this weather? Is it that cold?"

The boy turned his head away and said nothing.

"What’s his problem?" Ruoping whipped her head around.

"He can’t hear you," Zhang Shutong translated for her.

"Huh?"

"To be precise, he’s staying in character. He feels that with his current getup, he shouldn’t be able to hear you."

Qingyi had a severe case of eighth-grader syndrome, with an added touch of the literary hipster.

A book was never far from his hand. You might see him with a trendy magazine, a standalone volume of an old manga, or a hardcover novel. He usually wore a blank expression and didn’t talk much, but in reality, he was just immersed in his own world.