Frost and Snow Mirror

Just after the Winter Solstice, the first real snow fell. Beijing seemed to be wrapped in a huge, sound-absorbing blanket of cotton. At five o'clock in the morning, the sky was still pitch black, and the heating pipes in the neighborhood emitted a faint humming sound. I stood by the window, watching the lights of the convenience store downstairs still on - the 24-hour sign was blurred into a dim yellow glow in the snow curtain. Master Zhang, the owner of the store, is seventy years old. He is from Henan Province and always wears a dark blue woolen cap. At this moment, he was sweeping the snow at the entrance into a pile, and then laying a piece of hard cardboard on the steps.

This scene reminded me of last winter. It was also a snowy day. A deliveryman slipped at the door of the store and the porridge in the insulated box spilled all over the floor. Master Zhang didn't say anything. He turned around and went back to the store. After a while, he brought out a bowl of freshly boiled hot porridge and added a bag of his own pickled radish dried. "Are you hurting? Come inside and warm up." That was all he said. The deliveryman was a young man. He was stunned for a while, then buried his face in his scarf and his shoulders trembled slightly. Later I learned that this was already the third delivery he had made the wrong order that day.

The cold of winter has a peculiar refining function. It is like a stern alchemist, forcing out the density and purity of human nature. The enthusiasm that can be easily squandered in summer becomes precious fuel in winter; the blurred boundaries that can be indistinct in spring and autumn will leave clear footprints in the snow.

The warmth within human nature becomes concrete and subtle in the cold season. It is not a grand vow, but the half-hand-sized seat that strangers in the subway voluntarily vacate, the single winter bamboo shoot that the market vendor secretly adds to the plastic bag, and the action of the neighbor helping you carry the takeout note hanging on your door handle downstairs. These warm gestures carry the warmth of the body and are the most primitive mutual assistance instinct between people. In the contrast of the severe cold, they stand out particularly prominently. Just like the ancient tradition of Siberian hunters: leaving firewood and food in the cabin of the small house to offer to strangers who might get lost. It is not virtue; it is the common wisdom of surviving in extreme cold.

And the coldness within human nature, even in winter, can form sharper ice crystals. This coldness is not necessarily evil; rather, it is more of a forced contraction. People on buses wrap themselves tightly in coats to avoid eye contact, as if any unnecessary energy exchange would cause the internal heat to dissipate. The competition in the workplace becomes more blatant due to the year-end assessment, like the ice crystals on the window, beautiful yet sharp. The competition among relatives reaches its peak during the Spring Festival reunion, with plenty of heating, but some words send shivers down one's spine. This is a defensive coldness, a stress response of modern society under the pressure of seasons. Chekhov wrote in "The Cold" about the driver's confessions to the passengers, which is actually an accusation of the entire indifferent society - the coldness of winter amplifies the felt temperature of loneliness.

What is even more interesting is the contradiction revealed in winter. The same middle-aged person might brutally reject the proposals of his subordinates in a meeting in the morning, but in the afternoon, he might go to a homeless animal rescue center, worrying about whether those cats and dogs can survive the cold night. In the same person's heart, there can coexist an accountant who is overly concerned about the cold and a poet who is touched by the snow. Winter is like a transparent container, allowing us to clearly see these coexisting and sometimes contradictory elements in our human nature.

The winter scenery itself is a metaphor for human nature. The bare branches stretch towards the sky, without the adornment of leaves, revealing their shapes, scars, all the past breaks and growths - just like the real us after removing the social masks. The earth covered with snow, beneath the whiteness might be soil, seeds, or buried debris. This is very much like our inner world: the surface can be calm like a snowfield, but the inside hides various possibilities. And the ice surface is the most interesting: it is so solid that it can support people to play, yet so fragile that a crack in it can cause everything to collapse. This coexistence of solidity and fragility is not exactly the most true portrayal of human nature?

I remember going to Harbin the year before last. On the banks of the Songhua River, I saw a group of elderly people doing winter swimming. The temperature was minus twenty-five degrees Celsius. They joyfully jumped into the icy water, and their skin turned bright red as it came into contact with the ice water. After getting out of the water, they rubbed their bodies with snow, and steam rose from their bronze-colored skin, forming white fog in the cold air. At that moment, I suddenly understood: It is not the thick clothes that truly fight against the cold, but the unquenchable flame of life within us. That flame is the most resilient part of human nature - the courage to keep burning, to feel, to live, and even to celebrate in extreme conditions.

As dusk fell, the snow stopped. I went downstairs to Tuan Shih's store to buy milk. The store was warm and he was teaching a new delivery person how to better seal the easily cracked glass bottles with tape. "This winter," he seemed to be speaking to me but also to himself, "it's cold, but look - " he pointed to the children making snowmen outside, "people can always find some joy in the cold."

I walked back, holding the warm milk in my hands, and the crunching sound of my feet on the snow could be heard. The street lights came on, and the orange light shone on the snow, causing each ice crystal to reflect the light. The entire road seemed to be covered with shattered diamonds. Yes, winter is an honest mirror. It uses the cold to reflect our selfishness and generosity, tests our inner light's duration with the short days, and measures the depth of our loneliness and the warmth of companionship with the long nights. It doesn't judge, but simply presents. And the image of ourselves we see in the ice mirror might not be perfect, but it is exceptionally true - truly fragile, and truly resilient; truly afraid of the cold, yet also truly longing for warmth, and willing to be a tiny source of heat for others when necessary.

This is probably the entire story of winter and humanity: During the coldest season of the year, we learn how to become each other's little suns.