After sending her a text message, I immediately had a feeling of regret, maybe I shouldn't have sent her that text message, I should have let the feeling and impulse in my heart die completely, so as not to cause an irreparable situation. I wish she hadn't seen the text, or pretended not to see it, or excused herself that she couldn't show up for something else, and I might feel sad, but I wouldn't have waited until the time to see her.

Soon, her text message came back: "Okay, Wednesday night at 20:30, see you or leave, I still have a gift for you." Her text message sent me a little excitement in my heart, but the feeling of regret that followed was even more palpable. Although I had planned all my actions and words after meeting her before I decided to ask her out, I tried to think of all the possibilities that would arise as much as I could, and then came up with the corresponding strategies and words for each of them. But when I saw her reply, I still felt like I had been caught off guard, and I felt that all my plans were just superficial articles, and there were more important possibilities in them that required me to reformulate the plan.

For dozens of hours before I waited for the agreed Wednesday at 20:30, I was immersed in mixed emotions wrapped in excitement and regret. I didn't go to the library again, I sat at my desk in my dorm room and continued to make detailed plans for what I would do when I met her. I discarded all the options I had decided on before texting her, thinking that the way of speaking and predictions of the meeting were too naïve. I put all the possible scenarios on paper and then studied them in detail to make sure nothing went wrong.

For dozens of hours, I didn't dare to go out, relying on some fast food I bought to satisfy my hunger, I was afraid of meeting Hai Linlin on campus. If I met her, when she asked me what I had asked her about Wednesday, I couldn't answer at all, and all my plans would have fallen short. The perfect plans in my mind were too delicate to be chosen in the slightest, and some words had to be said on a quiet winter night.

At 20:20 on Wednesday night, I was waiting for her downstairs in their dormitory. There weren't many people walking upstairs in the girls' dormitory, and at night there were graduating girls walking in through the door, and occasionally someone would look at me. I was wearing a half-time coat with my hands in my pockets, and the excitement and nervousness in my heart made me not feel the cold of the winter nights at all. I hope that the lines I had in mind would come in handy, and that everything would go as I expected it to be, until I took her hand, or she said a tactful rejection of me, and it was all over.

At first, I was standing facing the entrance of their dorm building, and the lights from the dorm building were shining through the doorway, hitting me, and I hoped that she would see me waiting for her as soon as she came down the stairs. But when I saw some of the graduating girls walking in from the dormitory, I felt that it was not appropriate to stand there, so I stood on the side of the door, pacing back and forth.

I want that time to come soon, but I don't want that time to come soon, just like when I text her, the ambivalence makes me regret asking her to meet, and I even wish she could send me a text in the middle of the way to tell me that she can't go to the appointment because of something, and I might feel glad instead. I tried to look as casual and stressful as I could, so that when she first saw me out of the dormitory, I was in a really good state – both in terms of expression, posture, and pace.

The nervous mood made me forget to take out my phone to look at the time, I couldn't feel the flow of time, when I reacted that the time was probably a long time had passed, I took out my phone to look at the time, it was already 20:50, 20 minutes had passed since the agreed time. I think she must have been delayed by something, maybe she thought that I would say something to her that was difficult to say before, that she needed to maintain the last of her girl's reserve.

But when she hadn't shown up more than forty minutes after the appointed time, I felt that things might not be as simple as I imagined. She had never been late when I had waited for her to go to the studio on the steps of the green area opposite the exit of the dormitory, and she had never been as good at her time as I had told other people that girls usually needed to be a little later than they had agreed.

There were countless possibilities in my mind, whether it was an extra class in an English cram school, or maybe I accidentally overslept while sleeping in the dormitory. I even wondered if something had happened to her, which worried me, but I quickly dismissed the idea. When it was time for the dormitory to close, there were no people entering or leaving the entrance of the dormitory building, and she had not yet appeared.

I felt a pang of trepidation, and I thought that she probably didn't want to see me, and that she knew what I was asking her for tonight, and what to tell her. But the tone of the text message she replied to was so affirmative. At that moment, I felt that everything in the world was meaningless. I didn't call or text her either, that would make me look a bit of a scoundrel, and I should have been smarter when people were already hinting at me with actual actions.

The ambivalence I had had at first waiting for her downstairs was gone, and I felt that I had grown old in an instant, that I had lost all strength and strength, and that a feeling of shame and sorrow had flooded me like a volcanic eruption, and I felt that I could not do anything, and I was unconscious when I stretched and pulled the door to lock it. I sat on a bench on the side of the road not far from the exit of their dormitory, savoring the bitterness of defeat in the cold wind of the winter night, soft as a puddle of mud. I sat on the bench, my mind sometimes blank, sometimes complicated, sometimes drowsy, but soon dissipated by the cold. I lost my sense of time, and I don't know how long it took me to fall asleep on that bench.

My deepest feeling about that night was the biting cold, which intermittently disturbed my sleep.

I woke up in the dim light of the morning, the air was damp and clean, and I wanted to pull out my phone to check the time and make sure the dorm was open. When I tried to pull my phone out of my pocket, I found that my hands could no longer flex and stretch, my whole body was in a state of stiffness, and the bone-chilling cold of the evening remained that morning, and many years later, I still remember that wet and clean winter morning, with the cold that permeated my bones.

I tried to move my muscles so that I could move around, hide in the warm dorm room, and warm myself up with my back against the radiator, but I tried several times without success. Two early risers watched me pass in front of me, and I knew the dorm door was open.

I saw a man and a woman coming down that road, and I could tell from the white fluffy hat that the woman was Hai Linlin, and when they were a certain distance, I was sure that the woman was Hai Linlin—she was walking with a man towards their dormitory, and the bench I was sitting on was where they had to pass.

My heart was full of grievances and shame, and there was only one thought in my heart, to get out of the way and hide as far away as possible. Don't let her—don't let them see me as I was, they'll know that I've been there that night, they'll see the humility of my heart, it's a shame and shame for me.

But I still couldn't move, I felt cold, but there was no cold feeling in my limbs. Hai Linlin spotted me, and she stopped suddenly, a stunned look on her face. But soon, she reacted, ran to my side, squatted down, looked into my eyes and shouted to me: "Lou Yuqi". I saw the astonishment and bewilderment in her eyes, and a warm pity.

She saw my immobile body and called out to the boy who was with her to come over, and Helen took my hand and moved slowly, it was the first time she grabbed my hand, but I didn't feel anything, I didn't feel the softness that rubbed against the back of her hand when I walked side by side with her under the street lamp at night.

They helped me to my feet, and it took me a great deal of effort to bend my legs and move slowly with the help of both of them. They helped me into her dormitory building, and she said something to the housekeeper, who looked at me and the boy and motioned for us to go up. I saw the mirror on the wall of the hall of the dormitory building reflecting me, my hair and eyebrows covered in frost.

I knew they were going to take me to her dormitory, and I said to them in a weak voice, "I'm not going up, I'm just waiting in the reception room." I struggled to walk towards the door of the reception room. I could see that they wanted to persevere, but I was more persistent than they did.

I went into the reception room and asked the housekeeper to help me move a chair next to the radiator, and I sat against the radiator, feeling the warmth slowly permeating my body. The boy never said a word, and I never looked at him.

Helenlin bent down to wipe the frost off my hair and eyebrows with her towel, and as she bent over, her hair drooped down to my face—she took off her hat at that point, and she didn't have the same tickling sensation she had the last time her hair blew on my face. She looked into my eyes after wiping, and I looked into her eyes, and I saw a deep remorse in her eyes, and I could see that it was a self-reproach from the heart—nothing pretentious.

I moved my limbs as much as I could, and when I felt like I was able to move around on my own, I got up and told them I was leaving. Thank you, including Aunt Housekeeper, for their help to me. I opened the door and walked out, my limbs not yet regaining their normal flexibility, and I looked clumsy.

Hai Linlin followed and grabbed my wrist: "Wait, there are some things I want to talk to you about." ”

I stood against the wall and didn't look back: "I'm very sleepy right now." As I continued to walk towards the door, she let go of my hand. She followed me to the door of the dormitory building. The sun had come out, and it was shining through the dry branches on the road outside.