I think some wounds can be healed, some people can be forgiven, some knots can be untied, and some love can be resumed—as long as we survive that long, long winter.

I am actually quite a homebody; in winter, I don't go out unless I absolutely have to. It wasn't until one day, when a ray of sunlight shone in at a strange angle through that abandoned window—covered with thick woolen curtains and almost never lit up—leaving a coin-sized spot of light on the old floorboards, that I suddenly realized spring had come. During those times I hid behind the woolen curtains, the stars in the night sky had already shifted.

I felt like I was born again: showering, changing clothes, drying my messy hair and trying to make it look neat, going out, taking a deep breath, and walking in the sunshine. If someone happened to make eye contact with me then, I would smile and say hello, whereas in winter, I would likely have calmly looked away.

To this day, I still stubbornly dislike winter. I feel that in winter, everyone is frozen; even breathing feels like tiny icicles entering the lungs with the air, slowly chilling my heart as well.

Perhaps it is because I am naturally afraid of the cold that I dislike winter.

I grew up in the South, where there was no heating in winter. It was colder inside the house than outside. Doing homework was a terrifying thing; once you sat down, you felt like you were slowly turning into an ice sculpture. My hands developed chilblains, festering and bleeding, looking like a pile of sturdy but damaged little red radishes.

I once went through a breakup during a cold winter. It was a long-distance relationship that ended with a phone call. I pushed open the window and looked out at a world full of snow, with messy black tire tracks carved into the snowy ground. To escape that winter, I traveled thousands of miles to California, because every day there was full of sunshine.

The place where I went to school was very cold. Christmas always meant heavy snow. Christmas in the United States is a time for family reunions, and Americans gear up for post-holiday shopping sprees, while I curled up in my small room, uninterested in everything, feeling like a withered tree.

The only things I like in winter are hot baths and warm ginger tea. I even thought about buying a kotatsu—a device Japanese people often use to keep warm at home. Having a kotatsu gives one the feeling of being able to hibernate; I imagine myself as a bear.

I wrote a story that took place in heavy snow called Late Snow, Deep Affection. The people in the story were so good, snuggling together for warmth, but in the end, they all died. Because in that cold snow, the more I wrote, the colder my heart became, and I couldn't find redemption for them.

Fortunately, spring always comes. I once thought that perhaps this world is made entirely of cold winters, but God—whichever one it is—is ultimately a kind God. He forcibly set up a station of spring for us on the journey of winter, so that we can warm up and continue moving forward.

Imagine that station: shutting out all the howling wind and drifting snow, warm, humid, and noisy. Strangers and old acquaintances meet again here. You sit down, take a sip of warm tea or hot soup, and feel like a root bud in the permafrost, starting to grow again. You take a deep breath, a smile appears on your face that has been frozen all the way, and as you scan the room, the girl at the table in the corner is also looking at you, her eyes lively and smiling.

It's truly wonderful. Even the most pessimistic person will warm up temporarily in this moment, warm enough to be willing to reconcile with the whole world—before the next winter arrives.

Starting this month, Dragon Literature is officially splitting into separate issues.

To be honest, last year was truly a year of high financial losses. The initial goal was to make a magazine that "doesn't make money," but because we kept giving away two issues for the price of one, it turned into "the higher the sales, the greater the loss," which was really quite unexpected.

We also encountered many problems in the process of running the magazine. For example, there are fewer and fewer authors nowadays who have the patience to polish their words. "Instant gratification" stories dominate, and it doesn't matter if the thrill leaves no lingering aftertaste. The difficulty of compiling drafts is much higher than when we ran magazines in the past.

However, we finally managed to create China's best-selling youth fantasy novel magazine, leaving a warm station on the journey for authors and readers who care about youth and fantasy.

Thank you, everyone. Spring flowers are blooming, let's continue walking together, with smiling brows and eyes like spring water.