As he passed by, Guo Changcheng caught a scent. It wasn’t the rotting smell they’d encountered at the hospital; it wasn’t foul at all. It was a very light fragrance that reminded Guo Changcheng of midwinter at the foot of the Daxing’anling Mountains far to the north. It was the scent that accompanies the first breath when you push open the door and walk out into the morning after a whole night of snow. It was the scent of endless, eternally unmelting snow: pure and impossibly cold, tinged with the last fragrance of dying blossoms. The scent carried far into the distance, all the way to the end
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