New Year's Wishes in Winter (Part 1)

"Have you ever wondered what life is made of?"

"The sun and moon rise and fall, mountains and rivers converge. Perhaps life is made up of one serendipitous encounter after another."

"To meet someone, you need to arrive in the same city in the same era, appear in the same place at the same moment, and then quietly wait for fate to arrange the pieces."

"Those ordinary paths through life begin to intertwine, and mundane days gradually become radiant and dazzling."

In an office at some company, Kevin wore headphones as he typed code on his keyboard. Beside his computer was a photo of his girlfriend, Mei, while in the upper-right corner of his monitor was a livestream window featuring Elysia, another resident of Golden Courtyard.

"Tomorrow is New Year's Day! Remember to come home early tonight~ There's only one chance a year for this, so of course you should cherish the time you have together and properly convey your feelings to one another~" Elysia said, forming a heart with her hands. "Do you all have any special plans for tonight? Leave a comment and tell Miss Pink Elf~"

Suddenly, Kevin's phone screen lit up. He reached for it and looked at the latest messages. They were three texts from Su:

"The snow is too heavy. Eden's flight has been delayed, so she probably won't make it back tonight."

"What's going on over there? Don't tell me you're working overtime again?"

"Come back early. Everyone's waiting for you and Feng. Remember to buy some flour on the way."

"Didn't we just buy a bag yesterday? We used it all up already?" Kevin muttered to himself. He took off his headphones, shut down his computer, and left the company.

Before he made it out of the building, another message came through. He lowered his head and saw that it was from Feng:

"The snow here is too heavy, so my business trip may be extended again. Lilith said we'll probably have to spend New Year's outside, so let everyone at Golden Courtyard know. I won't be coming back tonight."

Kevin let out a soft sigh as he read the message. Before he could reply, another text from Feng arrived.

"Before I left a few days ago, I used the flour and minced meat left in the kitchen to make some dumplings. If you don't mind, you can try them for New Year's Eve dinner. Lilith taught me how—I spent quite a while learning."

After thinking for a moment, Kevin still replied, "Got it. Take care of yourself too."

That guy really was busy. Ever since moving into Golden Courtyard, aside from occasionally going out with everyone, he was usually sent away on business trips by his company.

Come to think of it, what exactly were dumplings?

Kevin bought a bag of flour on the way and walked back to Golden Courtyard. The moment he opened the door, he saw Griseo and Kosma, bundled up tightly, heading outside. Griseo blinked at Kevin, while he looked down at the two of them and asked in confusion, "You're... going out?"

"Mm." Griseo nodded and walked out with Kosma. Then she turned back to Kevin and said, "Kosma said this is something that can only be done at night."

Kosma's body stiffened, while Kevin tilted his head, completely at a loss.

Griseo slowly raised the fireworks in her hand and, imitating Kosma's tone and movements, declared, "A Hero must walk through the long night and light a thread of... brightness for the newborn dawn! Kosma bought a lot. Do you want to join us?"

Kosma covered his face with one hand, not knowing what to say.

Kevin picked up a firework stick and asked hesitantly, "Now?"

As soon as he said that, a fierce gust of wind swept through outside the courtyard. Even Kevin felt a trace of chill.

Kosma took a deep breath. "...Forget it."

He did not mind, but Griseo was still young. She could not catch a cold.

"Eh? Kevin, you're back?" Elysia, dressed in a maid outfit and holding a rolling pin, appeared in the villa hallway. Smiling, she said, "Everyone's been waiting for you."

"Yeah, this is the flour you asked me to buy." Kevin lifted the bag in his hand. "Also, Feng messaged me earlier. His business trip might be extended, so he probably... won't be able to come back."

"Eh? Feng isn't coming back?" Elysia froze, then rested her hand against her chin and murmured, "Why didn't Feng tell me about something this important? I wanted him to try my cooking this time."

While Elysia continued muttering to herself, Kevin silently walked into the kitchen. If nothing unexpected happened, Feng was probably tasting Lilith's cooking right now. Still, it was better not to say that in front of Elysia.

In the kitchen, Hua and Su worked together. Hua rolled the dough into round wrappers, while Su held the wrappers in his hands and filled them with the prepared minced meat.

Kevin set the flour aside, walked over to Hua, and watched her roll out another wrapper. "This is...?"

"These are called dumplings. They are a local snack, symbolizing the transition into a new year, reunion, and good fortune. In my hometown, every household makes them for the New Year." As Hua spoke, she explained how dumplings were made.

Come to think of it, Feng, Hua, and Su all seemed to come from the same place... So this was what Feng meant by dumplings. As Kevin thought that, Hua reached the final step of her explanation. Both of them looked toward Su, who skillfully threaded a thin string through a wrapper and wrapped it around the meat filling. Once the wrapper fully enclosed the filling, he used scissors to cut off the thread.

"Um... Su, that's not how we wrap them where I'm from," Hua said, somewhat speechless.

Su placed the sewn dumpling in his palm and smiled. "Perhaps it's a regional difference."

A regional difference? He wondered whether Feng's dumplings had been sewn with thread too.

As Kevin pondered that, he looked to the other side. "Then what are they in charge of...?"

Qianjie was relentlessly pummeling a lump of dough. Aponia stood nearby with dark lines across her face, while Mobius silently edged away from Qianjie.

Vill-V had grabbed the robot Klein and was loudly modifying it with a series of metallic clanks.

"By the way, Kevin, do you want to join us?" Hua asked.

"Uh... I've never made them before," Kevin answered honestly.

Elysia set a carton of eggs on the table, walked behind Kevin, and pushed him toward it. "Come on, Kevin. It's precisely because you haven't done it before that it's worth trying~"

Thus, all the current residents of Golden Courtyard began making dumplings.

After a while, Griseo took a lump of dough from Kosma and began shaping it. Before long, she had molded it into the form of a little doll. Kevin looked at Griseo's work, then lowered his head to look at his own creation and fell into deep thought.

Kosma gave Griseo a thumbs-up. "Very good."

Kevin thought for a moment, quietly dumped his misshapen "dumplings" into the trash, and walked out.

Meanwhile, seeing that Sakura seemed unable to finish chopping all the meat filling by herself, Aponia stepped forward to help. However... the two seemed to be competing over something strange. The terrifying aura surrounding their chopping made Mobius, who was twisting dough dyed green by reagents into the shape of a snake, remark speechlessly, "What's wrong with those two?"

At that moment, Vill-V walked up to Mobius and introduced the modified Klein, a machine capable of mass-producing dumplings. As the machine operated, huge quantities of dumplings emerged from the oven in Klein's midsection. One dumpling even flew straight into Mobius's face.

Mobius's face darkened. She tore apart the flour snake she had just finished shaping, then glared at Vill-V through gritted teeth. "Vill-V—what did you do to my Klein?!"

What followed was a familiar scene from daily life at Golden Courtyard: Mobius beating Vill-V up.

Elsewhere.

Feng looked up at the dark sky and heavy snow outside the window, then glanced at Elysia's livestream, which had already ended. He murmured, "A life made of serendipitous encounters... Deliberate meetings really cannot connect two people in the end."

It had only been a fleeting glimpse in his youth, but that girl named Elysia had caught his attention. They had spent a short time together before Elysia moved to another city. He went to university elsewhere, graduated, found work, and then they had been separated for so many years.

He simply had never forgotten the beauty left behind by those youthful days...

"After all, we already have our own separate lives, don't we?" Feng thought. Due to his work arrangements, he had recently been considering moving out of Golden Courtyard. After all, he had only gone there because of Elysia in the first place. As for rent and such, he did not really care.

After a long while, he finally made up his mind. "I'll move out after the New Year. Nahamah has been asking me to stay at his place anyway, and it'll be more convenient for work."

"Feng, what are you spacing out by the window for?" Lilith's voice sounded behind him. "Dinner's ready. If you don't come soon, Mostima and Baal will eat it all."

"Okay, I'm coming." Feng answered, then suddenly felt his phone vibrating. He looked down at it. "Kevin? Why is he video calling me?"

Instead of video calling Mei with this free time? Oh, Mei probably did not have time...

Then why was he video calling him? Could it be... there was something wrong with the dumplings he made? That should not be possible...

When he reached the dining table, Zhu Yufeng turned on the camera. He was just about to ask Kevin why he had called when Elysia appeared on his screen.

"Hi~ Feng, surprised?" Elysia greeted him with a smile.

Feng fell silent for a moment before asking, "Where's Kevin?"

Elysia seemed somewhat displeased at that. She puffed out her cheeks and said, "Feng, a beautiful girl is taking the initiative to video call you right now. Why is the first thing you ask where Kevin is?"

Was she really less attractive to him than Kevin was?

"Eh? Is that Elysia?" Lilith leaned into view.

Seeing their heads nearly pressed together, Elysia's eye twitched almost imperceptibly. Then she said, "So Lilith is there too. Are you having dinner?"

Feng turned the camera toward the dining table. Baal, who was wolfing down food, had a chicken drumstick shoved into his mouth by Abaddon, reminding him to mind his manners.

Feng glanced at the table before turning the camera back. "Yeah, we already started. What about you?"

Elysia showed Feng all the various "dumplings" everyone had made, then said, "The dumplings you made are really good, Feng. Unlike Kevin—everyone here was making dumplings by hand, but he went outside and bought a bag of frozen dumplings. So we punished him by making him cook tonight's dinner for us~"

"I see." Feng nodded. "Kevin's cooking is actually not bad."

Otherwise, after he and Mei got married, the two of them would probably be living off takeout for the rest of their lives. Feng had once had the honor of witnessing Mei's godslaying cooking skills. That truly was...

"Um..." Elysia looked somewhat hesitant on the screen.

"Is there something else, Elysia?" Feng asked.

Elysia seemed to glance toward Lilith, then asked hesitantly, "When will this business trip of yours end? Everyone has been waiting for you, you know. Me too."

Before Feng could speak, Lilith answered for him. "The work itself is finished, but the snow is too heavy for us to get to the airport, so we can only spend New Year's here."

Feng glanced at Lilith, then said to Elysia, "That's the situation. Nahamah has already arranged for people to clear the snow, but at the current pace, the earliest we can leave will probably be tomorrow. The company said I can take a vacation here while I'm at it, so..."

"So from now on, it'll be our time together~" Lilith said with a smile.

Feng's face darkened. "...Don't say things that can easily be misunderstood... Anyway, Elysia, is there anything else?"

Elysia seemed a little dejected on the other end of the call, but she still smiled. "Nothing else. I just wanted to ask when you could come back."

But once I come back, I'm planning to move out. Feng thought to himself.

Golden Courtyard.

After ending the video call, Elysia placed Kevin's phone on the table and looked gloomily at the clock on the wall. Feng had been on a business trip during Christmas, another business trip during Valentine's Day, and now his trip had been extended on New Year's Eve. In short, whenever there was a meaningful holiday, he was either on a business trip or on the way to one.

If it were only business trips, that would not be much of a problem. After all, Feng still lived at Golden Courtyard. The real issue was that Lilith was always with him whenever he traveled...

Kevin had said that Lilith seemed to be Feng's university classmate too...

This time, using Kevin's phone to video call Feng had been Vill-V's idea. She had said it would give Feng an unexpected surprise. She had seen surprise in his eyes, but the delight seemed to be missing...

That guy with negative emotional intelligence had barely ever taken the initiative to chat with her, even after adding her as a friend. Elysia still had to hear many things about him from Kevin...

We were obviously so close back then...

Suddenly, several loud crashes rang out from the kitchen. Then the entire Golden Courtyard lost power. Elysia took out her phone for light and went to the kitchen with the others. There was a huge hole in the wall, shaped almost like a doorway, with severed electrical wires visible inside. Kevin stood amid the wind and snow, turned around, and said, "Looks like... we won't be having dinner after all."