Heavy snow drifted slowly down from the sky. It fell so slowly because the snowflakes were huge, some as large as a child's palm.
The larger ones were even as big as an adult's palm.
Each flake was slightly curved as it spun through the air, drifting down in a gentle flurry like goose down.
When they landed on the ground, they did not melt immediately. Instead, they piled up there, only to be covered by another flake a few seconds later, becoming part of this cold world.
People from the south had rarely seen snow this heavy before. A local man shivering by the roadside watched the rapidly whitening world with mixed emotions.
"In the past, my wife, my family, and I used to pay to go north to see the snow."
His words made the people lining up by the roadside to receive relief food laugh despite themselves.
It had never snowed in the south before. The southernmost part of the Federation lay in the subtropics, and snow was something they might encounter only once in many years.
Yet as one of the most fascinating seasons, winter was something many southerners had never witnessed in their entire lives.
They could not truly experience the beauty of ice and snow descending from television or literature, nor feel the chilling ruthlessness concealed behind that breathtaking atmosphere.
That was why many southerners paid to travel north to see the snow every year.
But now, they did not have to pay anymore.
Perhaps that joke had lightened people's mood. Or perhaps the atmosphere here was simply good. Either way, people began talking among themselves.
Every time they opened their mouths, clouds of warm breath poured out.
"Whenever the weather station used to say it would snow, it would only rain in the