‘SEE YOU MORNING’ 040 Snow Mountain Crescent Moon

Having bid farewell to Luna in Boston and arrived in Boise to meet Lily, it seemed she was always connected to highly classified projects. Following the navigation information Lily had provided, Li Haojun took the shuttle bus at Boise Airport to the simple airstrip on the south side. Getting off and walking to the end of the runway, he saw an old-fashioned red-tailed biplane. Taildragger landing gear, the angular edges of the fuselage skin at the beams and gussets suggested it was a simple wooden fabric-covered structure. The high nose exposed its radial engine, and the wooden two-blade propeller radiated a primitive, wild untamedness.
Lily leaned against the fuselage with her hands in her pockets, standing by the rear cabin. Today she wore a beige suede flight jacket, her long hair tucked under a flight cap. Tight dark brown leather pants showed off her figure well, and a pair of high-waisted black leather boots looked a bit oversized.
"Coming from the Red Queen?"
Lily's sudden, expressionless question caught Li Haojun off guard. He thought of the hallucination in Luna's office—the woman in the red miniskirt sitting in his lap. Was Lily referring to her?
"Yes, everyone calls her the Red Queen."
"Oh," Li Haojun replied woodenly.
"Get on the plane," Lily said, stepping aside to make room for the rear boarding stairs.
Li Haojun hesitated, thinking he should have brought a parachute if he'd known they'd be flying. But then he reconsidered—at least this light aircraft could make a forced landing even without power, so he climbed aboard with gritted teeth. As he passed Lily, his eyes swept across her face, and he thought: with a beautiful woman as company, what's a man like me afraid of? He smiled at her. Lily tilted her head, looked at him, and the corner of her mouth lifted slightly.
"There are goggles in your seat, put them on," Lily said, then turned and climbed the steps to the main wing, walking to the cockpit and settling in.
Li Haojun sat in his seat, not putting on the goggles but just holding them, watching Lily's figure against the blue sky—it seemed to flicker and stutter, like a recording. He wasn't sure if he'd zoned out or if a memory had surfaced. After a moment of gazing, Lily had already fastened her seatbelt and started the engine. With a crackle, the exhaust pipe spat out wisps of black smoke, and the propeller spun up powerfully, the airflow pulling the plane slowly forward onto the runway.
By the time Li Haojun put on his goggles, the plane was already aligned with the runway, throttle open. The propeller churned the air, and amid the crackle of the exhaust, the rhythmic tap-tap-tap of the valves mixed in, the engine's vibration running through the entire fuselage.
"Fasten your seatbelt," Lily shouted back.
"Okay," he replied, leaning forward as he pulled the seatbelt tight and secured himself with the four-point harness. When he looked up again, the rear wheels had left the ground, and the plane was rising amid the crosswind.
Under Lily's control, the plane climbed in steps, then suddenly banked hard toward the mountains northeast of Boise. The thin fuselage shuddered through the overloaded turn before straightening out, and only then did Li Haojun feel somewhat relieved. He watched the scenery through the port side window, thinking that trying to talk to Lily now was pointless—the noise was too loud and would distract her. He made a mental note to demand clear transportation arrangements from the company when he got back; he couldn't keep riding in whatever unreliable junk they put him in.
The small plane didn't fly high, swaying over several ridges and valleys before beginning its descent. Fortunately, the goggles were connected to the leather cap, or his head would have lost heat and his ears would have frozen stiff long ago. Not far ahead, he spotted a simple airstrip on a ridge. The plane approached parallel to the runway at a steady speed, descending into the traffic pattern. Though the terrain was gentle, it was winter and the ground was still blanketed in snow—only the runway itself had been churned up to bare earth from frequent takeoffs and landings. At the end of the runway stood a small inn with a tiny apron where a small plane and two all-terrain tracked vehicles were parked.
The ground drew closer. Lily executed the final turn, aligned for the runway, and touched down gracefully in the crosswind, taxiing to the apron.
Li Haojun helped Lily secure the plane, then followed her toward the small inn, quietly trailing behind her, secretly warming his ears with both hands.
This wasn't a hotel at all—just a two-story wooden building that looked from the outside like a mountaineer's lodge or private club. But walking through the main entrance, past the lobby and front desk, a staff member escorted them directly to an elevator shaft that descended underground into another world. The same identity verification process, the same biotech facility—Lily didn't follow. The facility used the same equipment and technology from Talaski BioGen Innovations, so it was Li Haojun's job to do maintenance here. With limited time that first afternoon, he could only familiarize himself with the facility's scale and the types of applied technology equipment. But this facility was different from the others—the elevator shaft didn't lead to a large underground complex. It seemed to be just an entrance and transit hub. You had to take high-speed rail underground to reach multiple facilities at other locations. They appeared to be an underground facility complex, operating as a complete functional system while remaining isolated from each other.
Returning to the initial transit hub, he went up to the ground-level building lobby. Looking outside, night had already fallen. Only the dim yellow light at the front desk held the darkness at bay in the cold winter air.
As he hesitated, Li Haojun spotted a figure sitting in a dark corner on the sofa.
"Lily," he called toward that direction, uncertain if she was still there, his voice soft. It wasn't until she slowly stood up that he gradually confirmed it was her, walking from the darkness toward the light.
"You haven't left yet?" Li Haojun asked, somewhat puzzled.
"Yeah, my orders were simple—get you here, that's it. Nobody said I had to leave."
"Then you don't have—" Li Haojun started to ask if she didn't have a family, but couldn't bring himself to say it. Lily smiled and gave a simple answer.
"I don't have any plans. Let's go get dinner, there's a restaurant right over there."
This was a building disguised as a mountaineer's lodge, but it didn't actually host mountaineers. It seemed that because of the classified operations, even the visiting personnel didn't overlap. In the restaurant, there was only Li Haojun, Lily, and the service staff. In the faux candlelight at the corner table, the night outside seemed to compress the distance between them.
"Your plane is really cool, and last time your Jaguar too—you have great taste," Li Haojun brought up the topic first. What guy doesn't like this stuff?
"Oh, glad you like it. I spend all my salary on this stuff, haha."
"They're all really old models. Do you do all the maintenance yourself?"
"Yeah, I have my own hangar and maintenance equipment," Lily said, pausing to fiddle with the food on her plate. Then she looked up at Li Haojun.
"Maintaining them is my joy. Whether it's blue skies and white clouds or country roads, they bring me a lot of happiness."
"So, what about your family? Sorry, I really don't remember if you told me, but that moment you got on the plane—it felt like something I've experienced before."
Lily didn't respond. She looked up at Li Haojun, then went back to fidgeting with her food.
Li Haojun didn't press further, just looked at her face inexplicably—one side illuminated by the warm candlelight, the other outlined by the cold night light.
"Why cling to it? I don't really remember either," Lily said without looking up, just murmuring to herself. After a moment of silence, she looked up and smiled.
"Tell me about you. How's it been since you came back? Does Emily still love you that much?"
"Oh, you know her."
"Of course."
"Although I don't remember, it seems our relationship has lasted a long time. Whether I'm awake or asleep, she's always with me, so—" Li Haojun paused. Praising another woman in front of this woman always felt unnatural. He paused again before continuing.
"So I'm still very lucky."
"Isn't she the lucky one?" Lily looked up at Li Haojun, the candlelight illuminating her cheeks and hair, a woman's grievance in her eyes.
Li Haojun realized he and Lily probably had a story—he'd been freed from it by his amnesia, but Lily was left to bear it alone. And now he didn't know how to comfort her.
"Alright, eat. What are you thinking about?" Lily smiled faintly and urged him on, seeming to sense his discomfort, changing the subject.
After dinner, they each returned to their rooms. Li Haojun couldn't suppress the restlessness in his heart, the weight of powerlessness and guilt. He put on his coat alone and walked out onto the ridge outside the inn. In the dim night, the all-terrain vehicles and Cessna parked across the way gleamed with metallic coldness.
Just as he stepped out from the corner of the inn, the cold wind sweeping across the ridge spun up ice crystals and snow chunks that hit his face. It seemed to cooperate with his stinging heart, also stinging his skin. Li Haojun thought of the weapons in his basement, that equipment. Was it possible that for some years, Lily had been his comrade in arms, going through fire and water? Her restraint was because he had Qin Wenjing by his side, and he had forgotten all their shared experiences.
It was a night with sparse stars, the darkness deep. A crescent moon hung over the snow-capped ridge ahead, moonlight and snow reflecting each other, desolation and cold speaking to each other. To maintain his body heat, Li Haojun hugged his coat tight and kept walking. The ice and snow crunched under his feet with a squeaking sound. The aimless movement seemed like he was pursuing something, yet also like he was escaping something. The distant snow mountains and crescent moon hung like a frozen painting in the sky, untouchable.
It wasn't until the biting cold wind had scraped away some of the sorrow in his heart that Li Haojun turned around, following his own footprints back. The mountain wind pushed him from behind, urging his return.
From time to time he looked back at the distant mountain and crescent moon. It was precisely its incomplete, fractured form that illuminated the far mountains in this dark night, carving out its own shadow, stretching long beneath his feet, swaying along the mountain path.
Amid the crunching footsteps, the inn's wooden building drew nearer. The reflection of moonlight on the ground ice and snow made the building's walls and windows unusually bright. At the window of the end room on the second floor stood a figure—it was Lily.