During the winter break of his final year of high school, Mo Yu unexpectedly finds himself in the hospice ward on the fourth floor of Xianghai Hospital while trying to complete the volunteer hours required for graduation.
Winter sunlight pours through floor-to-ceiling windows that span the wall. The ward is not as cold and oppressive as he imagined; in its quiet days, the people here still hold on to their own routines, wishes, and the people and things they care about.
Pushing open the door to Room 476 at the far end of the corridor, Mo Yu meets Xia Qingxue, a white-haired girl a few years younger than him. She fills one corner of the windowsill with plants, gently turning the white narcissus toward the sunlight each day. Even though the old electronic keyboard beside her bed is broken, she can still hear its melodies echoing in her ears whenever she presses the silent keys.
“Would you like it to make a sound again?”
He fixes the silent keyboard for her, takes over the daily care of her plants and flowers, and sits by her bed, clumsily following along as she teaches him to play. As clear notes ring out in the hospital room once more, two people whose paths would otherwise never have crossed grow closer in the winter days before the New Year.
