Huo Xizhou felt he had sacrificed too much for this family.

That very night, the deceived and swindled him shouldered the important responsibility of caring for his little sister without even catching his breath. But… it was like expending tremendous effort to pull out the forty-meter-long blade at his waist, only to discover the opponent was actually a friendly force—nearly throwing out his back trying to sheathe the blade. His little sister was really too quiet, completely not made of the same water as his little cousin. She was just a tiny little thing nestled sleeping in her small cradle, not at all like what his fraudster father said about “crying and fussing regardless of day or night.”

Huo Xizhou had prepared many toys—a rattle drum in his left hand, a string of glass beads in his right hand, a horse-riding lantern by his feet. He crouched by the cradle waiting for his little sister to cry so he could display his grand ambitions, but he waited until he himself was about to fall asleep with his head on the bed rail. His little sister still slept soundly, her little head tilted to the side, the flesh of her cheeks squeezed into an adorably silly little bun shape, not even changing position.

He felt Uncle Xue was so pitiful. Because all these toys were bought by Uncle Xue to coax his little sister.

Mother had very good feelings toward Uncle Xue, and had known him much longer than Father. It’s just that Uncle Xue had previously experienced some misfortune, so he stopped being an official and wandered the world dispensing chivalrous justice. Thus he and Mother hadn’t met for many years.

Uncle Xue recently returned from his wanderings, just in time for Mother’s childbirth. He sent a large chest of gifts for the little sister, many of which were rare treasures that had crossed oceans to arrive.

Father expressed sincere gratitude to Uncle Xue on the spot, and very generously invited him to stay for dinner and lodging at home, bringing out all kinds of delicacies from land and sea, silk quilts and bedding to entertain him.

But Huo Xizhou saw with his own eyes that afterward, behind Mother’s back, Father secretly threatened the swaddled little sister. Using a very sour, very sour tone, he pointed at her little nose and said: “Show some backbone—if you dare to like your uncle’s gifts, when you grow up I won’t let you wear pretty dresses.”

The little sister was probably scared witless, which is why she’s been sleeping with such pure-hearted detachment ever since.

Huo Xizhou set down the toys and, bored to death, asked the wet nurse every incense stick’s worth of time whether the little sister would be hungry, whether to wake her to drink milk. He asked until his heart and liver were torn to pieces. Finally waiting until the little sister woke up, thinking surely now she would start making a fuss, he was just rubbing his hands together in preparation when he saw her merely blinking her crystal-bright eyes, softly gazing at him with a smile.

He reached his hand over, wanting to touch her. While he was still hesitating, she very consciously nestled her little cheek into his palm.

Huo Xizhou felt a bit happy, yet also a bit angry. He said seriously: “I’m your older brother, so you can nestle against me. But if it were other boys, that wouldn’t be allowed, understand? If you act like this when you grow up, you’ll be tricked away by Ergou and Pangwa.”

But not only did the little sister not listen, because his palm was warm, she nestled against him even more tightly.

Huo Xizhou now finally understood why, when he brought the little sister to the adjacent room, Mother had shown that expression of “then I’ll lend her to you to play with for a little while, but you must return her right away.”

Such a well-behaved little sister was of course much more adorable than Father.

Who knows what kind of annoyance Father is subjecting Mother to right now.

With nothing better to do, Huo Xizhou remembered that Father and Mother had been calling the little sister by her childhood name “Nuonuo” all this time but hadn’t yet given her a formal name. So he flipped through poetry collections by the cradle.

Because he’d heard that his own name came from a poem—that line from “Song of Xizhou”: “If the south wind knows my heart, blow my dream to Xizhou.”

He’d heard the tutor explain the meaning of this poem and knew this line meant: If the south wind knows my feelings, please blow my dream to Xizhou to reunite with him.

But Father and Mother had clearly been harmoniously together all these years. Even when Father occasionally went on campaigns, that title “War God of Hexi” wasn’t for show—Father had never lost a battle, so his separations from Mother were naturally very brief.

So Huo Xizhou didn’t understand why Mother would take his name from such a line that sounded somewhat sad.

Until one time, Mother told him that because she and Father, a very, very long time ago, had once experienced an extremely long separation.

During that separation, neither of them ever waited for that south wind.

He asked what happened afterward.

But Mother refused to continue the story.

Huo Xizhou curiously went to ask Uncle Meng, to ask Aunt Shuyi, but they all said, we’ve never heard of this. As everyone knows, your father and mother got married right after meeting, and became close not long after marrying.

Uncle Meng told him: Alas, silly child, you know what? When you can’t come up with a name, there’s a method—you open a poetry collection and place it where the wind blows. Whichever page the wind blows to is the one, and whatever words you see are the words you use. Your name probably came about that way. Your mother is just too embarrassed to tell you the truth and hurt you.

Huo Xizhou felt somewhat sad.

He didn’t want this kind of “counting rhyme selection” tragedy to befall his little sister, so he lit an oil lamp, planning to work hard and study classical poetry properly.

Unfortunately, he only inherited his father’s aptitude in martial arts, but didn’t inherit his mother’s talent in reading.

When Huo Liuxing came to check on the two children, he found Huo Xizhou with a puddle of wet, sticky drool on the book scroll beneath his face. He’d fallen asleep while reading.

He shook his head and sighed, tidied up the book, carried his son to bed, and returned to the adjacent room to tell Shen Lingzhen: “Both little ones are sound asleep. Nuonuo has the wet nurse watching her, don’t worry.”

Shen Lingzhen happened to also be thinking about what formal name to give their daughter. Seeing him climb onto the bed, she nestled into his embrace and suggested: “What do you say—should Nuonuo’s formal name be ‘Ruyuan’ (As Wished)?”

In that story she couldn’t bear to tell Huo Xizhou, there was another Huo Liuxing and another Shen Lingzhen waiting for news from here.

She wanted to tell them that the south wind finally blew to Xizhou, and everything here was as beautifully and enduringly as they had wished.

“Good.” Huo Liuxing smiled and scraped her nose with his finger, suddenly thinking of something. He looked down and asked: “A hundred years from now, if we had another chance to return to the past, would you want to change anything this time?”

“No.” Shen Lingzhen answered without hesitation. “What about you?”

Huo Liuxing shook his head and held her tighter: “I wouldn’t either.”

Their years together were already so good, so good that there were no longer any regrets that needed looking back upon.

(End of Book)