His body was very cold.

When Ni Su drew close to him, it was no different from taking a walk in the wind and snowy night outside. Yet she wasn’t afraid at all. Her hand passed over every scar on his body—some with blood scabs, some already faded pink scars.

She knew that whenever he received punishment, the execution by slicing he had endured in life would cause more wounds to crack open on his body. The body hidden beneath his robes would become drenched in blood.

He couldn’t see her, but she had always been watching him.

His coldness made Ni Su have an even deeper understanding of the warmth of her own flesh and blood body. She deliberately teased him, trying to melt solid ice with her palm.

The touch of cold and warmth not only made him unable to control himself, but also made her tremble.

Ni Su was a physician. In her youth, to identify acupoints and meridians, she had seen wooden figures of different genders. She studied gynecology and also knew that many women’s hidden ailments stemmed from after marriage—between the bedchamber, man and woman, yin and yang. As a physician, she was accustomed to treating matters between men and women with an absolutely calm attitude.

But the Little Presented Scholar General, only nineteen years old, who had held a brush and been to battlefields but never thought of romantic feelings between men and women, didn’t understand so well. He could only comply with her, unable to control himself as he embraced her, like when he studied in youth, hoping she would teach him.

The more he was like this,

The more Ni Su wanted to kiss him.

She could no longer calmly regard this matter. Stripping away her physician’s identity, she was a woman wanting to touch his heart—this arose from the origin of romantic love.

Each breath, each inhalation, seemed like an illusory dream.

In the dream was clean, bright sunlight illuminating a snowy mountain. Every inch the light touched, between mountains and wilderness the frost and snow were crystalline. The fusion of cold and warmth—inevitably the cold was melted by warmth. High mountain white snow, streams trickling.

When she came to herself again, the east was already white.

Ni Su’s entire person was wrapped in two layers of thick quilts. She was held in someone’s embrace. With the quilts as barrier, her body warmed up. She no longer sneezed, only her nose tip was a bit red.

On Xu Hexue’s body was still only that cinnabar red inner robe, collar loose. At this moment, the not-so-bright dawn light projected through the lattice window. His vision was blurred—he could only barely make out her black hair, several strands scattered, her neck fair and delicate.

“Ni A’xi.”

He called.

His slightly hoarse voice still retained a trace of desire not yet completely faded.

“Mm?”

Ni Su was drowsy.

“Can you turn around?”

He said, “I want to look at you.”

Almost the instant Ni Su heard these words, she became somewhat more awake. He would never say such words. She immediately turned around to look at him.

Clear, pale light fell, making his robe’s red seem even more intense, while his shoulders and neck were cold and white, lashes thick and dense.

“Can you see clearly?”

She asked.

Actually he couldn’t see very clearly, but Xu Hexue didn’t speak. He only extended his finger tentatively, gently touching her brow bone, her eyelids.

Warm sensation pressed against his fingertip. He touched and immediately stopped.

“If I had known about today, back then I definitely would have filled that chest.” He suddenly said.

That was merely childish behavior from youth. What was hidden inside was nothing more than New Year money given by family elders, plus some small trinkets made of gold and jade prepared for him by his sister-in-law.

And his most beloved inkstone at that time, his most beloved wolf-hair brush, and some poems with childish wording.

“Were you afraid I couldn’t open it, so you even pried off the lock?”

Ni Su’s forehead pressed against his chest, her voice carrying laughter.

“…Mm.”

Xu Hexue responded.

The key to that lock—he had long forgotten where he’d lost it.

“What’s there is already very good.”

Ni Su’s voice was wrapped in thick drowsiness.

Her breathing became even. Her eyes closed. She quickly fell into deep sleep in his embrace. The room was utterly silent. Xu Hexue quietly watched her.

The sky grew brighter and brighter. His vision became clearer and clearer.

She was wrapped in thick quilts, undisturbed by the cold on his body. Her cheeks flushed pink, sleeping very peacefully.

Someone swept snow in the courtyard. Hearing this sound, Xu Hexue carefully rose and sat at the bed’s edge, very lightly arranging his robes, tidying his hair knot.

In winter, Qingqiong slept less. To let his excessively stiff and cold body warm up somewhat, he learned from Ni Su to boil water with mugwort leaves, first soaking his feet, then rising to sweep snow.

The “creak” of a door opening sounded. Qingqiong immediately straightened and looked toward the covered corridor across the way. Xu Hexue wore only the cinnabar red robe. His thin sleeves were lifted by the early morning cold wind. His wrists were pure white, the backs of his hands showing distinct bones and sinews.

“General Xu.”

Qingqiong’s face showed a smile.

His features were slow to react. His smile was stiff, yet still revealed several traces of unusual meaning. Xu Hexue’s eyes were pale and clear, still that face cold as ice and frost. He made an “mm” sound.

The stove in the kitchen was lit by Qingqiong. He sat by the stove adding firewood while warming himself by the fire, craning his neck to watch the porridge cooking in the pot. Then seeing Xu Hexue place an earthen jar on another stove, he couldn’t help but ask: “General Xu, what’s in that?”

“Ginger tea.”

Xu Hexue answered mildly.

“Oh…” Qingqiong nodded. He watched Xu Hexue’s back for a while longer. “My father said when he and Mother married, it was like that—no one else present, only the two of them, but that was also not bad.”

Xu Hexue turned his face.

“I cut a double-happiness character for you both. Though I cut it poorly, it adds some color.” Qingqiong looked at him. “General Xu, did you see it?”

“I saw it.”

Xu Hexue nodded and poured him a bowl of ginger tea. “Thank you.”

Qingqiong accepted the ginger tea, drinking in small sips. His body warmed considerably. His words also increased. He began telling Xu Hexue on his own about things in Yongzhou after he became a small light ball.

Xu Hexue listened quietly.

Listening to him say Ni Su held that ball of light back from the reed flowers. Listening to him say Ni Su hid in the felt tent crying. Listening to him say Ni Su beat Tan Guangwen in the prefect’s mansion.

Listening to him say—

Before the two clan chiefs of Yongzhou and even the common people, Ni Su openly and honorably mentioned the name “Xu Hexue.”

She collected his broken spear. Like his teacher, she wiped clean his posthumous reputation.

“But Tan Guangwen died without revealing the truth.”

Qingqiong’s voice became very downcast.

“Whether he speaks or not doesn’t matter.”

“Why?”

Qingqiong didn’t understand.

“Because from bottom to top, too many people hope he won’t open his mouth.”

Qingqiong held his ginger tea. The furnace fire burned crimson red. Occasionally a pale sheet of firelight reflected on Xu Hexue’s pale cheek. Qingqiong looked at him, his throat tightening. “General Xu… could it be that even if the truth is investigated clearly, there’s still no way to return your innocence? I don’t understand—what kind of reasoning is this?”

Xu Hexue stirred the charcoal fire. “The two words ‘reasoning’—only those who know it and practice it will feel it’s important.”

“But…”

Qingqiong’s voice paused for a moment. The furnace fire crackled. Outside the door, the pure white snowflakes were blown by the fierce wind to fall slantwise. His face was full of confusion. “Is there truly no solution?”

“There is.”

Xu Hexue nodded.

Actually, since returning to the mortal realm, Xu Hexue had never held hope for washing clean his posthumous reputation. The thirty thousand heroic souls in the Nether Capital’s treasure pagoda were the meaning of his existence here as a remnant soul.

Personal life and death, posthumous reputation—he could do without all of it.

But he absolutely couldn’t watch helplessly as those soldiers who in life used their flesh and blood to protect him were forever transformed into malevolent energy, never able to be reborn.

He was their general.

Even if body and soul were destroyed, he still had to shoulder responsibility for their next lives.

“Really? What method?”

Qingqiong’s thick black pupils brightened. He hurriedly pressed the question.

However, very light footsteps sounded on the covered corridor. Xu Hexue and Qingqiong almost simultaneously turned their heads. Ni Su had only used a single white jade hairpin to bind her hair. She was properly dressed. Snow grains swept by wind brushed the hem of her dress.

Qingqiong tended the fire in the kitchen. Ni Su held ginger tea, sitting in the covered corridor. Xu Hexue wrapped her in a cloak and said: “Go to the kitchen—it’s warmer there.”

Ni Su shook her head. “I’ll sit here. The wind makes my mind clearer.”

“I plan to enter the palace shortly.”

Hearing this, Xu Hexue was stunned.

“You don’t yet know—Prince Jia and his wife have been placed under house arrest by the emperor. From what you said, Prince Jia didn’t have it easy in the palace in childhood. Now that the Imperial Noble Consort is with child, it’s equivalent to what he experienced in childhood repeating itself.” Ni Su’s hands pressed against the bowl’s sides. Her palms warmed considerably. She looked at the profile of the person beside her. “I received the emperor’s grace and can enter and exit the Imperial Medical Bureau. Xu Ziling, if possible, I want to take you to see him.”

“I know the path you must walk. You’re the general the thirty thousand Jing’an Army supported and trusted. I can’t stop you.” Ni Su smiled at him. “But I also know Prince Jia is your close friend. He’s also very important to you. The emperor doesn’t like him. The Imperial Noble Consort views him as a thorn in her eye. I also don’t know about those court matters, nor do I know how many more people are hoping for his death. Since we still have time now, let’s first save him, all right?”

Xu Hexue looked at her, his Adam’s apple moving slightly. “I…”

“I chose you as my husband and will absolutely never regret it.”

Ni Su extended her hand to flick his lashes. “Could it be you want to regret it?”

In Xu Hexue’s cold, pale eyes, ripples faintly spread. Last night’s events—he had been guided by her, but also his feelings couldn’t help themselves. He pulled Ni Su into his embrace, his chin resting on her shoulder.

After a long while: “No regrets.”

He held her tightly. “Ni A’xi, I have no regrets.”

In this world, why would there be such a good woman as her? So good that with his remnant soul body, he still always hoped—how good it would be if he had a flesh and blood body.

He had warned himself they were different. He couldn’t taste sweetness, didn’t have the temperature a normal person possessed, and couldn’t walk openly and honorably with her on Yunjing’s streets… Yet she always so gently and silently used her own methods to resolve the differences between them.

“However many days we can be husband and wife, we’ll be husband and wife for that many days.”

Ni Su embraced him back, speaking to him gently and calmly. “But Xu Ziling, I don’t want to give up. I still want to do something—for you, and also for the Jing’an Army.”

“Even when you’re gone, for this lifetime, I don’t want to give up.”