It was Shen Ruoxi’s first time on a cable car like this. The feeling of height and open space made her both a little frightened and very excited. Looking down from above at the vast expanse of white stretching in all directions, it was as if she were gazing upon an enormous canvas painted in snow — unmarked, untouched, pure.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Xie Yan sat beside her, his gaze resting on the sweeping whiteness below. “Have you ever seen so much snow?”

“It’s like a snow mountain — though I’ve never actually seen one.” Shen Ruoxi was simply lost in the breathtaking view. “I imagine it must look something like this.”

“The winters in Xi Nan should be just as cold as in Bei Di. It must snow just as heavily there.”

Shen Ruoxi’s smile suddenly froze. She turned to look at Xie Yan. His face showed nothing in particular — he seemed to have simply said it in passing.

“That was a long time ago,” she said. “When I was little.”

“You said you used to ski on hillsides when you were a child,” Xie Yan said, looking directly at her. “Was that a lie?”

Shen Ruoxi met his gaze. Her eyes narrowed slightly, and just as she was about to offer an explanation, a great dark bank of clouds drifted in from the sky. Immediately after, snowflakes as big as goose feathers began spiraling down.

The resort staff had said it might snow again today, and here it came — rushing in all at once.

The snow grew heavier and heavier, and before long, the scenery around them blurred into a formless white. The two of them were still suspended in midair with nowhere to take shelter.

“Why is it coming down so heavily?” Shen Ruoxi shielded her face with one hand, but snowflakes kept landing on her in an endless stream.

Fortunately, the cable car had just reached the mountain peak.

“Xie Yan, let’s go back down — this weather is no good for skiing.” Snow had already piled up on Shen Ruoxi’s head and shoulders.

Xie Yan stepped off the cable car, then reached over and shook the signal bell mounted at the cable car stop.

This bell served as a means of communication between the top of the mountain and the bottom. If you shook it, it meant someone wanted to come down, and those below would answer with their own bell — at which point you could board the cable car.

But Xie Yan shook and shook the bell and received no response from below. He peered down the mountain, and all he could see was a curtain of white where the snow had swallowed the cable line whole.

“Is the bell broken?” Shen Ruoxi asked, growing anxious.

“Maybe.” Xie Yan gave up on the bell and turned to Shen Ruoxi. “Would you rather wait up here, or walk down?”

Shen Ruoxi looked at the snow that was only getting heavier. “Waiting here won’t solve anything. If the snow keeps getting worse and we never get a response, we can’t exactly spend the night on the mountain. The path down the mountain — do you know it?”

“I’ve never taken it. I always ride the cable car down.” He added, “But I know roughly where it is. We can try to find it. Take your skis with you.”

“All right.” Shen Ruoxi hoisted the skis onto her back and followed Xie Yan toward the footpath down the mountain.

The snow was falling heavier by the minute. The two of them pressed forward through the storm, and Shen Ruoxi walked behind, occasionally glancing at the figure ahead. Every time, she could only see his back. The footprints he left in the snow were swallowed up almost instantly by the accumulating white.

His strides were long and quick. Several times Shen Ruoxi nearly fell behind, but she stubbornly refused to ask him to slow down, instead gritting her teeth and pressing on with the heavy skis on her back until she caught up again.

And throughout, Xie Yan never once looked back.

Shen Ruoxi did not know how long they had been walking. When she truly could not go on, she finally gave out and sat down in the snow.

She watched Xie Yan grow further and further away, slowly disappearing into the white. She wanted to call out to him, but the words reached her lips and would not leave them.

She didn’t know what was wrong with Xie Yan, but she was certain he was hiding something from her. He was treating her the way this cable car had — rising steadily just days ago, then plunging straight down without warning.

Just as she watched him fade into the distance, that figure suddenly appeared again. Shen Ruoxi couldn’t help but break into a look of happy relief. “Xie Yan.”

Xie Yan walked back to her side and reached out a hand toward her. “It seems we’re lost.”

That was a terrible piece of news. In a heavy snowstorm, lost in the mountains — if they couldn’t find their way out, they were in danger of being buried alive in the snow.

Shen Ruoxi grabbed his hand and pulled herself upright. But she had been walking so long that her legs gave way at once and she pitched forward — landing squarely against his chest.

Xie Yan reached out and caught her, saying quietly, “Rest a moment.”

“It’s all right.” Shen Ruoxi shook her head. “Let’s find the path.”

The snow was getting heavier, and the way was growing ever harder to walk. While it was still manageable, they needed to find the route down.

Shen Ruoxi steadied herself against his chest and stood up, then rubbed her aching calves. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

Xie Yan gave her a long, significant look, then turned and headed forward.

The two pressed on through the snow — unable to see the way ahead, unable to tell direction, surrounded on all sides by swirling white. In weather like this, neither was in any mood to admire the scenery.

“There’s a sheltered spot up ahead. Let’s stop and rest for a bit first.” Seeing that Shen Ruoxi could barely keep going, Xie Yan pointed ahead of them.

Several enormous boulders stood there, with an open space between them. Protected from the wind, the space had collected surprisingly little snow.

Shen Ruoxi was completely worn out. She looked in the direction Xie Yan pointed, and her heart gave a small leap of relief. At a time like this, having even a single spot to sit down was a stroke of genuine fortune.

The two reached the rocks, and Shen Ruoxi quickly shrugged off her skis and her pack.

She had brought only a simple backpack, with a few crackers and a bottle of water she had intended to eat as lunch — which now seemed to have become a lifeline.

“Here.” Shen Ruoxi took out her water flask, unscrewed the cap, and handed it to Xie Yan. “Drink some water.”

Xie Yan was sitting on the other side of her. He glanced first at the aluminum flask, then at her. “I’m not thirsty. You drink.”

“Are you worried there won’t be enough?” Shen Ruoxi smiled. “Look at all this snow — if we need it, we can melt it for water. Here, drink.”

Xie Yan accepted without further argument.

The water still held a little warmth. It flowed from his mouth all the way down to his stomach, and the exhaustion in his body seemed to ease a little.

“Here.” Xie Yan finished the water and held out a cracker toward her. “Eat something — you need the energy to keep looking for the path.”

Shen Ruoxi pressed the cracker back into his hand. “Don’t worry. Even if we can’t find the way down, these crackers will last us several days. That’s more than enough time for rescuers to find us.”

“And if no one comes?”

“They would — the people at the bottom of the mountain should have seen that we went up. If they don’t see us come down, they’ll come looking for us.”

“You really are optimistic.” Xie Yan gave a short laugh. “It hasn’t occurred to you that we might be trapped up here and die?”

“Everyone dies eventually.” Shen Ruoxi said calmly. “It would just be a rather unfortunate way to go — after all, we came here to ski, and we didn’t even get to do that.”

She leaned back against the rock, looked up at the snowflakes swirling before her, and her gaze grew distant and faraway.

If she really did die like this, she would still feel some unwillingness, she thought.

“Wait here. I’m going to look for the path.” Xie Yan stood up. “Sitting and waiting isn’t going to help.”

“Then I’ll come with you.”

“Can you even walk?”

At that, Shen Ruoxi deflated. She truly could not walk anymore.

“But can you find your way back here?”

“These rocks are easy landmarks. I can find my way.”

“Then be careful.”

Xie Yan made a sound of acknowledgment and strode off.

But he hadn’t gone far before he couldn’t help himself and glanced back at her. She was watching him, and she waved her hand: “Be safe!”

The snowflakes swirled and drifted, gradually burying her figure from view. Xie Yan walked on and on, as though he would never stop.

“Mr. Xie.” Then a figure appeared in the snow — all in black, slight in build.

Xie Yan stopped. Snow had piled thick and heavy on him.

“Mr. Xie, let’s go down the mountain.” Ghost Hand surveyed the terrible weather with a glance. “The snow won’t let up anytime soon, and there are wild wolves in the mountains. Staying up here too long is dangerous.”

“There are wild wolves?”

“They come out to hunt in the snow. We can’t afford to be careless.”

“Understood.” Xie Yan stared in the direction he had come from. “A person left up here in these conditions — they would certainly die, wouldn’t they.”

“Nine chances out of ten.”

Ghost Hand, seeing the dark cloud on Xie Yan’s face, gathered his courage and said, “Miss Shen and we are on opposing sides. This was always going to happen sooner or later. Since Master has already made his decision, let Miss Shen leave it to fate.”

What Shen Ruoxi did not know was that the ski trip had been a pretense all along — leaving her stranded in the snow to perish was the real purpose.

Xie Yan had known about this heavy snowfall in advance. The cable car up and down the mountain had been shut down on his orders. He knew the path down perfectly well, and yet he had led her wandering aimlessly through the snow.

Because he had only one objective: to kill Shen Ruoxi. But he would not do it himself, and he would not send anyone else to do it directly. In the end, he had chosen this — to let nature take care of her.

The blizzard. The wolves. No one could survive a full night in these conditions.

And even if she somehow managed to survive the night, without rescue and without food in the days that followed, she would die.

This mountain would see no visitors for a week. What awaited her was not rescue — it was despair.

“Let’s go.” Xie Yan averted his gaze and took a decisive step forward.

—

Shen Ruoxi sat behind the rocks and waited. She waited so long that she was nearly falling asleep, and the sky had gradually begun to darken. But Xie Yan had still not come back.

She began to worry that he might have gotten lost, or that he had been attacked by a wild animal — she was almost certain she had just heard wolves howling.

If he was lost, he would have no food and no water. She didn’t know how long he could hold on.

But in circumstances like these, Shen Ruoxi didn’t dare leave her spot rashly. If Xie Yan came back and she had wandered off and gotten lost herself, what then?

Just as Shen Ruoxi was growing increasingly anxious, she saw something stir in the undergrowth not far away, and then a wolf with grey-black fur stepped out from the thicket.

The wolf had caught the scent of food. Its eyes locked onto Shen Ruoxi without wavering. In its mind, she had already become its next meal.

—