Cui Jingyu’s reflexes were quick — he did not give her the chance to collide into him, catching her before she could. It was Yanyan, it turned out. She had been throwing snowballs back and forth with Tao Li’er, and being caught by Cui Jingyu did not faze her in the least — she grinned and made a face at him.

“Watch out!” Tao Li’er threw another snowball at her, which Cui Jingyu caught instead.

“You’re still playing — they’re performing a grand opera in there,” Yanyan said disdainfully to Tao Li’er.

“What grand opera?” Tao Li’er was completely unintimidated and even leaned in to look.

“The peacock screen betrothal, and the tower meeting!” Yanyan announced — and immediately turned to run.

Both the peacock screen betrothal and the tower meeting were operas about lovers pledging their hearts — the very ones the ladies had just used to tease Wei Yushan. Yanyan had learned them quickly, but her legs were not quick enough, and she was immediately seized by Cui Jingyu, who grabbed her by the collar and hauled her back.

Marquis Cui’s expression darkened — and it was genuinely quite intimidating. Even Tao Li’er dared not make trouble anymore. She watched as Cui Jingyu, his face cold, scolded Yanyan: “Have you learned nothing good?”

“I was only telling the truth!” Yanyan had a thick hide — but when she saw his eyes narrow, as though he were truly angry, she immediately hugged her head and cried out: “Sister, save me!”

She had been standing on the veranda all along, of course. But unless it concerned her younger sisters, how could anyone draw her out?

Cui Jingyu stood in the snow, watching Ye Qinglan descend the steps as though summoned by Yanyan’s call, coming to play the role of rescuer.

With irritation still in his chest, and the Lu sisters still showing no sense whatsoever — not knowing to move away — he lifted Yanyan and walked outward. Now she was truly flustered, immediately hitching up her skirt and following, abandoning all pretense of ladylike composure. She followed Cui Jingyu out through the moon gate of the courtyard into the outer corridor.

Cui Jingyu still walked faster than anyone else while carrying Yanyan. She came hurrying after him, almost at a run to keep up, and had just reached the quiet, deserted stretch of corridor when he suddenly stopped. She could not stop in time and walked straight into his back.

Cui Jingyu caught hold of her — the same slender waist, even thinner than it had been four years ago. Yet she did not wait to steady herself before stepping back, preferring the ungainly option of grabbing the corridor pillar for support rather than prolonging contact with him.

“I apologize for the impropriety,” Qinglan said — naturally composed in all matters of decorum: “Would the Marquis please put my younger sister down? Children are mischievous and may say the wrong things — I ask the Marquis’s indulgence.”

Cui Jingyu’s expression immediately turned cold.

But before he could say a word, Yanyan cried out at once.

“I wasn’t wrong either. Sister — I saw him talking with Lu Wanyang.” Yanyan spoke with complete self-assurance: “The Lu sisters are bad people, always bullying Sister Qinglan — and yet you’re still talking to them. I’m not calling you brother-in-law anymore!”

Qinglan’s face immediately flushed red. Such loss of composure was rare for her, so that when she panicked it was more captivating than anything else — her face like rosy clouds, no rouge could match that color. She immediately pressed her lips together and scolded: “Yanyan — stop talking nonsense!”

For her, that was already the sternest rebuke. In any case, her two younger sisters were the dearest things to her heart — every person and every matter had to yield before them. Otherwise she would not have, after that one word of scolding, immediately pulled Yanyan behind her and said to Cui Jingyu by way of apology: “The child is foolish, and children say innocent things. I ask the Marquis not to take it to heart — I have no such intention.”

“Is that so?” Cui Jingyu heard his own voice ask, cold and flat.

He had been wounded on the battlefield to earn his marquisate, and no blade had ever wounded him the way that sentence of hers did.

She too had pressed her lips together. She always had that expression — as though she were the one holding the knife, and yet it was as if the blade had been plunged into her own body.

“The Marquis is currently unbound by any betrothal — a free man. Which young lady he speaks with, which young lady he becomes engaged to, is entirely the Marquis’s own affair,” Qinglan heard her own voice say, unhurried and even: “It has nothing to do with me.”

Yanyan was a child — only children liked playing in the snow. But those who played in the snow long enough knew that their hands would ache terribly, and only those who had suffered frostbitten hands knew that numbness and pain could coexist. That feeling was like one’s soul hovering above, watching everything from on high — aching, yet also calmly observing, as though watching someone else’s story. Love and hatred were things of the past.

She was not deaf. Standing on the veranda just now, she had heard everything that was meant to be heard. Had Lu Wanyang read the Annals of the Northern Frontier to find a topic of conversation with him? She too had once read every book there was on the northern frontier, so without needing to ask him, she already knew — great snowstorms sealing the mountain passes at the frontier was a terrible thing, like the great calamities in mythology, making every person feel so small, able only to endure the cold in whatever shelter could be found.

That great snowfall would never stop.

But it did not matter. She was Ye Qinglan — among the young ladies of the thirty-nine noble families in the capital who could host Flower Festival banquets, she was the most proper and rule-abiding. She had rehearsed every scenario, instinctively knew all the right answers, and nothing would catch her off guard.

Except for his refusal to let go.

Like right now — he did not accept her offer of a clean break, only saying coldly: “Is that so? Just now, that was not what Yanyan said.”

“Yanyan is a child and doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know that things in this world are not fixed and unchanging,” she said calmly. “But it doesn’t matter — I will teach her gradually. Children always need teaching to grow up. The Marquis will also guide Yushan well, will he not?”

She knew the rules of the capital better than anyone, and naturally also knew how to hide one meaning inside another. Cui Jingyu understood what she meant: Wei Yushan had once been unable to forget past events and had offended her, yet she had not pursued it. So why should he pursue what Yanyan had said?

“Miss Ye naturally considers this an offense,” Cui Jingyu said, his tone carrying a note of mockery. “After all, Miss Ye knows better than anyone what it means for the human heart to change in an instant. Yanyan need not look elsewhere to learn.”

When she was wounded, it looked like this — still that same downcast, composed expression, but her lashes trembled for an instant, and her lips pressed together. He had dreamed of this scene countless times in the northern frontier — perhaps as Marshal Wei said, war truly wears away a person’s character. There had been a time when he had wanted to give her every good thing in the world, yet what he was thinking of now was which words could cut her the deepest.

Han Yueqi’s mention of purple paulownia flowers, the moonlight cradled by mountain peaks, the white fox pelts he had hunted to make her a cloak — all forgotten. Just like that betrothal — it was an ancient city buried in the desert. That day, crossing the glacial river beneath Tianshan, the spring floods had broken open the tombs of ancient princes, and the burial jewels and white bones had been scattered across the riverbank. Ten thousand households beneath the heroes of the Hall of Smoke — was this all it amounted to?

What in this world could withstand time?

The future they had once promised each other was of course gone now. Purple paulownia flowers, moonlight cradled by mountains — none of it belonged to them anymore. All they had was this gossamer thread of a past, slipping through the fingers like sand.

So he wanted to wound her, to mock her — to watch that calm face reveal pain, to watch her still feel something for him, the rise and fall of her emotions still caused by him. As though she were still his Ye Qinglan, and he was still her Cui Jingyu — as though they were still those two unknowing young people who had made their vow beneath a mountain full of paulownia blossoms, ignorant of fate’s treacherous designs.

But she was, after all, Ye Qinglan.

After a brief moment of lost composure, she immediately returned to the image of the flawless and dignified eldest daughter.

“Things have changed now. The Marquis has clearly moved on — going so far as to resolve your marriage at the Flower Festival banquets. It would naturally be an imposition for us to continue entangling ourselves,” she said, her head lifted calmly, even the fingers holding Yanyan’s hand not trembling once. “Fortunately, I too have already forgotten the events of those years. I ask the Marquis to forget them as well. Let us each keep our own people in order.”

The look in Cui Jingyu’s eyes was beyond cold — in that instant it darkened like the sky when black clouds press down upon a city.

“Very well,” he said, even the line of his jaw clenched tight. “Very good.”

He said nothing more — or perhaps had no time to say it — because Lu Wenyin came eagerly seeking them out, having apparently thought up an excuse, even bringing several ladies with her. Though she did not know about Ye Qinglan and Cui Jingyu’s past, anything that reduced Cui Jingyu’s contact with other families’ young ladies was to her advantage. Lu Wenyin saw that they were only facing each other in the corridor, with Yanyan still between them, and assumed it truly was a matter of Yanyan having offended Cui Jingyu and Ye Qinglan defending her younger sister. She was just opening her mouth with a smile to say, “Marquis—”

Cui Jingyu gave Lu Wenyin no chance to deploy her social graces.

“I will be hosting an enfeoffment banquet at my residence, taking one slot in the Flower Festival banquets. I ask the ladies for their accommodation.” He said coldly, half his figure standing in darkness, still as handsome as a god.

The ladies were immediately overjoyed beyond measure. All along they had only dared to work on Wei Yushan, not daring to set their sights on Cui Jingyu. They feared that Cui Jingyu, being older, would be harder to manage, and besides he was cold-faced and cold-hearted, not the type who seemed willing to participate in all this capital merriment. From the plum blossom banquet until now, Cui Jingyu had not attended a single Flower Festival event, whereas Wei Yushan had come to several, indicating that the Wei family intended to arrange a marriage through the Flower Festival banquets. Cui Jingyu’s marquisate was higher and his prospects better, but the girl’s family had their own dignity to maintain — they feared they might not reach high enough and merely embarrass themselves, lose face, and perhaps the Emperor had his own plans for a betrothal arrangement. Now that he had walked willingly into the snare, how could the ladies not rejoice wildly?

Compared to the Duke of England’s family — impossibly high-ranking, with no certainty of even attending the Flower Festival banquets — Cui Jingyu was the top prize that anyone might have a chance at.

“Such wonderful news — let’s quickly go tell Her Highness the Grand Princess! Her Highness will certainly be even more delighted,” one quick-witted lady immediately said.

Lu Wenyin was naturally just as thrilled, and unconsciously looked back at Lu Wanyang behind her. Some ladies were busy rushing back to report the happy news to the Grand Princess, some were calculating which festival fell three days from now, and some came up to confirm details with Cui Jingyu. Lu Wenyin was the most enthusiastic, coming forward with a smile: “Three days from now is the Orchid Banquet — a most refined affair, perfectly suited for the Marquis to host a banquet…”

The ladies surrounded him on all sides, yet Cui Jingyu seemed to cast an inadvertent glance toward the corridor.

She had already gone — taking Yanyan with her, slipping away without anyone noticing when.

Retreating without a fight — that was indeed her style.

Cui Jingyu’s interest was spent. The ladies were still pressing him for a date, saying over and over: “It must be before the new year — otherwise we fear the Lantern Festival procession might be delayed, Marquis, don’t you think…” He only replied with absent disinterest: “I have my own plans.”