In truth, Ye Lingbo had said even more than that — she had gone so far as to tell Cui Jingyu to step aside and relinquish his place, to stop occupying a position while blocking others from coming forward. The capital was full of young noblemen, and surely there was someone who could make Qinglan happy and give her a complete, fulfilled life.

But Cui Jingyu had not repeated those words, so Qinglan did not know them. Because even what little he had shared was enough to throw her into a panic.

“I don’t know anything about any ‘spots’ or ‘places.’ Stop talking nonsense.” She even gave herself away without meaning to: “Lingbo will say anything to mend a red thread…”

She had spent twenty-four years as a well-bred young lady of a noble household, moving always within the bounds of propriety, and so even now, her impulses carried that habitual slowness. Even her fleeing was almost laughable — though she had learned the trick of speaking only half a sentence before bolting, Cui Jingyu still caught her with ease, trapping her between himself and the tree.

The courtyard was dim. Behind him, the vast expanse of snow-light glowed, making his eyes all the darker — and yet from within that deep darkness, a thread of light pierced through, like the flicker of flame.

His eyes held a fire that could sweep across plains, as though it meant to burn everything between heaven and earth to cinders.

It was no wonder Qinglan wanted to flee. This Cui Jingyu was genuinely unsettling — something about him made one want to run from pure instinct, no matter what he was about to say.

“It doesn’t matter if you pretend not to understand,” Cui Jingyu said, bracing his arm against the tree beside her, pinning her in place, his eyes meeting hers. “I’ll explain it to you myself.”

“Lingbo said I owe you a complete and fulfilled life — that I should give you something no one else can give you, the way Pei Zhao did for her. But as I listened, something felt wrong. I could never quite put my finger on what it was, not until today, when I heard Dai Yuquan’s proposal through the wall of the carriage. Only then did I finally understand.”

Qinglan instinctively turned her face away, but he caught her chin and forced her to look at him.

This was her Cui Jingyu — and yet he was not the man he had been four years ago. Four years of war had changed him. But what had changed him most profoundly, what made him most unlike his former self, was that message Qinglan had sent breaking off their engagement — like a blade of ice driven through his chest. Only now, four years later, was it beginning to thaw, just a little.

In this moment, looking into her eyes, he gave words to everything she could never quite say herself.

“It is not I who owe you a fulfilled life,” he said. “It is you who owe me.”

“You owe me four years.”

Qinglan’s tears came at once, falling onto the back of his hand. So many times before, a single tear from her had softened him — he would gently let things go, his face cold as ice yet inwardly doing nothing at all, which was precisely how they had missed so many springs together, dragging things out until now.

But today, he did not move.

“I always thought I was angry about the broken engagement. But feelings rise and fall — that is simply the nature of things, and so I had no right to be angry about it. Only today have I finally understood.” He held her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. “As it turns out, you did not owe me a marriage. What you owed me was a feeling.”

“What I wanted was never the marriage. I only wanted you. I wanted you to tell me, four years ago, that you still cared for me — the way I cared for you. Tonghua Ferry was real. The moon-worshipping ceremony was real. Your feelings for me were real. Even the broken engagement would not have mattered, if only you had told me you still cared. But you did not.”

“Three years ago, there was a battle at Yulong Pass. I was buried under the snow. The weight of it pressed down on me, and all my strength was spent — I knew I was going to die. But in that moment, my thoughts were not of the war. I was thinking of what you might be doing just then. I could not understand it. If you had truly once cared for me, why did you have no regard at all for whether you might break my heart?”

The human heart is a mysterious thing. They had both been out of each other’s sight for four years — and yet being loved and not being loved were as different as night and day, worlds apart. He had been like a wounded wolf, wandering alone through the northern frontier. The Western Rong commanders he had cut down in battle would never have guessed that the man they called the Divine General — the Cui Jingyu who had taken their heads — was himself nothing more than a wretched soul with no home to return to.

When she cried, it always made one’s heart soften in this particular way — her tears fell in drops, her body trembling faintly with the effort. Four years ago, the old Cui Jingyu would have yielded in an instant. But not the Cui Jingyu of today.

He had climbed the highest mountains, crossed the coldest rivers, and fought the most brutal battles. He knew, therefore, how to bring them both through this war alive — and how to reach the fulfilled ending that Ye Lingbo had spoken of.

“I’m sorry.” Qinglan wept and apologized.

He did not accept it.

“You have no need to apologize. There was a time when I didn’t understand this, and I was angry about it. But the day in the wisteria grove, it suddenly came clear to me—” His gaze was perfectly calm. “I had only ever resented you for placing Ye Lingbo before me, for sacrificing what we had for her sake. But I had failed to see that behind me, there was someone else you had placed even further back.”

He spoke, calmly, the deepest knot that had tangled between them all this time.

He said: “You placed yourself behind everyone.”

And that was why he had wavered so many times — struggling, suffering. Because even as she wounded him, he could see no benefit she gained from it. She was even more wretched than he was, even softer, even more tormented.

He had not understood why she kept pulling away. If she still cared for him, why was it that throughout all their encounters since her return to the capital, he could feel not the slightest wish from her to reconcile? She always evaded, always retreated, always watching him from beyond the crowd with those gaze-softening eyes — tender and sorrowful — and when he finally lost control of himself and walked toward her, she would slip away again. She had even wept to make her escape.

That day in the wisteria grove, he had finally solved the riddle.

She could sacrifice their love for Ye Lingbo’s sake. And naturally, she could also sacrifice herself for his sake — for the sake of Cui Jingyu.

So there was nothing to accuse her of, nothing to hold her accountable for, no settling of scores from four years ago. But neither could he bring her back to his side, because she would not allow it.

She saw through her own weakness. She knew she was still that same Ye Qinglan who would sacrifice herself for her younger sister — and so she was unwilling even to become his wife, lest she drag him down into the same mire. The blow she had dealt him four years ago had been struck without hesitation, and yet the guilt of it had been crushing her ever since.

In the future she had imagined for herself, Cui Jingyu was not beside her.

This was why she was so defeated — like a stone figure swallowed by overgrown weeds. Even with her being the one in the wrong, she would not take a single step toward him. Instead, she had been retreating from him, step by step.

And now, with him having laid bare every corner of her heart, all she could do was struggle uselessly, offering pale excuses: “It isn’t like that. There’s no order of priority, no one placed before or after anyone…”

To argue with her would only send them spiraling into yet another round of evasion. But fortunately, Cui Jingyu was not a man who argued.

He only smiled.

“Is that so? It doesn’t matter anymore.” He announced it calmly. “I worked it all out long ago. Those strange, self-sacrificing ideas of yours — that labyrinthine way you have of tangling yourself up in your own thinking — none of it matters anymore. Waiting for you to agree would take a lifetime. Let me find an ending for the two of us instead.”

In a sense, Ye Lingbo had actually awakened something in him as well. What was the use of mending a red thread? A severed thread was troublesome enough to find the ends of — it was better to begin again entirely, and this time to bind them together with iron chains — no, with something even stronger than that. What could possibly stand in the way of their fulfillment then?

Qinglan did not understand for a moment what he was saying, and looked at him with startled confusion.

And then he smiled.

“The day of the tiger hunt, when His Majesty asked what reward I wished for — it was not truly about the hunt. The Western Rong have been defeated, but their ambitions remain. He needs a lord to take up permanent residence in the northern frontier. He was asking me: what would it take for me to accept that charge?” He told her calmly. “And I have already decided what to ask of him.”

Only then did Qinglan understand his meaning, and she forgot entirely to cry — she was too frightened.

“Don’t be foolish,” she told him, with utmost earnestness, looking him in the eyes just as she had years ago. “It isn’t worth it.”

Cui Jingyu only smiled.

“Qinglan,” he called her name with equal seriousness. The night behind him was dark and vast, but his gaze was deeper than the darkness itself. “Whether it is worth it or not is not for you to decide.”

Qinglan’s heart plummeted. She caught hold of his hand, still trying to speak, when he said: “I have let you decide for the past four years, and those four years have brought us to where we stand today. So this time, let me be the one to decide.”

“You can’t.” She shook her head at once and implored him. “It truly isn’t worth it. His Majesty is cold-hearted by nature — those who hold great border territories rarely come to good ends…”

But Cui Jingyu was utterly immovable.

“I will petition His Majesty to grant us a royal bestowal of marriage.” He told her with perfect calm. “You don’t need to make any effort. You don’t need to change anything. You don’t even need to say yes. This time, let me be the one to decide our ending.”

For the first time, Qinglan was truly at a complete loss.

She could not even think of propriety or decorum. She reached out and grabbed hold of Cui Jingyu’s sleeve — half afraid he would leave, half afraid he would act on impulse — and clung to his arm, pleading earnestly: “It need not come to this, Jingyu…”

“Were you not determined to take holy vows rather than marry me?” He even stepped backward, so that Qinglan anxiously followed, and he asked: “Were you not willing to marry Dai Yuquan before you would marry me?”

He was a military man. If he truly meant to leave, Qinglan could never have caught him — but in her panic she had forgotten this, and knowing only that he was about to go, she hurried to seize his hand and explained in earnest: “I was never going to marry Dai Yuquan. Truly. The letter I sent him was to arrange for him to come to my home tomorrow so I could make things clear.”

“Make things clear? Or perhaps to give him your answer?” Cui Jingyu remained unconvinced.

Qinglan grew so desperate she nearly swore an oath.

“I mean it,” she said, straining to hold onto his arm as she went after him. “When have I ever lied to you?”

“Was breaking off our engagement not a lie?” Cui Jingyu responded quickly. Seeing her falter, he pressed on: “You say you’re going to make things clear to him, but what is it you intend to say? You’ve already set the date — surely you haven’t gone without preparing your words?”

“I have prepared them.” Qinglan hesitated for only a moment, and Cui Jingyu immediately turned to leave. She had no time to think, and so she said: “I only meant to tell him that, while it is natural for feelings to come and go, one cannot reduce marriage to a mere transaction on that account. One life is all we are given, and it ought to be lived with the person one truly cares for. Though Lord Dai regards me as a close and trusted friend, we differ on this particular point. It may sound impractical, but in my heart, I do believe a person can truly love only one person in a lifetime. ‘Having crossed the great sea, no other waters can compare…'”

“And if he were to ask you who that person is?” Cui Jingyu interrupted, with the manner of an interrogation.

Qinglan hesitated.

“Just as I thought — you were making it up as you went.”

Lord Cui made to leave at once, but Qinglan caught him by the arm.

The young lady once known throughout the capital as the most well-mannered and proper of all the noble families — here, now, in this empty courtyard at night, driven to the edge by his darkest threat, she was finally pushed into utterance: a voice thin as a midge’s hum.

“It is you.”

Fortunately, Lord Cui had always had sharp hearing, and caught it perfectly. The face that had been cold as frost broke at once into a smile.

Qinglan had perhaps not seen him smile for many years. She had forgotten — it was still the same as four years ago. Like the sunrise, radiant and dazzling.

The realization hit her all at once.

“You tricked me.” She stared at him in shock, still not fully comprehending the depths of human cunning. “You were toying with me on purpose…”

Now it was her turn to try to leave — but fortunately Lord Cui was quick with his hands, seizing her by the arm and pulling her back.

“It wasn’t toying with you, and it wasn’t a trick,” he told her earnestly. “I said it before — counting on Qinglan to make a decision is hopeless. I will find the ending for the two of us.”

Qinglan still had not fully recovered from the fact that she had been so thoroughly manipulated.

“How could you deliberately frighten me like that — and with something so dangerous, no less…”

“I was not deliberately frightening you.” Cui Jingyu looked at her with complete candor. “If Qinglan had not agreed, I would truly have gone to petition His Majesty for an imperial decree of marriage tomorrow.”

He was taller than her; when he looked down at her, his gaze was calm and at the same time feverish. Qinglan understood immediately that he was not joking.

He said: “Whether it is a mistake, whether it is not worth it, whether it is a plunge into the abyss — I want to be with Qinglan again. No more weighing things up. There is no question of worthiness or unworthiness. Whether you are the one in the wrong or I am the one in the wrong, we have already wasted four years. I do not want to miss any more good times.”

Qinglan felt, for the first time in a long while, that familiar weakness.

It was always like this. No matter how sound the reasoning, no matter how clear the plan — when she stood before him, a few words from him were enough to reduce her to complete mush. It had been the same the day she sent the message ending their engagement. She had known she could not go through with it herself, and so she had asked Han Yueqi to deliver it on her behalf.

He could not understand why she could never say things plainly. But in truth, there was no explaining it. Perhaps whenever she stood before him, she made decisions she herself could not agree with.

This was why, that day, the moment she looked at Lingbo, she understood everything.

There was nothing that needed to be said. She only needed to send Lingbo away — to send her to Pei Zhao’s side. Because the moment one stood beside him, looking into his eyes, even the most steadfast resolve would melt like ice, flowing away like a river in spring, eastward and onward.

“It won’t work.” She was still resisting in vain, trying to gather all the scattered fragments of her reasons: “What if something happens again, and I abandon you once more — or would you want me to become a different person for your sake…”

That one blow, four years ago, had changed not only him but her as well. Only because she had always been so careful, so measured in her conduct, no one had noticed how much more fearful she had become, how much more pessimistic — how close she had come to seeing shadows in every corner.

She had kept watch over Wutong Courtyard as the eldest sister and surrogate mother for far too long. The weight of that responsibility had pressed into her shoulders until it had grown into her very flesh and blood, becoming a part of her. So much so that today, with her younger sister already the wife of a duke, she was still bracing herself for a greater storm to come.

But this was his Ye Qinglan. To want her was to want all of her — not only the moon over Tonghua Ferry, not only the little crossing, but also this panic, this fear, and the evasions that lay ahead. Even though those evasions had broken his heart for a full four years.

Cui Jingyu took hold of her hand and forced her to look into his eyes.

“It doesn’t matter.” The always-proud Cui Jingyu finally spoke those words with calm composure. “It doesn’t matter if you put Ye Lingbo before me. I know you have done your best. You place yourself behind everyone — and if I am to be your husband, I will naturally stand beside you in that place. It doesn’t matter.”

He even used this very thing to win her over. He needed only to make her believe that if she kept resisting, Cui Jingyu would destroy himself to have her.

And so she opened the gates of the city and allowed him to take whatever he wished.

It doesn’t matter — the hardest time has already passed. As Ye Lingbo had said, they would all go: Lingbo would have Pei Zhao, and Yanyan would have her own life to live. In the end, there would be only one left here. And that one would belong entirely to him — Ye Qinglan, completely and utterly his.

The moment Qinglan understood what he was saying, something in her eyes nearly shattered.

She knew what she had driven him to.

And he was the one she loved.

“But you are Cui Jingyu…” Her tears fell at once — burning, pearl-like tears. They had always been for him. They always would be.

Dai Yuquan believed himself to be her kindred spirit, speaking of how they both placed duty above all else. He had never witnessed what true duty looked like. How much weight could a man in this world truly carry? He did not know the quiet torments of the inner household. He did not know what Qinglan had been driven to.

She could not lay down the responsibility she bore for her sister, and yet she could not accept the truth that she had made the Cui Jingyu she loved willing to be placed last of all. These two contradictory things had nearly torn her apart — only because she had always maintained such outward calm did no one see the collapse hidden beneath that stillness.

But it didn’t matter, because he was here.

“Yes, I am Cui Jingyu.” He cradled her face in his hands. “And so I am strong. I have been wounded, but nothing can kill me — and when I return, I am stronger than before. It is so on the battlefield, and it is so in matters of the heart. I do not care where I am placed. As long as you are still here, as long as you still belong to me.”

He was the finest of generals. He had never cared about the loss of a single city, a single pass. Whether he was placed first or last — as long as she was still Ye Qinglan, the only Ye Qinglan in the world, for better or worse — that was enough.

To wed Ye Qinglan, to be her husband, to walk beside her through the long mornings and evenings of the years to come — that was winning the war.

Everything else was merely incidental.

And Ye Qinglan, in that moment, had nothing left to say. She could only be his captive, quietly. Her beautiful eyes looked at him — still with guilt in them, perhaps still with sorrow — but it didn’t matter. When Cui Jingyu lowered his head and kissed her, she could only reach up weakly and take hold of his hand, held fast in his embrace.

The snow and wind, which had raged across the sky, finally ceased. The night was still long, just as their lives were still long. This wutong tree may have been frostbitten, but there were so many more wutong trees on the mountainside — just as Qinglan, in this moment, may still have carried her uncertainties. But it didn’t matter. They had an entire lifetime ahead to prove the truth of this answer.

“Come with me.” Cui Jingyu told her in the darkness — speaking to the woman he had loved since four years ago, just as she had loved him then too.

He said: “Let us go back to Tonghua Ferry together.”