Before Shengjing’s Jingde Gate, the city inside and out was decorated with lanterns and colored streamers.

At the city gate boulevard, east and west corner towers, and various palace temples, scaffolds were erected with lanterns. The imperial avenue was crowded with surging masses, with performers from various music halls displaying “miraculous skills and abilities, songs and dances and hundred entertainments.”

Lu Tong walked with Du Changqing’s group on the imperial avenue beneath Jingde Gate. Seeing such lively scenes for the first time, Yin Zheng couldn’t help but exclaim: “This truly is Shengjing!”

Sunan City also loved viewing lanterns on the fifteenth of the first month, but their lantern festival was far from matching the prosperity here. Various lantern mountains dazzled the eyes—flower lanterns shaped like different immortals, riding clouds and mist hidden above colored pavilions, or enormous lotus lanterns solemn and dignified, with huge Buddha statues sitting smiling among the lantern mountains, overlooking the bustling traffic in the city.

A’Cheng pointed to a massive golden dragon formed by tens of thousands of lanterns and candles ahead: “Look there!”

The giant dragon was magnificent, its body winding and coiled along the riverbank. Its two eyes were bright and piercing, its scales actually embroidered with silver thread. From afar, the entire dragon looked as if it might leap from the water surface at any moment and soar into the clouds.

Du Changqing glanced at Lu Tong walking beside him, his tone containing hidden pride: “How about it, Doctor Lu? This trip wasn’t wasted, was it?”

Lu Tong lowered her head and smiled.

Shengjing’s lantern festival was extremely beautiful, much livelier than Sunan’s. Not to mention Changwu County. Not far away, someone was performing magic tricks—dozens of people held up a wooden boat, covered it with only a black cloth, and in an instant it vanished before the crowd.

Yin Zheng exclaimed “Wow!” and squeezed to the front to watch, amazed.

Others were performing “rope walking.” On a suspended rope, an artisan wearing a red headband held a balance pole, carefully walking across slowly, making the spectators hold their breath in suspense.

Miao Liangfang had little interest in such performances, but was attracted by the five-colored water spitters by the roadside. Those people would take a mouthful of water, tilt their necks back for a moment, then “poof” spit it out as blue water. They’d take another mouthful, tilt their necks back for a few breaths, and spit out red water. And so on—black, white, yellow…

After watching for a while, Miao Liangfang finally saw through the trick and commented shamelessly in front of the audience: “They have duliang incense in their mouths. Let me see, there should also be qiulong incense, aconite incense, benzoin incense… otherwise why would their sleeves be made so wide? Isn’t it just convenient for swallowing medicine pills while drinking water…”

Before he finished speaking, the performer spitting five-colored water glared at him angrily.

They had now reached a vendor selling tangyuan dumplings, where customers were already waiting. An iron pot bubbled with water, white dumplings floating and sinking like swollen pearls, giving off a fragrant aroma.

A’Cheng looked hungry and asked Du Changqing for some coins to squeeze in and buy some.

Du Changqing instructed him: “Go slowly, don’t get lost in the crowd. Buy two bowls for Doctor Lu and Miss Yin Zheng too,” while turning to Lu Tong: “This stuff isn’t particularly tasty, just try some… Doctor Lu?”

The space before him was empty—there was no sign of Lu Tong.

When Lu Tong realized she had gotten separated from Du Changqing and the others, she had already walked quite a distance from where they were.

The long street tonight was truly crowded with people coming and going, spectators packed like a wall. Being pushed and shoved forward by the crowd, she quickly lost sight of the people beside her.

She stood in place for a moment, but Du Changqing and the others didn’t appear. After thinking, she turned around and continued walking forward.

Tonight Jingde Gate had guards patrolling and standing watch, so there wouldn’t be much danger. Small shadow puppet theater booths were also set up at various ward entrances to prevent local visitors and children from getting lost. If Du Changqing and the others discovered she was missing and couldn’t find her immediately, they should go to the theater booths ahead to wait for her.

So Lu Tong didn’t turn back, following the flow of people slowly forward.

The night deepened, the lantern colors grew brighter, and the crowds larger.

Every few dozen steps she encountered vendors with food stalls selling quail bone soup, white sausages, crystal minced meat, freshly roasted chestnuts, salted bean soup, and such. Others were performing medicine puppet shows—the puppet figures were made exactly like real people, with magnificent clothing, spinning and moving under exploding firecrackers, more beautiful than ordinary fireworks.

Lu Tong slowly walked through the crowd. Amid the noisy laughter and chatter, rippling musical sounds drifted over—entertainers from the music halls playing the xiqin, and perhaps the sounds of flutes and pipes.

Something floated overhead.

Lu Tong looked up and couldn’t help but pause.

In the distant Guangji River, tens of thousands of lotus river lanterns floated densely, while above the river surface in the night sky, tens of thousands of glowing lanterns floated. At a glance, the night sky was as bright as day, brilliant colors competing in splendor, misty and radiant.

Many people still stood by the riverbank, holding bamboo poles with lanterns, sending those lanterns up into the sky above the river surface.

They were… releasing floating lanterns?

Lu Tong stared at the distant scene in a daze, her gaze momentarily confused.

She loved lanterns very much, all kinds of lanterns.

In childhood, her personality wasn’t as calm as Lu Rou’s—she loved excitement and novelty. Father often said that among the three Lu children, she was the most rebellious, the smallest in stature but the most restless in temperament.

She loved crowded places, loved all kinds of festivals. Every year on the fifteenth of the first month during lantern night, she would always pester her parents to take her up the mountain to release floating lanterns.

Changwu County was a small place after all, with few people, and the variety of flower lanterns couldn’t match Shengjing’s prosperity. Even at its liveliest, it couldn’t compare to the amazing spectacle of Jingde Gate’s current lantern festival.

To make her lanterns different from others, Lu Tong would always beg her mother to personally make floating lanterns for her.

Mother was skillful—the floating lanterns she made always earned envious and jealous looks from companions when brought out. Rabbit-shaped ones, carp-shaped ones, white elephant-shaped ones, flower basket-shaped ones. Once she begged mother to make a toad lantern. The toad was made so realistically it was somewhat ugly. Lu Qian called it an “ugly toad,” but Lu Tong herself loved it very much and was reluctant to part with it when releasing lanterns.

Later she was taken back to Plum Drop Peak by Yunniang.

Yunniang was good to her—Lu Tong could freely read her medical texts, poison classics, and pharmaceutical theories. She would also occasionally make Lu Tong pastries and buy new clothes.

Yunniang was also not so good to her—she was Yunniang’s tool for testing medicines, struggling through life-and-death situations several times entirely on her own. Yunniang also poisoned her, ensuring she could never leave Plum Drop Peak.

When Yunniang wasn’t making new medicines, she would go down the mountain. Sometimes Lu Tong hoped she would never come back, so these torturous days would end abruptly. But sometimes Lu Tong hoped Yunniang could stay on the mountain with her, even if it meant becoming a tool for testing medicines—

Like New Year’s Eve, like New Year’s Day, like the lantern evening of the fifteenth of the first month.

However, Yunniang had never returned during such times.

In the seven years on Plum Drop Peak, she had always spent New Year alone, her birthday alone, and welcomed the lantern evening of the fifteenth of the first month alone.

The Liang Dynasty had always had the tradition of viewing lanterns on the fifteenth of the first month. On this day in Sunan, people would also set up pavilions with colored decorations in the city and release floating lanterns by the river. Those bright floating lanterns would slowly float up into the sky from the foot of the mountain, but Sunan’s winds would push them toward Plum Drop Peak.

Every year at this time, Lu Tong would stand at the peak of Plum Drop Peak and look down, watching those earthly stars slowly drift up to the mountain.

That was the only place where she could approach the atmosphere of human life.

She would watch for a very long time from the mountaintop, telling herself: “One more year, one more year and I’ll be able to come down the mountain.”

Until those stars changed from bright to dim, until they were extinguished, until looking down from the mountaintop, the scattered glowing lights gradually dissolved into nothingness in the night, the excitement faded away, and darkness gradually invaded from all directions.

She would return to the grass hut where no one else was present. Only the flower garland she had woven from wild flowers lay blown to the ground by the wind, reminding her that today was originally a grand human festival.

Lu Tong sat up and walked to the small table to light the oil lamp.

In the bronze oil lamp, a small wick flickered, creating gentle ripples in the lamp oil.

Year after year, night after night. Only the rusty bronze lamp kept her company.

The young girl stirred the wick once, and flower-like flames burst from the center, spitting fire and generating light.

When a lamp wick blooms like a flower, it’s considered a good omen.

She stared at that oil lamp for a long time, finally saying to herself in her heart:

Next year… next year I’ll definitely be able to come down the mountain.

The flowers on Plum Drop Peak bloomed and withered, floating clouds gathered and scattered as usual, spring days with orioles returning to treetops, summer nights with cool moon filling the mountain, autumn night rain, winter snow mornings… moon waning and waxing, she repeated the same days.

Another year passed.

On the dark and cold mountain, with no one around, she guarded that small lonely lamp, her eyes slowly reddening.

“Father, Mother, Sister, Second Brother,” she sobbed, her choking scattered in the wind, “I want… I want to go home.”

“Boom—” came a sound of fire-spitters by the river performing.

Blue flames bloomed like a great flower, causing exclamations from the surrounding crowd. Those flickering sparks fell into the river water, mixing with countless flowing floating lanterns, like the Milky Way pouring down from heaven.

“Father, quick, lift me higher! I can’t see!”

The speaker was a five or six-year-old boy sitting on his father’s shoulders among the crowd watching the performers, holding roasted chestnuts in his arms, cheering at the fire-spitting artisan.

The father holding him was still quite young, smiling as he agreed and lifted him higher, while instructing his son to be careful not to fall.

In the noisy crowd full of laughter everywhere, a young man passing by inadvertently glimpsed that father and son watching lanterns, his expression slightly moved.

He watched that father and son for a long time.

Until someone accidentally bumped into him and apologized, Pei Yunying came back to his senses and continued walking forward.

On the fifteenth of the first month, Shengjing people indulged in night wandering, the scenery bustling and magnificent. Carriages flowed like water, soft red became mist. The young man walked through the bustling crowd, but neither the brilliant lanterns overhead nor the singing beside him could infect him with even a trace of smile—he remained expressionless and listless.

Not far away, music hall singers were playing instruments and singing. Seeing this young man pass by—handsome and extraordinary, standing out like pearls and jade among tiles and stones, and dressed luxuriously, clearly a noble offspring from a wealthy family—they sang while casting flirtatious glances and smiles at him.

Pei Yunying remained unmoved.

He walked into the depths of the crowd and was about to continue forward when his movements suddenly paused.

Among the coming and going crowds, a young woman stood not far away.

On such a cold day, she wore a silver-white cloak with emerald patterns, covering the dark blue embroidered brocade dress underneath, as if covered with snowflakes. Her black hair fell to her shoulders, adorned only with a few small, fluffy snow-white velvet flowers. Like a fluffy little rabbit.

The crowd before the small stalls was noisy with laughter, while she was looking up at the flickering floating lanterns in the night sky overhead.

She watched very seriously, seriously to the point of devotion. The gorgeous lantern fire around fell on her face, and that pretty face had lost its usual coldness, appearing childlike and pure.

Like a bright pearl fallen to the mortal world.

The entertainers from the music halls were singing: “The reeds grow thick, white dew turns to frost, the so-called beloved is on the water’s far shore…”

The so-called beloved, on the water’s far shore…

Ten thousand streets and a thousand lanes, flower lanterns like brocade. Ten li of long streets with drums and flutes reaching the sky, such beautiful scenery hard to encounter again.

Across the coming and going people, he silently watched the person viewing lanterns. After a long while, he lowered his head and smiled.

“So this is truly the one I seek.”