The rain kept falling without stop.

After a long while, Lu Tong looked at him and spoke with difficulty: “Why didn’t you leave?”

She had Yin Zheng tell Qing Feng very clearly that she wouldn’t be going today.

Qing Feng’s carriage had already left and hadn’t returned, so presumably he had conveyed the message.

He had already left, she thought. She knew this fact, which was why she had felt so at ease coming here.

But why was he still here?

Still here, waiting alone by himself?

“You didn’t want to see me, so I couldn’t very well go see you directly and make you angry.”

“But I also thought, what if you changed your mind halfway and suddenly wanted to meet? So I’d wait here a bit longer.”

He smiled. “Fortunately, I had foresight.”

Lu Tong remained silent.

This was more than just “waiting a bit longer” – enough time had passed that his birthday would be over soon if she had been any later.

“What are you standing there for?” Pei Yunying came out and pulled Lu Tong from outside the window into the room.

The tea house had no other people. Every private room had extinguished its lights, only this one place still had its lamp burning, with a large table of dishes set out.

Lu Tong lowered her eyes to look.

The food had already grown cold.

“This isn’t a restaurant or wine shop – it’s a tea room my mother loved to visit when she was alive.”

He took the paper umbrella from Lu Tong’s hands and placed it by the door, walking to the table: “The tea house owner has an eccentric temperament and only does business until the hour of the Rooster. Once that hour passes, he closes up and goes home. I had to make great effort to get him to agree to stay open a bit longer for me tonight.”

“But the rain was too heavy, so he left just now. The food is cold and inedible,” his fingertips brushed over a small wine pot on the table, “but the wine is still warm and drinkable.”

The wine pot was lifted by Pei Yunying and poured into white porcelain wine cups, clear as a mirror.

“Wine is the uncle of joy, dispelling sorrow and bringing happiness.” He handed a cup to Lu Tong: “Uncle Joy’s wine dispels sorrow.”

Lu Tong accepted the wine cup.

Pei Yunying looked at her and smiled faintly: “My mother loved this place when she was alive. She said the maple leaves here were very beautiful, but I’ve never come here even once.”

He looked toward the window, where fine rain fell on distant mountains.

It wasn’t yet the season for maple leaves to turn red.

He watched for a while, then came back to his senses and asked her: “Why aren’t you sitting?”

Lu Tong stood without moving, her grip on the wine cup gradually tightening. After a moment, she spoke: “Today is your birthday.”

“Yes.” Pei Yunying’s lips curved upward as he extended a hand toward her. “Where’s the colored ribbon you’re giving me?”

Lu Tong remained silent.

Last year on his birthday, Pei Yunshu was giving birth. She had helped detoxify Pei Yunshu, and Pei Yunying had no mind for celebration either. However, though they hadn’t celebrated, by strange coincidence they had spent it together.

This year they were together again.

Without realizing it, a year had already passed.

She reached out and placed the wine cup on the table.

“I was very busy today,” Lu Tong said slowly, “and I’ll be very busy afterward as well. For the Commander to invite me here in the deep of night just for such unimportant matters is rather too boring.”

Pei Yunying paused.

Lu Tong looked at him. “For such boring matters, the Commander can find someone else. Please don’t include me in the future.”

She lowered her head, about to leave, when suddenly Pei Yunying’s voice came from behind her.

“Lu Tong.”

Her steps paused.

“You once asked me why, that day at the Commander Manor gate when you borrowed me to refuse Dong Lin and embraced me in that act, I didn’t push you away.”

Lu Tong stood with her back to him, hearing her own hoarse voice: “Why?”

“There was no reason.”

He said indifferently: “I simply didn’t want to push you away.”

The sound of rain was continuous, the lamplight in the room flickering bright and dim.

Lu Tong’s heart trembled.

“Why don’t you ask me what my birthday wish is?”

Lu Tong said nothing.

Pei Yunying walked in front of her.

Misty rain passed through the bead curtains, stirring the dim candlelight on the table. His heroic features were bathed in warm light as he looked at her steadily and calmly.

“My birthday wish is…”

“…that the one I’m devoted to would also be devoted to me.”

Like someone throwing a huge stone into a calm lake, stirring up turbulent waves, yet only for a moment before the waves gradually turned bitter, and heavy sorrow swept over her heart.

She looked up, firmly storing the ripples in her heart away in a corner, her expression completely cold.

“The Commander wouldn’t tell me that the one you’re devoted to is me?”

His thick brows furrowed slightly: “Why couldn’t it be?” After a pause, he added: “On Qixi at the Qiqiao Tower, I thought I spoke very clearly.”

Lu Tong laughed softly.

She laughed mockingly: “Just because a man has helped someone a few times means he’s devoted? Commander, I’m not that presumptuous.”

“I won’t take this seriously, and you needn’t take it seriously either. What happened today, let’s pretend it never occurred.”

With that, she got up to leave.

Pei Yunying pressed against the door with one hand, blocking her way.

His tall figure cast a shadow over hers. For the first time, he forcefully detained her in place. His gaze was sharp and aggressive, looking at her with a half-smile, unwilling to give up.

He said: “What’s going on? You’re bold as brass when killing people. But when I declare my feelings to you, you become timid instead. Is it because…”

“…you have a guilty conscience and also like me a little?”

Lu Tong stiffened.

Pei Yunying stared at her intently, those jet-black, bright eyes brilliant and dazzling in the lamplight, refusing to miss any of her expressions.

Like on a very cold, pitch-black rainy night, someone appears with a lit lamp, takes your hand, drapes a dry, warm outer robe over you, then hands you a cup of warm honey water.

A person who seems cold but can always warm those who are lonelier.

She liked this warmth, craved this warmth, yet couldn’t allow herself to indulge in approaching this warmth. She had to restrain herself, had to stay away.

Even though she couldn’t deny it.

Her fingertips dug deeper and deeper, yet she raised her head and looked at him with indifference: “I don’t like you.”

One sentence, decisive and final.

Pei Yunying was stunned.

His expression grew somber as he stared at her: “I don’t believe it.”

Lu Tong remained silent.

“I’m not a fool. Using such reasons to brush me off is too clumsy.”

He pressed closer, lowering his head to stare into her eyes. “Sometimes, the way you look at me clearly shows you’re moved.”

Lu Tong’s heart stirred slightly.

He was heaven’s favored son, with good family background and appearance, growing up surrounded by crowds. From the first time she saw Pei Yunying, she had understood that politeness and gentleness were his manners and upbringing. He was proud in his bones and wouldn’t bow his head, yet had repeatedly made exceptions for her.

Her feigned composure couldn’t fool this person.

People can never go against their own hearts.

But she couldn’t tolerate herself sinking into these tempting “exceptions.”

Even though she clearly knew she was someone who most feared owing favors to others, calculating all human debts with crystal clarity, yet with him alone she had never given anything in return.

Deception, confrontation, taking his momentary warmth for granted while pushing him away mercilessly.

She was indeed such a selfish person.

Selfish and cold.

“Lord Pei is being rather too conceited.” Lu Tong spoke coldly.

“Just because Lord Pei is young and accomplished, with outstanding looks, everyone in the world should like you?”

“Just because you’re noble and handsome with an extraordinary background, everyone should love you?”

Lu Tong sneered: “I’m not a daughter of Grand Tutor Manor. Lord Pei, don’t think too highly of yourself or too little of others.”

The lamplight burned quietly. A cold wind blew in from outside the window, brushing against faces and bringing a trace of chill.

The young man’s smile gradually faded as he stared at her steadily.

“If that’s the case, when Jin Xianrong spoke maliciously about my mother behind her back, why did you stand up for me?”

“It was just ordinary acupuncture. The Commander needn’t think too much of it.”

“When Yan Xu from the Privy Council spoke threateningly, why did you step forward with legal arguments?”

“I was afraid the Commander would implicate me.”

“On Qiqiao Tower during the Orchid Night competition, we once won a comb together.”

Lu Tong: “I’ve already thrown away that comb.”

His expression trembled.

“Lu Tong,” Pei Yunying stepped closer, unwilling to let her go, speaking slowly: “From beginning to end, are you truly clear-hearted, without the slightest personal feelings toward me?”

Lu Tong clenched her fists.

The young man stood under the lamp, the dim yellow light illuminating his young, clean face, those jet-black brilliant eyes shimmering with light, deep as a pond.

In a trance, she seemed to see the brilliant crimson of plum blossoms blooming on Falling Plum Peak, Wu Yun rolling in pain on the grass, Yunniang coming out of the grass hut carrying a medicine bowl, making a “shush” sound to her.

“Little Seventeen.”

The woman curved her eyes, earnestly instructing her: “You must hide the things you like well. Otherwise, it will end up like it.”

It will end up like it.

Her eyes felt a bit hot, but Lu Tong only raised her head, looking calmly at the person before her, saying: “No.”

No.

The lamplight seemed to freeze for a moment. The cold air of the rainy night finally rushed in at this moment, drop by drop of autumn rain like tears, falling in lines from the eaves.

Lu Tong picked up her umbrella and pushed past him to leave. In the instant they brushed past each other, Pei Yunying tried to hold her back, but the woman’s ice-cold sleeve slipped through his hand like an elusive breeze, silently escaping.

He was stunned for a moment, then after a brief pause came to his senses and chased after her in a few steps. “I’ll see you off.”

Lu Tong walked forward with her umbrella: “No need.”

“Lu Tong,” he said.

Lu Tong stopped, but he didn’t come forward.

Rainwater fell endlessly from the sky. That crimson figure in the black night was no longer as bright and brilliant as usual, becoming dim and disheveled.

In the vast fine rain, one person in front, one behind, a short distance apart, unable to approach.

After a moment, he lowered his eyes: “I’ll have someone see you off.”

Lu Tong said nothing more.

Qing Feng quickly came with a horse carriage. Sensing the unusual atmosphere between the two, he dared not speak. Lu Tong got into the carriage directly, dropped the curtain, and never looked back.

The carriage gradually drove away.

All around became completely dark.

Pei Yunying returned to the tea house.

The food had grown cold, empty wine cups overturned on the table, indicating this birthday had been truly terrible.

He sat down at the table, silent for a while, then took out a jade-green bracelet from his breast.

The bracelet he hadn’t had a chance to give, that Pei Yunshu had given him, hoping he would give it to the one he was devoted to.

He looked down at it for a long time.

After a long while, Pei Yunying reached out and lifted the wine pot from the table.

The silver wine pot was ice-cold to the touch. The “Uncle Joy” wine was clear as tears. The moment it entered his mouth, he was slightly stunned.

It was cold.

That warm, gentle wine that could warm one’s chest and stomach on a rainy night had somehow, at some point, become ice-cold.

…

The carriage stopped in front of the medical hall on West Street.

The medical hall door opened a crack, and Yin Zheng waited at the entrance with a lamp.

Lu Tong entered the shop. The carriage disappeared again into the rain curtain. Yin Zheng closed the medical hall’s main door and took the paper umbrella from Lu Tong’s hand, placing it in the corner. “How did Miss return so quickly?”

During the day, when Qing Feng’s carriage waited outside the door, Lu Tong had shown no intention of going out.

Later, when night deepened, Yin Zheng had asked several times, and Lu Tong had her tell Qing Feng that she wouldn’t be going to Danfeng Platform tonight.

Just when Yin Zheng thought Lu Tong wouldn’t leave the medical hall again and the day would pass quietly, Lu Tong had suddenly walked out of her room.

In the deep of night, she had hired a carriage despite the trouble and gone to Danfeng Platform.

Yin Zheng had wanted to go along, but Lu Tong had flatly refused.

Unable to persuade her otherwise, Yin Zheng could only wait at the medical hall. But she hadn’t expected Lu Tong to return in less than an hour.

The oil lamp in her hand illuminated the shop. Yin Zheng looked at Lu Tong’s face: “Miss, why does your complexion look so poor?” She also grasped her hand and was suddenly startled: “Your hands are so cold too. What happened?”

Lu Tong’s face was pale as she lifted the felt curtain and walked into the courtyard.

“Nothing, I’m just tired.”

“But…”

Yin Zheng looked at her uneasily, following behind Lu Tong. After Lu Tong entered her room and closed the door, a figure immediately appeared on the window, accompanied by the pattering sound of water in the courtyard.

“You should go back to your room. I want to rest first.”

Lu Tong’s tone was calm.

Yin Zheng stood outside Lu Tong’s door for a while, until the light in the room was extinguished and no more movement could be heard, as if the person inside had already gone to bed. Only then did she sigh and leave carrying her lamp.

Lu Tong sat at the table.

The room was pitch black. The lantern hanging under the eaves of the small courtyard left only a faint light in the rainy night. She sat numbly like a puppet. Though she had brought an oil-paper umbrella when going out today and hadn’t suffered any wind or rain while sitting in the carriage, at this moment she still felt bone-chilling cold.

The sound of rain outside the window was endless. Someone’s voice seemed to carry the rainy night’s chill, echoing over and over in her ears.

“From beginning to end, are you truly clear-hearted, without the slightest personal feelings toward me?”

Clear-hearted?

Without the slightest personal feelings?

A piercing pain gradually emerged from the depths of her heart, dull and slow. She had thought that after so long, having lost everything, she had also lost her heart and would no longer feel pain. But at this moment she understood.

She could still feel pain.

Perhaps it wasn’t pain.

It was the reluctance and attachment when something precious and beloved was about to be stripped away.

She understood what it was.

To have truly liked someone, and to have been truly liked in return. A bit regretful, a bit reluctant, unwilling to give up this bit of warmth, this moment of genuine flutter in an otherwise plain life.

An unbearable pain came from her chest. Lu Tong couldn’t tell if it came from her heart or elsewhere. She couldn’t help but press her hand to her chest and bend over in spasm. As her sleeves rustled, scrolls on the desk were brushed to the floor, and sweat drops rolling from her cheeks wetted the book pages on the ground one by one.

She remembered Yin Zheng’s surprise when she saw the story book during the day.

“Eh,” Yin Zheng was surprised, “this is a story book I bought from the bookstore earlier. How is it at Miss’s place?”

Lu Tong answered: “Just reading casually.”

“Oh,” Yin Zheng nodded, “I haven’t had time to read this volume yet. What does it write about?”

“It writes about a woman with a terminal illness falling in love with someone.”

Yin Zheng was startled: “Ah? Did that woman cure her terminal illness in the end?”

“No.”

Lu Tong’s eyes showed complete indifference. “She died. Her lover was in agony and soon followed her in death. They were buried together.”

Yin Zheng couldn’t help but sigh: “This story book sounds really heartbreaking. The person who wrote it too – if they wanted to write about a happy marriage, why write about life and death partings? Using someone about to die as the protagonist inevitably makes readers heartbroken.”

“It’s not a good ending.”

Lu Tong lowered her eyes. Only after Yin Zheng left did she softly say “Mm.”

Indeed, it wasn’t a good ending.

Just like herself.

Destined for a bad ending – why begin? Better to fulfill herself and others too.

The woman curled up into a ball, like a fetus curled in its mother’s womb, desperately trying to absorb a bit of warmth in the cold rainy night.

On the ground, beside the story book dampened by sweat drops, a red colored ribbon was bright and dazzling, exquisitely shaped.

Already completely woven.

Breakups always happen on rainy days TAT