The north wind howled outside the house.

But the lamplight inside the room seemed frozen.

He sat by the brazier, his dark eyes fathomless, reflecting the dancing flames, flowing with brilliant colors in the dark night.

Lu Tong was stunned.

Missing someone…

A scene from long ago suddenly flashed before her eyes.

In the old Lu family residence in Changwu County, she lay sprawled on the desk watching Lu Qian practice calligraphy. The young man’s brushwork was upright and vigorous, much better than her own chicken scratch.

“The moon is dark, sending lake wind, seeking each other but the path is blocked… The water chestnut song cannot be finished, knowing she is in this pond…”

“What’s ‘blocked,’ what’s ‘unfinished’? What are you writing about?” Her younger self snatched away the ink paper Lu Qian had finished writing. “I can’t understand a single sentence!”

Lu Qian grabbed the paper back from her hands, saying irritably: “Read more books, Lu San. If you keep muddling along like this, when you grow up and someone writes you love poetry, you won’t understand it.”

“Love poetry?” She looked suspicious. “This is love poetry?”

“What else would it be?”

“I can’t understand it.” Lu Tong rolled her eyes. “There isn’t even the character for ‘love’ in it. How can it be called love poetry?”

“Vulgar!”

Lu Qian scolded her with disappointment. “Subtlety! It needs to be subtle! What poetry is there in spoken love? Naturally it should be tactful.”

She looked sideways at her brother, stuffing a piece of barley sugar in her mouth: “Since you understand so well, then tell me—what is love?”

Lu Qian studied at the academy and had never even seen a young lady in his daily life. He was clearly making things up to cover for her poor reading comprehension.

Lu Qian cleared his throat twice. Having never liked any girl himself, he racked his brains to squeeze out a sentence: “Love is… you always think about one person, miss one person, always remember them when you have nothing else to do, and you’re happiest when you’re with them…”

“Oh,” Lu Tong said. “From what you’re saying, it doesn’t sound very subtle! Are you just making this up?”

Lu Qian: “…Playing music to a cow. I won’t discuss this with you anymore. When you grow up and have a sweetheart yourself, you’ll understand.”

When you grow up and have a sweetheart yourself, you’ll understand.

She used to think these words were something Lu Qian said casually to fool her, but now she was gradually beginning to understand.

When you have feelings for someone, you really do inexplicably miss that person.

A voice reached her ears: “Is this question so difficult to answer?”

She came back to her senses. Pei Yunying sat by the brazier, his handsome features even more dazzling under the lamplight, looking at her with an ambiguous expression.

“No.” Her heart skipped a beat, and Lu Tong quickly replied, “I haven’t thought about it.”

“Is that so?”

He nodded. “That’s quite regrettable.”

Though he said this, his tone showed no disappointment. Instead, he was smiling.

The snow water in the pot had heated up. He lifted the pot to pour water into the red clay tea cup, then walked over to Lu Tong carrying the cup.

Lu Tong sat on the edge of the bed, watching Pei Yunying lean down close to her and press the tea cup into her hands.

“Drink up—’winter snow.'”

Lu Tong: “…”

She was about to retort about what kind of winter snow this was, but when she looked up, she met the light smile in his eyes, as if he could see through everything, knowing her guilt and secrets, glimpsing her evasion and melancholy.

Lu Tong gripped the cup tightly.

For some reason, she felt that Pei Yunying was somewhat different now.

As if casting aside certain reservations, he was flirting more openly and boldly. No, that wasn’t flirting—it was like an angler holding a rod by the river bank, unhurriedly dropping bait, sometimes near, sometimes far, patiently and confidently waiting for someone to take the hook.

Feeling guilty, she found it difficult to parry, retreating step by step, throwing herself into confusion.

Seeing her like this, Pei Yunying curved his lips, returned to the table, walked to the middle of the room, and picked up the bedding that had been placed at the foot of the bed.

The bedding was thick and heavy, with very rough stitching. For someone of his pampered and particularly particular habits, this was really asking too much.

Sure enough, he walked to the bedside and looked critically at the floor: “Here?”

Lu Tong nodded.

He said nothing and, after arranging it a bit, spread the mattress on the floor by the head of the bed.

Lu Tong sipped her water while watching his movements. Though this person was a young master from a noble family and sometimes appeared quite arrogant and particular, at certain times he adapted surprisingly well, which was unexpected.

“Aren’t you going to rest?” He sat on the mattress and looked up at Lu Tong.

Lu Tong put the empty cup on the table, thought for a moment, then looked at the small oil lamp on the table in the room, instructing: “Don’t extinguish the lamp when you sleep at night.”

Pei Yunying looked at her, his brows moving slightly: “Lu Tong, you’re not worried that I’ll do something to you at night, are you?”

Lu Tong was silent for a moment, then mocked: “Your Excellency also knows that my needles are very skillful. If you’re not afraid of becoming the second Jin Xianrong, feel free to try.”

Pei Yunying: “…”

Seeing him deflated, she felt inexplicably better. She lay down on the bed fully clothed.

Strangely enough, though sharing a room with Pei Yunying felt subtle and somewhat uncomfortable, she truly had no worries. This person was clearly no gentleman, and his behavior couldn’t be called proper either, but somehow she trusted him from the bottom of her heart. This trust was startling—she felt so at ease with him.

Pei Yunying snorted with laughter, didn’t argue with her, and lay down with his hands pillowed behind his head.

The lamp oil burned quietly in the room, blocking out the wind and snow outside. The meager warmth from the brazier couldn’t really warm much in this bitter cold, but neither person in the room felt cold. They lay silently, each thinking their own thoughts.

After lying for a while, Pei Yunying’s gaze caught sight of what seemed to be a long object at the foot of the bed. Thinking it was a snake, he frowned and sat up, flicking it with his silver blade, only to discover it was a rope.

It was a thick hemp rope, neither long nor short, that seemed to have been used for years and showed some wear. If used for binding medicinal materials, it seemed a bit short.

He used the tip of his blade to pick up the rope, turning to look at Lu Tong on the bed: “Why is there a rope here?”

Lu Tong sat up. Seeing what he held, her expression immediately changed, and she snatched it away.

Pei Yunying caught sight of her expression, his gaze flickering. After a moment, he spoke thoughtfully: “This place isn’t really a black shop, is it?”

The length of this rope—too short for hanging, barely adequate for binding objects, but perfect for tying hands and feet. In the Palace Command’s interrogation room, the ropes used to bind prisoners’ hands and feet were exactly this length.

Lu Tong’s heart jumped, and she replied coldly: “Since you’ve already moved in, it’s too late to say this.” Afraid he might see through her expression, she stuffed the rope under the bed, turned her back, and lay down without speaking.

Pei Yunying turned to look at her back and said nothing for a long while.

After a while, he lay back down, his expression less relaxed than before. Suddenly thinking of something, he looked up at the earthen wall above his head.

Where his bedding was placed against the wall, he had already noticed scratch marks on the wall when he first surveyed the room.

The position of those scratch marks was subtle—not too high, with more concentrated near the base of the wall. The marks were obviously chaotic, like someone had fallen to the ground in pain, leaving fingernail marks on the wall.

In the Palace Command’s prison when interrogating criminals, some prisoners would roll on the ground and claw at the walls when in unbearable pain. The marks left were just like this—he could see clearly and was quite certain. Combined with the rope from earlier…

Pei Yunying frowned slightly and looked toward the bed.

Lu Tong had her back to him, facing the wall as if sulking, leaving only the back of her head visible.

He was startled, then found it somewhat amusing.

On a deserted mountain, sharing a room, he was at least a man. With Lu Tong’s habitually cautious personality, she actually exposed her back like this without any guard…

She really had no defenses against him at all.

He glanced once more at the scratch marks on the wall, withdrew his gaze, and lay back down.

…

The night grew deeper.

The snow on Luomei Peak grew heavier and heavier.

Wind poured in through the window cracks, and the sound of tree branches breaking outside could be heard.

On such cold nights in the past, she always had difficulty falling asleep. But whether it was because she was too tired today or because there was another person in the room, Lu Tong lay on the bed, gazing at the dim light in the room. As she gazed, her eyelids gradually grew heavy, and she slowly drifted into sleep.

The heavy snow fell more and more, and the silver-white snow fluttering became the hem of a cloud-like skirt.

Someone called by her ear: “Seventeen.”

Seventeen?

She lifted her head and looked toward the voice.

Under the bright red plum tree sat a woman with beautiful features. She put down the book in her hands and beckoned to her.

“Come here.”

Yunniang…

She walked over in a daze.

Yunniang sat under the tree with a small brazier in front of her, in which a clay pot was nestled warmly. The pot bubbled with hot steam that condensed into thin warm mist in the icy world.

A bitter medicinal fragrance wafted from it.

Yunniang reached out, gripped the pot handle with a cloth, lifted the medicine pot, and poured it into an empty bowl on the stone table.

The medicine bowl was immediately filled. The woman stood up, walked to her side, took her hand, and said: “You’ve been on the mountain for three days. Are you still adapting well?”

“Yes.”

Yunniang nodded with satisfaction. “That’s good.” She smiled. “Since you’re on the mountain, let me introduce you to some friends.”

Friends?

Lu Tong was stunned.

She had followed Yunniang all the way from Changwu County to Luomei Peak in Sunan. Since coming up the mountain three days ago, she had never seen another person. The entire Luomei Peak seemed to have only her and Yunniang. Where would friends come from?

Yunniang held her hand like a loving elder, patient and gentle, walking to a large patch of lush grass behind the house. Lu Tong didn’t know what was planted there—she only felt the vegetation was abundant and brightly colored.

The woman stopped in front of the grass.

“Look,” she said.

Lu Tong looked over, then was horrified.

In the center of the dense vegetation, rows of dark mounds rose faintly. Lu Tong couldn’t see clearly at first, but when she did, her scalp went numb.

Those were rows of graves.

Buried carelessly, rather hastily, but during the great epidemic in Changwu County, countless had died of disease, and such hasty graves were common along the field ridges. She had seen too many.

Lu Tong’s voice trembled: “These are…”

“Your sixteen senior brothers and sisters,” Yunniang explained with a smile.

“They were all about your age,” the woman said gently, “and also spent time with me on Luomei Peak, but they were a bit weak and stayed with me too briefly.”

“Little Seventeen,” Yunniang said, “you must stay with me longer.”

Lu Tong trembled with fear.

Yunniang had always called her “Seventeen,” and she hadn’t known why. But now, among these rows of graves, she glimpsed a clue.

She was to become the seventeenth person buried here. She was the seventeenth dead person.

As if amused by her suddenly pale face, Yunniang looked surprised: “Why that expression? Do you think I’ll kill you?”

The woman stroked her head, chiding: “Silly child.”

She was already too frightened to move, her legs weak, like a wooden puppet allowing Yunniang to lead her back to the grass hut.

“Little Seventeen, when you saved my family, you told me you could do anything.”

Lu Tong looked at her, her heart gradually sinking: “What does Miss want me to do?”

Yunniang walked to the stone table, picked up the medicine bowl filled with herbal soup, and handed it to her with a slight smile.

“Drink it.”

The brown herbal soup rippled slightly in the bowl. She saw her own frightened face reflected in it, so fearful and helpless.

She had no choice.

Lu Tong drank all the herbal soup in the bowl. Yunniang took out a handkerchief to wipe the medicine stains from the corners of her mouth, smiling as she spoke.

“Don’t be afraid. This isn’t poison and won’t take your life. It will just make you suffer a little.”

“I saw you drink the medicine quite decisively just now. You seem to be a good child who isn’t afraid of bitterness.”

Yunniang gently pushed her into the grass hut, then with a “click,” the door was locked. Lu Tong came to her senses and frantically rushed to the door, pounding on it, hearing the woman’s smiling voice from outside.

“That bowl of medicine just now was called ‘Crossing Ant Formation.'”

“One hour after taking it, you’ll feel a little pain, like ants crawling all over, with no relief. If you can endure three hours, once the medicine wears off, you’ll naturally be fine. But if you can’t endure, you must be careful.”

“Your previous Senior Sister Sixteen couldn’t endure this bowl of medicine. She took a rope and hanged herself from the beam. When we took her down, she looked quite unsightly.”

“Little Seventeen,” she said, “you must persevere.”

The footsteps outside gradually faded. No matter how she pounded on the door, there was no response. Yunniang had left.

She was left alone in this room.

The room was dim, the windows also locked. She had nowhere to go. She stepped back, but her foot hit something, nearly tripping. Looking down, she saw it was a rope.

The rope was quite thick, with dark bloodstains all over it. Lu Tong suddenly remembered what Yunniang had just said: “Your previous Senior Sister Sixteen couldn’t endure this bowl of medicine. She took a rope and hanged herself from the beam.”

This was the hanging rope left by the previous medicine taker.

As if pricked by a needle, Lu Tong’s hand loosened, and the thick rope fell with a sound.

She quickly avoided it.

Lu Tong rushed to the door, pounding again: “Miss! Yunniang! Let me out! I want to go out!”

Only silence answered her.

Until she grew tired and exhausted from pounding and slowly slid down from the door, there was still no response. Lu Tong sat behind the door, hugging her shoulders and curling into a ball, looking at the bloodstained rope, her heart filled with despair.

She would die. She absolutely couldn’t endure it. Sixteen had already died before her—sooner or later she would be buried in the grass garden too, becoming a pile of rotting mud.

She wouldn’t be able to reunite with her parents and siblings.

Father, Mother, older brother, older sister…

She cried for a long time until her throat was hoarse, but in her extreme panic, she gradually calmed down instead.

No, she couldn’t die.

If she died here, no one would know. Her parents would never know for their entire lives.

At least not now!

From somewhere she found the strength to get up again. The thick, bloodstained rope still lay on the ground. She calculated that Yunniang had only said to endure that bit of pain and she would be fine. She had to endure it—but how to endure…

Her eyes swept the room, and Lu Tong’s gaze fell on the scissors on the table.

Those were silver scissors used to trim lamp wicks. Whether intentionally or not, Yunniang had left them in the room.

Lu Tong stood up and took the scissors, then picked up the long rope from the ground. Determined, she cut it in two.

This rope was the perfect length for hanging, but she wanted to use it to bind her hands. She had learned rope-tying methods from Lu Qian—binding hands so tightly they couldn’t break free.

She wanted to try.

The rope-binding method from memory was no longer very clear, and pain was already gradually coming from her chest. Lu Tong’s hands shook, almost unable to grip the hemp rope properly. She stumbled and awkwardly looped the hemp rope around her wrists. Just as the rope was secured in the final moment, tremendous pain struck.

Yunniang had lied to her.

That wasn’t “a little pain” at all. It was pain sufficient to destroy a person’s willpower.

She was in such agony that she suddenly understood why the previous “Sixteen” had hanged herself with a rope. It was truly more unbearable than death.

During the most unbearable moments, she couldn’t help clawing at the wall, her nails digging deep into the mud wall. Gradually blood seeped from between her fingers. She rolled on the ground in pain. That dark little room lost all light, filled only with hoarse crying.

…

“Yunniang…”

In the quiet night, a voice suddenly sounded.

Pei Yunying’s eyes snapped open.

Being alone and traveling often, he was always a light sleeper. The lamplight in the room had been extinguished by the wind at some point, but more suppressed low sounds came from the bed.

“Lu Tong?” Pei Yunying frowned and looked toward the bed.

No one answered.

He sat up, felt for a fire starter, and lit the oil lamp on the table. The warm lamplight flickered in the room. He placed the oil lamp on the side table and walked to Lu Tong’s bedside.

Lu Tong’s eyes were closed.

Before sleeping, her face had been toward the wall. Now she had turned over, her whole body curled into a ball. Her usually calm face showed a pained expression, with large drops of sweat seeping from her forehead.

Pei Yunying’s expression changed slightly. He shook Lu Tong’s shoulder: “Lu Tong?”

She seemed trapped in a dream and didn’t wake up. The next moment, she suddenly reached out.

Pei Yunying was startled and looked down.

Lu Tong was gripping his hand.

She gripped very tightly, clutching desperately and refusing to let go, with great strength, like a drowning person grasping the last lifeline. Her eyes were tightly closed, her nails almost embedding in the back of his hand. Pei Yunying let her grip him while calling her name softly: “Lu Tong?”

“Yunniang…” She moaned in confusion, sweat rolling from her forehead down her neck.

She seemed trapped in a dream, unable to wake up.

The lamplight flickered in the room. Pei Yunying’s eyes were dark and deep. Making a quick decision, his fingertip swept across an acupoint on her neck and pressed hard.

With a sudden cry of alarm, the person on the bed abruptly opened her eyes.

Lu Tong suddenly sat up, gasping heavily.

A hand reached from behind.

Lu Tong felt herself being pulled into a warm embrace. This embrace carried a familiar crisp fragrance, dispelling the cold, heavy medicinal scent from her dream. Warmth slowly spread from behind her. She looked up and met Pei Yunying’s downward gaze.

In a moment of realization, Lu Tong suddenly understood.

This wasn’t her first time drinking medicine after coming to Luomei Peak. “Crossing Ant Formation” was just an unbearable nightmare from the past. She was now a medical officer at the Hanlin Medical Academy in the capital. Yunniang was already dead. She didn’t need to anxiously and fearfully take bowl after bowl of unknown herbal medicine. She had come up the mountain to find herbs to cure the epidemic.

She had been dreaming again.

She had been dreaming frequently lately.

If this continued, she would be unable to distinguish between dreams and reality.

“Lu Tong.” Pei Yunying’s voice reached her ears. Lu Tong looked up at him.

Pei Yunying frowned as he looked at her.

That young face no longer showed its usual composure. He raised his hand to touch her forehead.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

Lu Tong calmed herself and avoided his gaze. “I just had a dream.”

He withdrew his hand from Lu Tong’s forehead: “Who is Yunniang? You kept calling Yunniang’s name in your dream.”

Lu Tong’s body stiffened.

Pei Yunying frowned as he stared at her.

Her face was very pale. She was already thin normally, and now after the hardships of fighting the epidemic in Sunan, she had grown even thinner. Her face was only palm-sized, her eyes no longer held their usual calm but showed some distraction and confusion, and her lips were as white as paper.

Since he had known Lu Tong, whether calm or frenzied, this was the first time he had seen her “fear.”

In her dreams, there was something she feared.

“Is it your enemy?”

Lu Tong jolted and came back to her senses.

He was always very perceptive.

Lu Tong turned her head away: “No.”

He said nothing, staring at her intently. His usually gentle-shaped eyes now seemed touched by the frost and snow of Luomei Peak’s plum branches, showing a cold sharpness.

Outside the door, the north wind and snow were thick. Inside, the stove and lamp were dim. As the two faced each other, one pressed aggressively while the other dodged and evaded.

After a moment of silence, Pei Yunying looked away, as if finally letting her off, and stood up: “You just broke out in a sweat. There should be handkerchiefs in your medical box. I’ll get one for you.”

Lu Tong breathed a sigh of relief.

The young man walked to the table in the room where Lu Tong’s medical box sat. He opened the medical box and reached in to take out white cloth.

Lu Tong watched his movements. As she watched, she suddenly remembered something, her whole body stiffening. She leaped from the bed and, not bothering to put on shoes, rushed to Pei Yunying: “Wait—”

This panic served no purpose.

She watched helplessly as Pei Yunying picked up an object from the medical box.

It was a colorful silk cord, delicately shaped and completely woven, a beautiful pomegranate red color. In the dark night it looked like a piece of brilliant, delicate colored cloud. When shadows fell on it, even the lamplight became gorgeous.

The birthday gift Pei Yunying had once requested from her. She had woven it for a long time but ultimately never gave it to him.

“What is this?” He turned around.

Lu Tong pressed her lips together and reached to snatch it, but he held it slightly higher, making it difficult for her to reach.

Pei Yunying said: “Why are you carrying this silk cord?”

“Someone else’s.” Lu Tong was stubborn. “I kept it casually.”

“Is that so?”

He nodded, his fingertip lightly winding around the silk cord, revealing a small, not very round piece of wood under the tassel.

“Then what is this?”

Lu Tong stiffened.

That tiny piece of wood dangled from his fingertip.

Lu Tong clenched her fists slightly.

That was a piece of wood she had taken from Pei Yunying’s wooden tower.

On the Qixi Festival, his ambiguous words had made her waver briefly. When Pei Yunying said he would give her a piece, she had firmly refused, but for some unknown reason, as if possessed, she had taken one anyway.

Later when she left the capital and came to Sunan, she had kept this piece of wood well. Many times she had wanted to throw it away, but in the end, she had never succeeded even once.

The silk cord and wooden piece held her secret feelings. She had carefully guarded the secret, only to have it suddenly exposed on this snowy night.

In the quiet, secluded night, wind and snow howled outside. The young man lowered his eyes, looking at Lu Tong’s embarrassed appearance, and spoke calmly: “Lu Tong.”

He stared into her eyes: “I’ll ask you one more time—are you truly honest and open with me, without the slightest selfish thought?”

Lu Tong’s breathing caught.

She instinctively wanted to deny it, but facing those dark eyes, she couldn’t say a word.

“I…” she stammered.

Those beautiful dark eyes stared at her, lamplight flickering in them, flowing like an unfinished, lingering love song.

He spoke coldly: “I see the answer.”