Shen Ruoxi watched the blood flowing ceaselessly from his arm and, in a panic, immediately began pulling off her ski jacket.

“Shen Ruoxi, what are you doing?” Xie Yan endured the excruciating pain, staring at her in surprise as she undid layer after layer of clothing.

“Bandaging you.” Shen Ruoxi worked all the way down to the innermost garment, then tore off a large strip with a firm pull.

Xie Yan stared at her. “…”

“Shen Ruoxi, why did you tear off such a big piece?”

Shen Ruoxi said, “There’s only you here anyway. What is there to be afraid of?”

Hearing that, Xie Yan’s eyebrows lifted involuntarily. “You mean it’s fine if I see it, but not anyone else — is that right?”

Shen Ruoxi couldn’t help shooting him a glare. At a time like this, this man still had the heart to tease her?

The innermost layer was the softest fabric — if she wasn’t going to tear from there, where else would she tear?

Shen Ruoxi didn’t waste any more words on him. Instead, she quickly put her outer clothing back on.

She took hold of his arm and, amid the mangled flesh and blood, carefully cleared away the shredded fabric that had been bitten into the wound. The beast had bitten down with savage force. The wound lay open, exposing white bone beneath. Even she, as a bystander, felt a phantom pain just from looking at it — let alone the person who had been bitten.

“Bear with it for a moment.” Shen Ruoxi pushed down the wave of pain in her own heart and carefully began wrapping the wound.

“A wound like this won’t kill me.” Xie Yan watched her face, his thoughts unreadable.

As Shen Ruoxi bandaged the wound, she said, “Don’t act tough. You’re not made of iron. If the wound gets infected, even a small injury can cost someone their life.”

She finished speaking and then seemed to murmur to herself: “Were you lost just now? Didn’t you say there were two rock formations that were easy to identify? But then again, it’s probably a good thing you didn’t come back — if you hadn’t come back, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

“But then you would have died.”

Shen Ruoxi’s hands paused, and then she shook her head. “Dying would be fine.”

Xie Yan suddenly seized her chin in his hand, forcing her to look at him. “Do you think dying is that easy? Do you know how many people have given everything just to stay alive? What gives you the right to think you can die whenever you want?”

Shen Ruoxi looked at his suddenly fierce expression and said in a calm voice, “Xie Yan, do you know the meaning of a life worse than death? Not everyone wants to live — but they don’t dare to die. For them, death is release, yet even death brings no peace of mind.”

She shook off his hand and continued bandaging his wound.

Snow kept falling, and before long it had piled a thick layer on both of them.

The sky had gone completely dark. There was no moonlight; every direction was pitch black.

They dared not wander around at random. No one knew whether more hungry wolves might still be lurking in these mountains. If it was only one wolf, Xie Yan was confident he could handle it — but if it was a pack, they would both be dead for certain.

He knew that Gui Shou must be leading people to search for him, but the mountain was vast and the snow relentless. Finding him quickly was nearly impossible.

The two of them huddled behind that rock to shield themselves from the wind and snow. They could dodge the snowflakes, but they could not escape the cold. As the night deepened, the bone-chilling cold nearly seeped all the way through them.

“Xie Yan.” Shen Ruoxi gazed at the grey, murky sky. “Earlier, when you told me to go back to where I belonged — where did you want me to go?”

She had sensed it. Xie Yan must know something. He had likely already seen through her identity — including this ski trip, which was clearly more than just a ski trip.

“Go back to where you belong.” Xie Yan’s voice was very heavy. “You don’t belong here.”

“I want to go back too.” Shen Ruoxi gave a bitter laugh. “But I can’t.”

She used a branch to trace something lightly in the snow. “My hometown has no snow. It’s scorching hot there all year round. It wasn’t until I went to Xi Nan that I learned there was something this beautiful in the world.”

“You are not from Xin Guo.”

Shen Ruoxi gave a quiet sound of agreement. “I am from Li Guo — just south of Xin Guo.”

“Why did you come to Xin Guo, and then go to Xi Nan?”

Shen Ruoxi’s hand paused, and she curved the corner of her mouth upward slightly. “I was brought here by force.”

She turned to look at him. “Xie Yan, how much do you know?”

He probably knew everything by now.

Xie Yan met her gaze. “Do you know Qin Pei Pei?”

“I do.” Shen Ruoxi did not avoid the question. If Xie Yan was asking this directly, it meant he had reliable information. Any attempt to deny it would be pointless.

“She was also a member of your organization — correct?”

“Yes.” Shen Ruoxi looked back up at the sky. “Pei Pei and I trained together. She said that whenever she saw me, she felt like she was looking at her little sister. Part of our special training involved pleasing men — we had to learn different techniques.”

Xie Yan watched her, but what came to his mind was her inexperience — she had no real technique to speak of.

“It was Pei Pei. To keep anyone else from defiling me, she took the initiative to petition those above her. Then she told them I could sing, so they let me develop in that direction instead.” Shen Ruoxi thought back on that period, and the light in her eyes gradually dimmed. “Because of Pei Pei, I luckily managed to escape that fate and remained untouched.”

“Pei Pei was always protecting me. Whenever there was a mission, she would volunteer to take it. She told me: for people like us, once you accept a mission, there is no going back — death is the best possible outcome. Those who are caught will be subjected to torment and humiliation worse than death. Even dying becomes a luxury.”

“Qin Pei Pei… she is already dead.” Hearing the grief beneath her voice, Xie Yan said, “She was very clever. She hanged herself in prison with a shoelace.”

“I know.” Shen Ruoxi’s eyes glistened with tears. “Sister Pei Pei was fortunate — she was released.”

“And you? Why didn’t you run?”

“Run? Run where?” Shen Ruoxi gave a bitter laugh. “When I was brought to Xi Nan, my family was taken along with me. They had everyone’s weakness in their hands — that was how they controlled each person.”

She pointed to her own chest. “Xie Yan, as long as I betray them or try to flee, my family will be subjected to inhuman torment. And attempting to run is like seeking your own death — they have already injected a poison into my body that only the organization possesses the antidote for. I can only obtain a small measure of relief from its symptoms by completing missions. If I go without it for too long, I will die. So tell me — how do I run, and where do I run to?”

Xie Yan watched her, even though he could barely make out her face in the darkness.

“I’m sorry. I deceived you.” Shen Ruoxi tilted her head back and looked up at the pitch-black night sky. “I approached you for a purpose — you must have found that out by now. I knew you often visited that alleyway to see the stray cats, so I constructed a pitiful backstory for myself. I wanted to use your connections to get into the Red Door dance hall and make contact with the powerful men there, so I could extract information from them.”

“Do you know what kind of man Dai Jing is?” said Xie Yan. “You could not hide from me, and you certainly cannot hide from him. He controls the entire Bei Di intelligence network. With information continuously leaking, he will trace it back to you very quickly. You, like Qin Pei Pei, will be exposed sooner or later.”

“So you wanted to kill me, didn’t you?”

Xie Yan said, “You should know perfectly well what relationship I have with Shi Ting. He will one day be the master of Bei Di, and the majority of my business operations serve him. Do you think I could move through Bei Di as freely as I do without him at my back? What I hold in my hands will sooner or later be coveted by your organization, and I will eventually become one of your targets. So, Shen Ruoxi — from the very beginning, we have stood on opposite sides. We were always destined to be adversaries.”

“This ski trip was designed by you, wasn’t it? You deliberately left me up on the mountain to fend for myself and die on your own.” Shen Ruoxi’s words seemed packed with snow. “Why didn’t you kill me directly? Wouldn’t that have been simpler?”

Shen Ruoxi finished asking, but Xie Yan remained silent for a long time.

She turned around and called, “Xie Yan?”

Xie Yan was slumped against the rock behind him, completely motionless.

“Xie Yan, what’s wrong?” Shen Ruoxi urgently shook his arm. “Xie Yan.”

She pressed her hand to his forehead. The heat beneath her palm was frighteningly intense, while his hands were ice cold.

“Xie Yan, you have a fever.” Shen Ruoxi remembered her backpack was still with her and hurriedly rummaged through it for the water bottle. The water was no longer warm, but it was clean.

She coaxed him to drink some, then gently shook him. “Xie Yan, how do you feel?”

She shook him for a while, but Xie Yan did not respond. His eyes remained tightly shut.

The sudden fever was almost certainly caused by infection of the wound. The wound had only received a basic dressing, and blood was still seeping through the bandage.

In the freezing cold, with the wound receiving no proper treatment, inflammation was inevitable.

“Xie Yan, Xie Yan.”

“Cold.” Xie Yan suddenly shuddered. “So cold.”

Seeing this, Shen Ruoxi did not hesitate. She unfastened the buttons of her ski jacket, then leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him, using both her body and the ski jacket to envelop him, trying to keep him from feeling so cold.

“Are you still cold? Is it a little better?” Shen Ruoxi asked with worry.

Xie Yan said nothing, instinctively drawing closer to her warmth, pressing his entire body against hers.

Shen Ruoxi held him like that, feeling his vulnerability, and something in her heart suddenly softened.

“Xie Yan.” Her arms tightened around his waist, and she buried her face against his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

She knew he was a dangerous figure, and approaching him had been a gamble. It felt like trying to skin a tiger — she had to be extremely cautious at every turn.

She had believed that once she used his connections to get into the Red Door and successfully made contact with the people she needed, her objective would be achieved. But he was an unexpected variable — he had taken an interest in her, going so far as to take what he wanted by force.

She had resented him for it, but she knew this was her fate. Having entered this line of work, how could she expect to always emerge with her purity intact? Before, she had Pei Pei to protect her; now that Pei Pei was gone, she had no one to lean on anymore. If she still dreamed of walking away completely unscathed, that was nothing but wishful thinking.

But she quickly discovered that her resentment toward him had been diminishing day by day, to the point where she had forgotten the fact that he had once forced himself on her.

She knew he had deliberately lured her out here to kill her, yet she did not hate him. On the contrary, she felt a sense of release.

But then why had he come back to save her? Why hadn’t he let her perish here completely?

“Xie Yan.” Shen Ruoxi knew he was delirious with fever and could not hear a word she was saying. “Why did you save me? If you hadn’t saved me, I could have died right here. If you hadn’t saved me, I never would have developed feelings for you.”

—