◎The Forty-Seventh Year of Jingyan, Winter, Heavy Snowfall Across the Sky◎

Lan Shanjun felt she was about to die.

She had heard people say that before death, one would dream of those departed souls who never appeared in dreams before.

——

Lan Shanjun finally dreamed of the old monk.

Beneath ancient willows and tall scholar trees, her young self sat on the moss-covered stone steps of a dilapidated temple, learning blade techniques from him.

The old monk said her blade was fast and excellent, showing considerable talent, and she could inherit his mantle well. But he refused to explain what this mantle entailed, so she simply used this sharp blade to slaughter pigs.

The old monk was grief-stricken, feeling she had disgraced their lineage and shown disrespect to Buddha, yet he ate the pork she brought back with great delight.

She looked at the empty bowls and dishes, saying helplessly, “Master, your mouth eating meat is faster than the blade in your hand—”

The old monk bristled with anger, cursing and scolding, but she couldn’t hear what he said.

She grew anxious, bringing her ear close to him. “Master, what are you scolding?”

After so many years apart, even if it was scolding, she at least wanted to hear his voice.

But no matter how close she leaned in, she still couldn’t hear the old monk’s voice. She felt wronged.

“Master, all these years, why haven’t you come to see me? You don’t even know how difficult my life has been.”

She was someone with poor fate.

People said she was an abandoned infant, thrown at the foot of a mountain at birth, picked up and raised by the old monk. Before the age of twelve, she followed the old monk around seeking alms and eating at various households. Though life was hard, at least she had someone to depend on.

When she was twelve, the old monk died. To survive, she could only go down the mountain to become a pig butcher. Later, fate took many turns—at sixteen, she was suddenly brought to the Duke Zhenguo’s manor, becoming the legitimate second daughter who had been lost, and at eighteen she married, becoming the eldest young madam of the Duke Songguo’s household.

The journey was extremely difficult, but Lan Shanjun wielded a pig-slaughtering blade in her heart and had never feared anyone.

At twenty-six, her disdainful mother-in-law finally died, troublesome sisters-in-law were separated into different households, arrogant concubines were sold off, and she had both sons and daughters at her side. Just when she felt her fate should finally turn favorable, without any warning, the Song family bound her overnight and sent her back to her old home in Huailing, confining her in a sunless room where she never saw daylight for years.

She was filled with hatred.

She didn’t know why she was imprisoned, nor did she understand why, with her status, her sudden disappearance prompted no one to investigate or rescue her. She only knew the windows were nailed shut, pitch black inside, with no difference between opening and closing her eyes.

In the dream, she asked the old monk with grievance, “Master, why haven’t you come to save me? I can barely endure anymore.”

She survived on the daily delivery of spoiled food and vegetables, living without dignity in this tiny space, unaware of the passing days and months, beginning to go mad.

But she didn’t want to go mad, nor did she want to die without understanding why. Born stubborn, even pushed to this extremity, she clung to life through sheer resentment, refusing to shed a single tear.

Fortunately, she could cry in dreams. She clutched the old monk’s tattered kasaya, tears falling. “Master, have you come to take me away?”

The old monk neither answered nor responded, only turned around, and in an instant was already thirty feet away. Lan Shanjun grew anxious, involuntarily running after him. “Master, wait for me, I’ll go with you—”

But she just couldn’t catch up—

The chase was so exhausting.

Too exhausting.

She could endure no longer.

Lan Shanjun woke from the dream in pain, opening her eyes.

——Outside the window, countless rays of light suddenly poured in.

……

The Forty-Seventh Year of Yuanshao, winter, fierce winds and cruel snow.

Lan Shanjun traveled toward the imperial capital Luoyang with the people sent by the Duke Zhenguo’s manor to fetch her. Nearing Luoyang, heavy snow blocked the roads, so the entire party stayed at a postal station not far from Luoyang.

The Lan family’s third young master, following his father Duke Zhenguo’s orders to bring her home, had spent three months on this round trip. Finally almost home, yet stopped on the road again, he sighed with frustration. “Ah, your sister-in-law must be missing me.”

He had departed for Shuzhou’s Huailing just three days after his wedding, right in the honeymoon period, and deeply missed his wife at home.

After speaking, he turned around and noticed this sister who had been cheerful and lively throughout the journey was unexpectedly silent, merely staring at the snow outside. He smiled. “Does sister like snow?”

Lan Shanjun didn’t answer immediately, but seriously watched the snow for a while before saying, “I don’t like it.”

Winter snow could freeze people to death. The day the old monk died was just like today, with snow filling the sky. Mountain snow accumulated heavily—they couldn’t fetch a physician up the mountain, nor carry the old monk down, leaving her guilty about it for a very long time.

In her youth, she should have detested snow the most.

Third Young Master Lan was somewhat surprised. “If you don’t like it, why stare at it so intently?”

Lan Shanjun smiled. “I haven’t seen it for too long, find it novel.”

Third Young Master Lan moved closer. “Is that so? Does Huailing rarely have snow?”

Lan Shanjun softly affirmed with a sound. “Yes, very rarely any snow.”

The approaching Third Young Master Lan had already noticed the dark circles under his sister’s eyes. He asked with concern, “Sister, didn’t you sleep well last night?”

Lan Shanjun’s hands tightened. “I had a nightmare.”

Her expression was complex as she looked at this elder brother who still treated her kindly, feeling as if she were still in a dream. Yet she had indeed returned to ten years ago, back to when she had just come from Huailing to Luoyang.

This year, she was told she was the lost Sixth Miss of the Duke Zhenguo’s manor, not a parentless abandoned infant. From then on, she embarked on a path to success.

She no longer had to scramble for silver, no longer had to worry at night that her broken door would be smashed open. She moved into a prestigious manor, becoming a noble young lady from an aristocratic family.

This year was the turning point of her fate, when many, many things happened.

She fell silent, lost in memories. Third Young Master Lan, however, thought she was nervous and anxious about arriving in Luoyang soon, and consoled her. “Everyone in our family has gentle and honest temperaments. Ordinarily they never even raise their voices, the whole family harmonious and peaceful. They all care about you deeply. Even though Grandfather and Father practice Taoist cultivation and don’t live at home, they called me over to instruct me several times, telling me to restrain my impetuous temper on the journey, lest my rash nature frighten you.”

These words contained not a trace of falsehood.

Lan Shanjun couldn’t help but recall the past following his words, discovering she still remembered that when she first arrived in Luoyang, there was indeed such a heavy snowfall. She entered the manor through the snow, and the household had long been waiting at the main gate to welcome her, each one excited and affectionate, coming to hold her hands, embracing her as they walked toward home, moving her for many days. She had marveled at how having a family was better than having none.

But before long, her habits and temperament proved difficult to reconcile with theirs, and that bit of emotion instantly dissipated.

Later still, these gentle and honest people looked at her one by one with disappointed gazes, always making her feel she was something filthy. Yet because they had indeed shown her kindness, she felt she didn’t even deserve to curse them in her heart—that doing so would be ingratitude.

That feeling was more painful than being beaten by villains.

Third Young Master Lan continued consoling her with a smile. “Before I left to fetch you, Mother cried daily, missing you terribly. I reckon when you return home, she’ll surely cry with joy for half a month.”

Perhaps having just been reborn, she was particularly fond of reminiscing. Hearing the word “mother,” Lan Shanjun became slightly distracted again.

In her impression, her mother, the Duke Zhenguo’s wife, was an extremely gentle person who wouldn’t raise her voice even when angry, thoroughly cultivating her character. While she herself, born in the countryside, had wielded a pig-slaughtering blade for years, doing business that required greeting customers with smiles—such behavior before someone like her mother would naturally make even her smile seem vulgar and shallow, requiring correction.

Mother personally taught her proper etiquette. But being young then, both stubborn and proud, she learned while simultaneously feeling her past was being scorned, producing an inexplicable sense of dignity that made her straighten her back and declare directly that she didn’t want to learn these things.

Mother gently advised, but she spoke loudly, saying, “Your rules may be very good, eating slowly and elegantly looks nice, but I must eat quickly and finish—when I’m done, I still have work to do. If I eat slowly, others will finish the food, and I’ll go hungry—These are habits I’ve had for over ten years, why should I change them!”

Mother then showed a disappointed expression and reprimanded her. “But you’re no longer Huailing’s pig butcher, you’re a young lady of Luoyang’s Duke Zhenguo manor. Henceforth when you go out as a guest, eating so fast and so much—won’t you fear people’s mockery? When dining, one should eat only seventy percent full, neither hurried nor slow.”

Lan Shanjun actually vaguely agreed with these words. What sixteen or seventeen-year-old girl wouldn’t want to be more refined?

She stubbornly refused to learn outwardly, while feeling inferior in the depths of night.

She truly ate too much, strode too widely, spoke too quickly—she needed to slow down. Only then would she not be mocked. Who wanted to be mocked?

So she rose in the middle of the night to secretly review the etiquette she hadn’t learned well during the day.

Yet she refused to tell Mother after learning, feeling the disappointment in her eyes wounded her self-respect. Whenever Mother showed an expression that embarrassed her, she always had to return a few barbs.

Later, somehow, though she clearly wanted to grow close to Mother and the entire Duke Zhenguo household, in the end there was estrangement.

Too much time had passed—she couldn’t quite remember the specific events of those years. She only remembered living very uncomfortably in that home. Though she never suffered any mistreatment or great grievances, she ultimately lived apprehensively, learning to read people’s expressions, more difficult than her days as a pig butcher.

Then she hoped to marry out quickly, to have a new family, to go to a new place and start fresh. She felt then that as long as she started over, she would surely live very well.

Having such thoughts, she began eagerly pursuing marriage, ultimately settling on the Duke Songguo household, even more prestigious than the Duke Zhenguo manor.

When she married out, Mother said to her earnestly, “Shanjun, with your temperament of both arrogance and inferiority, you’ll suffer losses in the future.”

Arrogance and inferiority…

Lan Shanjun came back to her senses, looking at the heavy snow with a sigh.

She indeed suffered many losses afterward. But those were matters after marriage. After marrying, she even left her life behind in Huailing, dying so miserably.

She thought, in this lifetime she could no longer become the obedient and gentle daughter Mother wanted in her heart. The hostility in her chest surged constantly, disturbing her peace whether sitting or lying down, always wanting to seek an explanation for her dead self from the previous life, to demand a life back.

She took a deep breath, lowered her eyes, and murmured, “The snow is truly heavy today.”

When she died, she didn’t know what the scene outside was like.

Was it day or night?

But it probably wasn’t winter.

Winter would be cold, yet the day she dreamed of the old monk, she felt warm all over.

Probably a spring day.

Probably an afternoon.

Third Young Master Lan discovered this newly recovered sister had become even quieter. He couldn’t help asking, “Is there some difficulty?”

Lan Shanjun shook her head, looking at the snow outside and suddenly smiled. “No difficulty, just some regrets.”

Third Young Master Lan asked curiously, “What regrets?”

Lan Shanjun gathered her sleeves, sighing, “People say Luoyang’s flowers bloom like brocade…”

Yet I Arrived When Spring Was Not Here.