Geng Songsheng retrieved three steamed buns frozen solid as stones from the stone house. Roasted over the fire until golden brown on both sides, they smelled wonderful.

Behind him came the sound of footsteps crunching through snow.

He turned to see Yan Sanhe, his brow furrowing slightly.

Clever people could often guess many things from just an expression, a look, or a gesture.

“Do you want me to go persuade her?” he asked.

Yan Sanhe shook her head. “Just to say goodbye.”

Geng Songsheng’s brow furrowed deeper. “Miss, aren’t you afraid I’ll…”

“You’re not that kind of person.”

Geng Songsheng looked into her eyes and suddenly felt like laughing.

“You’re not that kind of person”—these were words he’d desperately wanted to hear from everyone many years ago.

Now that someone had actually said them, he felt that whether he was that kind of person or not no longer mattered.

“Alright!”

He agreed readily. “You all hunker down here then.”

Yan Sanhe surveyed their surroundings. “Yes, it’s fairly sheltered from the wind.”

Geng Songsheng laughed heartily and turned to leave.

As soon as he left, Yan Sanhe waved toward the distance, and Young Master Pei was the first to rush in.

“This godforsaken place, how can it be so cold? I just went out to take a piss and nearly froze to death.”

After speaking, Zhu Yuanzhao came in with his neck hunched.

Yan Sanhe wasted no words and said bluntly, “Tomorrow at first light, no matter what the weather is like, we’re going down the mountain.”

Zhu Yuanzhao nodded.

“Where’s Buyan?”

“Coming, coming!”

Li Buyan rushed in carrying an armful of dry firewood.

Yan Sanhe: “Where did you find that?”

“Right behind this stone house, there’s a whole pile.”

Li Buyan stacked up the dry wood and lit a fire by the doorway. As the flames blazed up, Young Master Pei pulled Zhu Yuanzhao over to huddle around it.

Finally, they had a chance at survival!

Once Zhu Yuanzhao had warmed up a bit, he suddenly spoke up. “Miss Yan, my mother…”

“We’re not discussing anything today.”

Yan Sanhe interrupted him, her expression calm and firm.

“There’s too much cluttering my mind. I need to think things through, and you need to calm down and consider what comes next—whether we should send Ding Yi back to the capital first to deliver a message to your elder brother.”

Something in those words touched Zhu Yuanzhao’s heart. He suddenly dropped to his knees, covering his face with both hands. As his shoulders bent, tears streamed through his fingers.

This time, even the soft-hearted Pei Xiao didn’t step forward to comfort him.

He should cry.

Disturbing ancestral graves to steal Geng Songsheng’s scholarly fortune star;

The Peach Blossom Well;

The life-demanding nails;

And borrowing another’s fate…

What kind of normal person could do such things?

Too damned despicable!

And she called herself a good wife, a good mother—I spit on that!

It perfectly illustrated that saying at the temple gate—

“Drawing a tiger, you can draw its skin but not its bones; knowing a person, you know their face but not their heart.”

…

Geng Songsheng entered the main hall, closed the door behind him, and sat cross-legged by the brazier.

Zhu Weixi looked up at him.

He pulled out a small knife from his waist and cut the steamed bun into slices, placing them on the pot lid.

Frozen buns needed to soften first before roasting to taste good.

“Hand me the wooden spatula.”

Zhu Weixi passed it over.

He took it, opened the pot lid and stirred, feeling it was getting dry. He added more water and covered the pot again.

Zhu Weixi’s heart throbbed with pain.

In her memory, those hands had held brushes, turned pages of books, folded tree leaves, picked flowers… but never done such menial work.

After a long while, she asked quietly, “Geng Songsheng, do you hate me?”

He didn’t answer directly but asked instead, “Zhu Weixi, do you hate me?”

She paused. “I have.”

He smiled. “I have too.”

She said, “I hated that you didn’t walk the righteous path, that you had that one night of passion.”

He said, “I hated that you were too foolish, that you’d rather believe others than trust me.”

After speaking, both fell silent.

Hate comes from having cared.

When caring is too intense, and desires go unfulfilled, it transforms into hate.

“These years, I’ve traveled to many places.”

Geng Songsheng looked up to meet her eyes, his voice carrying the same laughter as before.

“I went as far east as the Eastern Sea, south to Qiongtai, west I climbed Mount Laqi, and north I reached Mohe.”

Those were places Zhu Weixi could never imagine in her entire lifetime.

They were dreams in the night.

“I stayed by the Eastern Sea for three months.”

He slowly sank into reminiscence.

“The vast ocean stretches endlessly, the seawater so blue. Sometimes it’s calm as glass, sometimes it churns up violent storms. Seagulls fly across the water’s surface, and when the sun shines bright, they soar very high.

I would often sit on the cliff rocks in a daze, thinking of nothing, just sitting there.

When the sun was out, I’d lie on the sandy stones for entire days, sometimes awake, sometimes asleep. When I slept, I’d dream, and in my dreams…”

“Was it home?”

“Quite the opposite.”

Geng Songsheng laughed openly. “I dreamed of many things, but never of home.”

Zhu Weixi’s tightly pressed lips trembled several times, her heart aching even more.

She wanted to ask.

Was I there?

“What shocked me most was Mount Laqi. When I saw it, I involuntarily fell to my knees, my eyes moistening. That sense of loftiness, majesty, grandeur, vastness…”

His eyes shone bright as a lone star at the horizon’s edge, with clear light emanating from them.

“It made me realize how small people are among mountains and waters; how fragile all that pursuit of glory and wealth is; how utterly boring all that scheming for you-or-me, life-or-death is.”

He looked at Zhu Weixi, his gaze deep.

“I also encountered many, many interesting people. There was a caravan guard, quite old—about fifty or sixty years—mixed in with the escort team. He didn’t do anything, just kept clamoring about wanting to get home quickly.”

Zhu Weixi responded, “Was it to earn money for a living?”

He shook his head. “He didn’t earn money from escorting; in fact, he paid the caravan two taels of silver each time. Because he walked slowly, people found him tiresome.”

Zhu Weixi didn’t understand. “Why suffer like that?”

“He said if he stayed at home, his wife would beat and scold him. But when he returned with the caravan escort, he’d come home to hot porridge and rice, and at night his wife would even warm his bed for him.”

“What a fierce wife!”

“His wife couldn’t remember anything—she’d forgotten the old man, forgotten their sons and daughters. Only when she saw the caravan returning through the city gate would she recall things from the past.”

He smiled slightly. “But it would only last a few days. After a few days, she’d forget everything again.”

Zhu Weixi was silent for a moment. “That wife, when she was young, must have gone to the city gate every day to wait for her husband. She waited and waited until it became a habit.”

Geng Songsheng nodded.

“The old man complained to me that one day his wife would exhaust him to death. I advised him to stop running escorts and just rest at home. Guess what he said?”

“What did he say?”

Geng Songsheng’s lips curved in a faint smile. “He said I didn’t understand shit and deserved to become a monk.”

Zhu Weixi: “What happened after?”

“After that, he continued his escort work, and my master and I took another road. We never met again.”

Zhu Weixi’s eyes burned from the smoke. She lowered her head and murmured, “So you only walked such a short distance together!”

“Yes, that was the extent of our fate.”

Geng Songsheng looked at her. “Just enough to hear his complaints.”

Zhu Weixi seemed to think of something, her eyes flickering.

—