He silently bent down and lifted Shang Rong into his arms. Grain by grain, snowflakes slid off the hem of her skirt, and she curled her icy fingers tight, looking up at him from within his embrace with a pair of swollen, reddened eyes.

The courtyard was utterly quiet. The lattice windows of the side room were pitch black, without the slightest movement inside.

The youth carried her into the room and placed her on the bed. Seeing how she could not stop trembling, he pulled over a quilt and wrapped it around her in a hasty bundle.

He glanced at her silently for a moment, then suddenly turned and left.

Shang Rong watched him walk behind that screen. What followed was the sound of the door closing. Without the wind, the curtain gently drooped down.

She listened to his footsteps and saw him emerge again from behind the screen, holding his own quilt in his arms.

“Did you,” Shang Rong let him wrap another layer of quilt around her body, her throat hoarse from the wind, “hear what I was saying?”

“Danshuang.”

Zhezhu lifted his thin eyelids slightly and looked at her.

He had stood by her bedside for a long time, listening to her sobbing murmurs. Piecing them together, from beginning to end, there had only been this one name.

The room suddenly fell into silence. Shang Rong realized that after giving that name, he had not said anything more.

He had always been like this. Regarding her matters, he rarely showed any curiosity of his own.

“She is an older sister who often came to the temple to see me.”

Zhezhu had just pressed his finger lightly against the teapot to test its temperature when he suddenly heard her voice. He paused, then turned his head back.

She was like a strange hedgehog.

She hid her secrets. Whenever anyone asked, all her sharp quills were never used to pierce others, but to torment herself.

Yet tonight, cautiously, as if testing the waters, she revealed a sliver of her true feelings to him.

If not for the bright moon and heavy snow, if not for him reaching out his hand to her, she would rather have clutched her chaotic fifteen years to her chest and died in silence.

Zhezhu poured a bowl of hot tea and brought it to her. But he had wrapped her too tightly; for a moment she did not even know where to extend her hands from. He simply pressed the rim of the tea bowl to her frost-paled lips.

After two mouthfuls of hot tea, the warmth made her uncontrollably think of that pool of blood in her dream, nearly hot enough to scald a person’s skin. She suddenly pressed her lips together and refused to drink more.

“She died?”

Zhezhu set the tea bowl aside.

“I watched them feed all the ruined elixirs to her.”

She seemed absent-minded, her eyes slowly lowering. “I saw her lose her senses, again and again, slamming herself against the pillar.”

Her head smashed until blood flowed, crying and laughing at once.

Her eyes grew wet again. Shang Rong lifted her head but could not see his face clearly. Speaking incoherently, she said, “Then they pressed her into the water! She saw me, she called to me, she told me the water was very hot, she was in so much pain…”

She broke into uncontrollable sobs. “Zhezhu, it wasn’t water — it was the elixirs she ate. She ate so many elixirs, that’s why she suffered so much… I watched them drown her!”

So many Daoist bodies formed a wall, always blocking her. Through the gaps in their fluttering sleeves, she saw that young woman finally become a corpse that would never move again.

But she could do nothing.

“Just because she told me she really wanted to take me to see what the outside world was like.”

She was almost crying to the point of losing her voice. “Just because she told me that in this world there is no body of absolute purity or cleanliness, only a heart of absolute purity and cleanliness. She hoped I would not be bound by the rules others set for me. She hoped I would not be so obedient…”

“Clearly, in five days she was to be married. She told me the man she was marrying was the finest gentleman in her eyes,” her light hair was damp with tears, clinging to Shang Rong’s pale cheek, “but they killed her.”

She looked pitiful beyond words.

Zhezhu stared at her silently, saying nothing. Wind and snow struck the window with rustling sounds. The lamplight flickered. One of his hands lifted slightly, its shadow falling soundlessly upon the window gauze.

The moment his fingers touched the crown of her dark hair, she was like a child who had never tasted sweetness before but suddenly received a piece of candy—her whole head tipped straight into his chest.

His lashes fluttered once. His fingers, lightly resting against her black hair, froze in midair. She was crying very softly now, but when he lowered his gaze, he saw that the front of his robe was already damp.

“I’ll stop crying soon.”

She choked as she told him.

Zhezhu thought for a moment, then tentatively, gently patted her head.

It was an extremely unfamiliar form of comfort.

“Why are you hitting me?” So unfamiliar that Shang Rong did not even realize it was comfort. Through tear-blurred eyes, she looked up at him.

“…”

Zhezhu turned his face away awkwardly and instead asked her, “Does Mengshi resemble the person who killed her?”

Shang Rong froze. She suddenly realized that the youth before her was originally someone exceedingly intelligent, meticulous to the finest detail. She could not reveal anything more to him.

“Only his brows and eyes… at first glance, somewhat similar.” Thinking carefully now, Mengshi was much younger, but the manner of his turning beneath the lamplight at that time had been extremely alike.

Zhezhu keenly noticed that she had begun to hold something back, but he only glanced at her and said nothing. He simply helped her lie down, then stood up. “He comes from Baiyu Zichang Temple. The Daoists there grew up within the temple from childhood; they are not people of Yujing.”

The aqua-blue gauze curtain behind the youth stirred gently. Warm-toned light and shadow passed through the screen and fell across his shoulder. His eyes were cold and clear.

“Besides, I am still here,”

“what are you afraid of him for?”

The room returned to silence. The candle on the stand burned down, the last thread of flame extinguished. In the darkness, Shang Rong did not know what she stared at for a long time before finally closing her eyes.

This time, she did not dream.

The next morning, the sky still held a dusky blue-black hue. In her sleep, Shang Rong had her cheek pinched. She opened her eyes in confusion and saw, in the not-yet-bright morning light, the youth’s pale face dotted with water droplets as he wound his soft sword around the xiédìe belt at his waist.

“I am going to Shuqing City for a while,” his voice was fresh like winter morning dew, “this time it is inconvenient to take you.”

After Zhezhu left, Shang Rong could not resist her drowsiness and slept again in a muddle. When she woke once more, the daylight was already bright.

She sat blankly on the bed for a moment before realizing that only she and Mengshi remained in this courtyard. Suddenly, a knock sounded at the door. She immediately turned and gripped the dagger beneath her pillow in her hand.

“Miss Susu, before Young Master Zhezhu left, he asked me to brew medicine for your cold. Come out and drink it quickly!” Outside the door was Mengshi’s voice, carrying a trace of a smile.

Hearing the name “Susu,” Shang Rong paused for a moment.

She looked at the blurred shadow of the person outside reflected on the window gauze, recalling the words the youth had spoken to her in the snow last night: “You are in Shuqing, not Yujing.”

She lifted her lashes slightly and responded.

When Zhezhu left, he had already placed a new mask on the table. Shang Rong dressed, washed up, then stuck on the mask and went out.

The peasant woman who had led them up yesterday was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Mengshi emerged from the kitchen, carrying a clay pot, then brought over a set of bowls and chopsticks and set them on the table. Looking up and seeing her on the steps, he smiled at her.

“Miss Susu, after you finish the medicine, come and taste how this pot of chicken soup rice I made turned out.”

His bearing was refined and elegant. His eyes had put away all sharp coldness; when he smiled, he appeared much more approachable. In such strong daylight, as Shang Rong looked at him, she seemed to feel that perhaps he was not that similar after all.

“How is it that you… made this?” Shang Rong still spoke.

“When Madam Yu came, you were still asleep,” Mengshi brought over a bowl of medicinal soup and set it on the table, “so I simply borrowed a chicken from her on credit and simmered a pot of chicken broth.”

“A chicken on credit?”

Shang Rong noticed this. There was nothing hanging at her waist, so she took off the bracelet on her wrist and placed it on the table, pushing it toward him. Her tone still carried some distance and caution: “I have no silver. You… may give this to Madam Yu for me.”

Mengshi lowered his eyes and saw the jade bracelet on the table, immediately knowing it was of considerable value. He shook his head and said with a smile, “I borrowed this chicken on credit. How could I let you repay my debt for me? I have already asked Madam Yu—her village lacks a teacher. Though I was once a Daoist and could not take the imperial examinations, I have still studied for many years. If this works out, I will soon be able to repay the cost of that chicken to Madam Yu.”

After saying this, Shang Rong watched as he picked up the bowl of medicinal soup and poured some of it into the empty bowl in front of him. Then he lifted the bowl and drank it down, mouthful by mouthful, unhurriedly.

Shang Rong stared at him in astonishment.

“Miss Susu, drink it.” Setting down the bowl, Mengshi’s brows and eyes held a smile.

So frank and natural was his manner that it dispelled the wariness and concern hidden in her heart.

Shang Rong lowered her gaze, staring at the dark medicinal liquid. After a moment, she picked up the bowl and slowly drank it.

Mengshi lifted the lid of the clay pot. Hot steam drifted out, spreading the rich fragrance of chicken broth. Shang Rong swallowed involuntarily, yet her mouth was still filled with the bitter taste of the medicine.

“This chicken soup rice is what I make best. Back when my wife was still here, she liked it very much.” As he spoke, Mengshi ladled out a bowl of soup from the pot and drank some himself first, then handed the spoon to her and placed the chopsticks by her hand.

Shang Rong sat at the table eating. Mengshi, meanwhile, stood by a stone platform to the side, washing a filthy cloth doll with the flowing fresh water running from a bamboo tube.

The chicken was stewed until soft and falling from the bone, the broth rich and delicious. Shang Rong had to admit that what he said was true.

“Do I look like a wicked person to you, miss?”

Amid the clear sound of running water, Mengshi’s voice suddenly came.

Shang Rong turned her head at once and saw that he was still there, earnestly washing the cloth doll. She pressed her lips together, then after a moment replied, “Last night, I only mistook you for an old acquaintance of mine.”

“Then surely that acquaintance of yours is not a good person.”

Mengshi said.

Shang Rong held the spoon but did not move, nor did she speak.

“You see me as a wicked old acquaintance, yet I see kindness in your face, miss.” Mengshi wrung all the water from the cloth doll and then carefully arranged it with great care.

Hearing this, Shang Rong lifted her eyes and saw that in washing a single cloth doll, he had splashed water all over himself. Even his beard was dotted with droplets, and the hem of his robe was still stuck with quite a few feathers he had not fully cleaned off.

He truly did not resemble him.

After thinking for a moment, she said, “It was wrong of me to treat you rudely because of my own matters.”