Chapter 18 Heavenly Prison Snow
I was locked into the Heavenly Prison.
The cell was cold and damp. A thin layer of ice clung to the corners.
The meals the jailers brought were always cold. I still ate them with appetite.
Xiao Huai An came several times. He looked at me through the iron bars, his eyes looking as tangled as a knot of hemp.
"Wen Yan, I will find a way to get you out." His voice was hoarse, heavy with the smell of wine. "Once the storm has passed, we will go to Jiangnan, and never return to this Changan."
I leaned against the icy wall and suddenly smiled.
"Your Highness, do you still remember the Lantern Festival in the twenty-second year of Changle?"
He paused.
"I remember. You mentioned it last time too..."
"I did not cry that day." I cut him off. "I only watched you hold the Rabbit Lantern and search for me in the crowd. The lamp oil scalded your hand."
"Just one glance back from you kept me thinking of you from dawn till dusk."
His eye rims suddenly turned red. He reached to grab my hand, but the iron bars stopped him. His knuckles knocked red against the cold railing.
"Wen Yan, I know I was wrong. Believe me one more time, all right?"
"It is too late." I turned my head and looked at the sky outside the window, cut to pieces by the high walls. "Xiao Huai An, my debt has to be repaid with a life."
I heard him ramble for a long time outside the prison door.
I took the sound of boots crushing the snow as nothing more than a farewell.