Chapter 15
The bitter cold of winter had seeped into Yun-si’s bones, settling there like an unwelcome guest. By the next morning, her throat burned with each swallow, her limbs heavy as if weighted down by invisible stones.
For days after, Yun-si’s days blurred together in a haze of fever and wrecking coughs. The physician came and went, leaving behind prescriptions that her maids simmered into bitter herbal medicines. But the taste was nothing compared with the forlornness in her heart.
If medicine could cure illnesses, was there any remedy for the excruciating hollowness in her chest?
Most days, she slept. When wakefulness forced its way in, she would lie still, staring at the bare branches of the peach tree outside her window.
Some days, Yun-hai’s fox would come, looking at her curiously from the tree.
Other days, the tree was just a tree, covered with snow, looking as desolate as she felt.
When she dreamt, she found herself always in a grove of white mists, with nothingness all around her. It was quiet, and peaceful, and asked nothing of her. Sometimes she saw a flicker of familiar red fur passing by in the distant fog, but it ignored her, and she paid it no mind.
So she closed her eyes again and again, willing the world to fade. If she slept long enough, perhaps she would wake to find that none of it had ever happened. That they hadn’t yet grown up. That the words between them had never been spoken. That her heart was still whole.
She struggled with the thought of seeking out Ting-zhi. But what should she say to him? And how could she disturb him when he was preparing for the imperial examinations? Her emotional turmoil seemed petty compared to the exam that will determine his future as a court official.
Their kisses were replayed over, over, and over again, in her mind. The hammering caress of their lips, the look on his face, the way he had walked away from her. Some days she woke up feeling phantom kisses on her lips, and wept.
It was just as well her mother was staying with her eldest sister through the cold winter to tend her pregnancy. The thought of sitting through the daily morning lessons, pretending everything was fine, was more than she could bear.
The peach tree outside remained bare. And the winter stretched on.
When Yun-si finally emerged from her seclusion in Peach Blossom Courtyard weeks later, the world had transformed into something unrecognizable—everything buried under pristine white silence.
Was it her imagination? Or had the winters in Shangjing grown harsher, each season bringing longer winters and heavier snows than the last?
The cold air stung her pale cheeks and sensitive eyes, and her breath formed small clouds in front of her as she walked.
The past few weeks had been an utter failure. Every word she wrote reminded her of him. The ink on her manuscripts smudged and blurred with tears, staining the paper with her misery. Her heart was too sad to breathe. She couldn’t write. There was nothing to send to Old Wang.
Thunder Blade might as well be dead. His lady killed too. Maybe the whole world can go up in flames and everyone can die and there will be no need to write any romantic scenes since everyone is dead.
She dragged her feet to Clear Mountain Lodge, determined to find Qing-he, if only to feel that lively warmth on her soul and remember what a swordswoman should be like.
But when she pushed opened the gate, she saw only her elder brother, sitting utterly still in the center of his snow-covered garden, his qin before him. The courtyard was silent. Snow had settled on the stones, the trees, the garden table and chairs.
Snow had even settled on Yun-shan himself, and on his qin. His hair and long eyelashes were dusted white with snowflakes. He looked like an immortal who had stepped out of a painting. Beautiful. Distant. And utterly alone.
“Big brother?” she asked uncertainly. “Where is Qing-he?”
For a long moment, he did not respond, as though he was trying to remember how to talk. The silence in the courtyard felt even heavier, and Yun-si glanced around for signs of Qing-he.
“She has left.” Yun-shan said with his usual perfect composure.
The snow on his eyelashes crumbled away as he looked down at his qin and said very, very softly, with a tone that left her heart in tatters, “She has left me.”