Chapter Text
The next day, by the time the hour hand was pointing at ten o’clock, the snow had stopped. The night sky had been washed into a pure, crystalline clearness, the sort that one could gaze into endlessly.
Jing Yuan was curled up on the couch in the room, scrolling through the latest Luofu Daily news. The first half: the Sword Champion personally patrols the Luofu and maintains public order! The Arbiter-General delivers an important speech! The Luofu will be sure to never forget its heart and soul as it continues advancing forward on the path of prosperity paved by its previous Arbiter-General. We will create a beautiful tomorrow for the new generation…
How else could they be called an official media outlet? The way they chose their words and crafted their sentences was simply designed to make him feel at ease.
When he had finished reading, all he felt was cool and refreshed, and pleased enough to be floating on bubbles.
It was a little funny to say, but when Jing Yuan had been the general himself, he hadn’t given an ounce of thought to the judgements of outsiders. It was only when he stepped down from his position that he started paying attention to the news. Every now and then, he would take a look at how the younger generation of the Luofu was faring, and he would be all the more relieved to find them as full of life and vigor as always. So every time, he would considerately and supportively leave a like and a comment one after the other. The last time he’d done so, the single sentence he’d left in the comment section—hahaha, quite nice, quite nice—was still hanging far above the rest of the comments as the one that had been liked the most. The space below it was crowded full of clamoring responses, from aaaaaaaa we caught him in the flesh to Jing Yuan-xiansheng, will you come to Exalting Sanctum and have some desserts? to a new immersia just came out recently, if Jing Yuan-xiansheng is interested, I’ll have tickets delivered to you personally, and on and on.
Without that layer of separation afforded by the title of Arbiter-General, the people of the Luofu were even friendlier and more adoring in the way they treated him.
But with that said, he didn’t spend a lot of time looking at replies to his comments. He didn’t spend a lot of time looking at his jade abacus to begin with. After he’d sent his comment, he would set his jade abacus down and read a book or play with his finches. The retirement life, for him, was full of pleasures and excitements. Every so often, he would go for a leisurely stroll around the Seat of Divine Foresight. But even though he went, it wasn’t as though he did anything. All he did was drink his tea and eat his desserts and then wander off, almost as if he was purposefully showing off in front of Fu Xuan, who was so busy her feet barely ever hit the ground, and Yanqing, who was sent out as support for other Xianzhou ships every other week. Seeing Jing Yuan’s lackadaisical attitude, they would be envious enough to hit their desks and stamp their feet. But after they were done being envious, they would be glad—glad that it turned out that they were doing pretty well, and that they could let Jing Yuan properly enjoy his worry-free days.
When it came to enabling Jing Yuan in his mission of drawing annoyance, Qingzu and Yutie had the highest merits.
To specify, as long as Jing Yuan was there, the Seat of Divine Foresight would always prepare the sweet desserts from those few stores that Jing Yuan liked in addition to the flavors that Fu Xuan herself preferred. Jing Yuan was someone whose love lasted for a very long time, and he could eat the same dessert from the same food stand for hundreds of years without getting sick of it. When he’d bought it enough times, the shopkeeper would come to know which types of desserts he liked, and every day, they would take special care to prepare a serving for him with more sugar and milk than the typical ratio, and with dough pinched in the thin and delicate shape of a little cat. Qingzu would have given the shopkeeper a greeting in advance, and she would bring those cat-shaped desserts to the cat-shaped Jing Yuan, providing him with tools with which to show off.
At this point in time, Fu Xuan would always have her arms crossed and her face about as happy as a plank of wood. With her eyes narrowed into almonds, she would glare at Jing Yuan, who would be sitting on the pew and smiling cheerfully, glaring from the top of his head to the floor beneath his toes.
Seeing that the situation was dangerous, Yutie would quickly move to block Jing Yuan from her view. This bodyguard had a one-track mind, and once he had started doing something, he would never stop doing it. Back when Fu Xuan was the Master Diviner, she would glare at Jing Yuan exactly the same way. Glaring because of this, glaring because of that—he probably should have gotten used to it. But every time, the bodyguard would insist on clumsily rushing out and acting as a mediator. This mediation had lasted from Fu Xuan’s time as the Master Diviner all the way to her time after becoming the Arbiter-General.
Fu Xuan pointed her finger at Qingzu, and Qingzu stared up at the ceiling. Fu Xuan pointed her finger at Yutie, and Yutie just looked back at her. Finally, Fu Xuan pointed her finger at Jing Yuan, and Jing Yuan handed her the desserts. They taste quite nice, will Fu-qing have one?
So she ate the dessert with all her grace and sophistication, and commented, “If you two continue on like this, sooner or later, you’ll enable Jing Yuan to get away with anything from the earth to the sky.”
If Yanqing had been there, he would probably be defending Jing Yuan too. But Yanqing wasn’t there—a few days before, the Yaoqing had embarked on another great warring expedition. The Cloud Knight leader Sushang had fired off a message and cajoled Yanqing into helping. He was probably having a great time killing enemies on the battlefield at that moment.
Hearing Fu Xuan’s words, Jing Yuan spread his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture. “Speaking of the sky, I also haven’t piloted a starskiff in quite some time. I’m very out of practice.”
Qingzu and Yutie, who had just been protecting him, immediately turned their heads to look at him in a synchronized motion. “Let’s not think about piloting starskiffs anymore, Jing Yuan!”
Fu Xuan’s strategy of inciting rebellion had succeeded. She clapped the dessert crumbs off her hands and went back by the desk to take care of the scrolls with great satisfaction.
These days were rowdy and full of noise. Even though there wasn’t anything special about them, they were still worth experiencing.
As for Silver Wolf, she had the habit of liking to watch these rowdy scenes. She particularly liked watching drama when it had to do with her uncle Blade. If it was dramatic enough to make Blade change his expression, then even if she had to stop playing video games, she would race to get a front row seat and watch the proceedings.
On this one day, the script was approaching its end, and the things the Stellaron Hunters had to busy themselves with weren’t many in number. They were all gathered on the big sofa in the middle of the apartment, each doing their own thing. Silver Wolf pulled back the holographic projection of herself she had put on the Luofu, a smile still lingering on her face. Kafka glanced at her, and started smiling too: “What is it? It has you smiling so happily.”
“Those people on the Luofu are really entertaining.” Silver Wolf retrieved a pack of bubble gum from her coat pocket, then tipped out a little square from inside the pack. She chewed on the gum while she painted the picture. She had gotten used to referring to him as General Jing Yuan, so even if he was no longer in office, she had no plans of changing her speech. It wasn’t as though it mattered anyway. However the Stellaron Hunters called Jing Yuan, it wouldn’t affect anything on the Luofu. “General Jing Yuan got a bone stuck in his throat while eating fish. The Seat of Divine Foresight is bouncing all over the walls right now trying to find vinegar for him.”
The sound of her voice hadn’t yet finished landing when Blade, who had been sitting silently at the end of the sofa with his eyes shut, lifted his head.
Kafka hid her lips behind her hand. “Don’t just leave off in the middle of the story, darling. A-Ren is about to get restless.”
“Psh, you’re that worried? You’re sweating through your shirt, aren’t you, Uncle?”
Silver Wolf blew a bubble as she waggled her eyebrows, her eyes raking right into Blade’s face.
Feeling her gaze, Blade stopped for a second, then leaned back against the sofa and closed his eyes again.
But tragically for him, Silver Wolf didn’t have the ability to lose her memory on the spot. Just now, she’d seen Blade’s furrowed eyebrows as clear as day.
At the start, when she had first become aware of the fact that Blade cared about that General Jing Yuan on the Luofu, Silver Wolf had had some misgivings. She had seen the state of madness Blade would go into when he had an episode of mara. She had seen him so numb and sluggish he was almost catatonic after he regained his consciousness. She had sized up the bloody mess of flesh around Blade’s wrists, and she had tried to come up with all kinds of ways to help ease the near-constant nightmares that kept him from sleeping.
In her eyes, Blade’s own state of being was so bad she couldn’t even decide which part of it was the worst part. How could he then spare any additional energy on loving another person? If he had the energy to spare, wouldn’t it be better if he first focused on taking good care of himself?
To make a comparison, it was like having your own game account and someone else’s game account. Blade’s own account had such a crappy ranking it was throwing itself onto the road, yet all he was doing was helping someone else level up theirs.
Who could tolerate that? Well, either way, Silver Wolf couldn’t.
But her secret plans to mess things up between him and Jing Yuan dissipated very quickly, and it was Blade himself who dissipated them.
That day, Silver Wolf had just come back from an espionage mission on the Luofu. She was sharing her reconnaissance and her perceptions on enemy activities with Kafka, and she hadn’t noticed that Blade, the crucially involved party, was currently sitting completely silently in the darkness, serving as a backdrop for their conversation. She had brought it up entirely offhand, saying that General Jing Yuan had switched to eating a different kind of dessert today. Finally! The time before this, he had the same kind of dessert for an entire week. I was getting so sick of the smell, I was going to vomit.
Maybe Kafka knew that Blade was sitting there, or maybe she didn’t. Gently, she continued that line of conversation. Which kind of dessert did he switch to?
Silver Wolf screwed up her face and thought long and hard for a while. Some kind of rose flavor? I smelled the scent of roses.
She herself forgot what she had said pretty much immediately. After playing games on her phone for the entire afternoon, she sent a verification code to Blade’s phone. Blade had gone out on a mission with Kafka and hadn’t returned yet. His phone had been left right on the table, with its perpetually empty screen and its battery always staying on ninety-eight percent. The thick aura of the older generation positively emanated from it.
Silver Wolf stretched herself up and swiped that phone open, only for her hand to stop moving.
As she looked down, that perpetually empty screen was stopped on the playback of a video. When Blade had locked the phone screen, he mostly likely hadn’t pressed the pause button, so when Silver Wolf opened it up, the video started playing from where it had left off automatically.
The voice in the video was very warm, and it was in the middle of patiently saying, “The rose petals from different regions will have different moisture levels. When you’re mixing the filling, please be sure to add different amounts of honey depending on the moisture level, so as to retain the flower’s flavor while getting rid of the bitterness…”
Silver Wolf stayed rooted in that position, listening to the video, for a very long time. She listened until the video had reached its final thank you to everyone’s subscriptions, and only then did she slowly rewind the playback to its original place and lock the phone screen again.
Silver Wolf had never associated desserts, sweets, flowers, or any of those sorts of soft and sweet everyday items with Blade. It had never seemed as though there was anything that really piqued Blade’s interest. The way he would close his eyes and cross his arms in front of his chest to warn strangers away from approaching was a silent way of refusing. But as she pinched her fingers together, as if through the screen, she seemed to pinch a few ever-so-slightly moist rose petals. The deep sound of a heartbeat was right by her ears. Blade was standing next to her, his expression focused and intent as he poured honey into the rose petal paste, bit by tiny bit.
That focus was something so alive. It dotted right between Blade’s eyes, as though a stone had fallen into a cold, deep pool and sent circle after circle of ripples swimming across its surface. It was like his entire person had come back to life, becoming full of flavor and light and color.
Because people would only reveal such a focused expression when they were handling something precious to them.
This focus originated from love, and love made people willing to be rowdily and noisily alive.
Maybe Blade should be attached to someone. And it was best if that person was also attached to him, and would mind him every now and then, and be considerate of his needs, and take care of him, and make him want to fix himself up a little better. If this was how it was done, then doing something like letting your own game account stagnate in favor of upgrading someone else’s would no longer be so difficult for anyone to tolerate.
Ever since that day, Silver Wolf’s attitude had done a complete one-eighty. She tossed aside the idea of using her genius brain to mess things up and went straight to using her genius brain to help them tie the red ribbon. In the morning, she would fire up her holographic projection and make a trip to the Luofu. In the evening, she would fire up her holographic projection and make another trip to the Luofu. The only thing she had left to do was open up a special program named the Jing Yuan Daily Observation Report, one that would broadcast every day at exactly eight in the evening, specifically and solely providing service to Blade.
“Relax. He’s fine, he shoved a rice ball in his mouth himself and swallowed it all down. Then he comforted that tactician beside him even though he still had tears in his eyes. That shortie diviner scolded him until he didn’t know whether he was laughing or crying.”
Silver Wolf shrugged her shoulders and gave Blade a pat on the arm. “Do you want to come with me next time? I’ll make you a holographic projection too.”
Blade didn’t say anything. He just stood up and went back to his room. His black hair wobbled along with the movements of his shoulder bones, giving the refusal he hadn’t said out loud a sort of weak-willed lining.
Silver Wolf’s plan of whisking him to the Luofu had failed, but she decided to get right back up and try again the next day.
In reality, the space between the two of them could not stop the story from playing out.
Did that Jing Yuan-jiangjun who resided on the Luofu know?
There was a Stellaron Hunter outside of the Luofu, one who rarely spoke, but one who had been watching after him for a very, very long time.
Jing Yuan was in the middle of reading the news when Blade, carrying a glass of milk, happened to walk behind him. Seeing what Jing Yuan was doing, he lowered his gaze and swept it over the screen of the jade abacus. When he glimpsed the press photographs of Yanqing and Fu Xuan on it, he couldn’t help but let out a mocking snort of a laugh.
A beautiful tomorrow? These two stacked on top of each other weren’t even as tall as his sword.
Hearing this tch from Blade, Jing Yuan immediately lifted his eyes and looked up at Blade with a bit of a helpless expression, like he didn’t know what to do with him.
Holding the milk glass, Blade walked away without any emotion on his face, as though that mocking laugh hadn’t been made by him in the first place.
It was right at this moment that Qingzu’s text message popped up, solidly covering up most of the bold newspaper headlines. Jing Yuan, the desserts have arrived at their destination. Remember to go pick them up. Also, Interastral Post said that that planet didn’t have a set delivery location, so they just dropped off the delivery in the snow plains outside of the town. You’d better head out earlier if you don’t want snow to fall on the desserts. If that happens, they won’t taste like the flavor of the Luofu anymore.
Reading this phrase, the flavor of the Luofu, Jing Yuan first stopped short for a second, then started to laugh. He set the pillow he had been hugging in his lap to the side, got off the couch, and began to walk toward the side of the room where Blade was. Hearing the sound of his footsteps, Blade looked back at him and said, “Put your coat on before you get off the couch.”
The furnace was on in the room anyway. It wasn’t as though he’d catch a cold if he didn’t put on a coat.
Even so, Jing Yuan made an oh of acknowledgement and retreated a few steps to pick up his fur-collar cloak. He draped it over himself before he walked back over to Blade’s side, his eyes both bright and kitten-like. Seeing his expression, Blade was both anticipating what he would say and happy about it. Combined with the idle chatter from yesterday, he could already make a guess: “The desserts they sent to you from the Luofu arrived?”
Jing Yuan nodded his head. “Is it all right for you to come with me to retrieve them?”
Blade gave Jing Yuan a side-eye, but this cat didn’t seem to realize at all that what he had just said was utter nonsense. He was watching Blade so very deferentially and respectfully, as though if Blade said that it wasn’t all right, then he would understand and probably reassure him, it’s okay, don’t worry, I’ll go myself and come back shortly.
Blade couldn’t be bothered to answer him. He set the glass of milk, freshly wiped clean, on the table, and went to tie the collar of Jing Yuan’s cloak tight. Only then did he step slightly aside, making room for him to move. The meaning was clear: aren’t you going to walk already? What are you waiting for?
The scenery of the inn was still suffused with that now-familiar quiet warmth. The overhead light hanging from the ceiling was casting out wavering, bright yellow shades of light, and the innkeeper was in the middle of wiping down the refectory table with a cleaning cloth. Lifting her head, she saw the two of them emerging from their room and straightened her waist up in greeting: “Are these two honored guests about to head outside?”
Smiling back at her, Jing Yuan nodded. “Mm, this inn is truly too comfortable to stay in, and our rest plans ended up stretching for several days. If we go any longer before going out to see what this planet looks like, I’m afraid we’ll end up sleeping in our room until the end of the world.”
This cat had an impeccably well-trained ability to compliment others. In just a few sentences, he had the innkeeper beaming with her eyes all curved up. With the cat there, Blade could be spared the effort of opening his mouth and speaking, and all he had to do was wait at a side with his arms crossed. Only, at that moment, the cat gave him a light push: “Right?”
Blade stopped for a moment, but in the end, he went along with what Jing Yuan wanted and nodded his head.
Jing Yuan turned his face back. Smiling cheerfully, he said, “You’re wonderful at keeping this inn alive.”
The innkeeper was bearing witness to the two of them interacting. One of them looked fierce on the outside, yet the way he dipped his head and listened to the other speak had a kind of dutifulness to it. One of them did things with the utmost courtesy, yet the way he pushed the other’s arm wasn’t even a little polite, and was more like he was insisting on getting his way. People would only display these sorts of attitudes and behaviors, the ones that they normally wouldn’t show, when they were by the side of someone they trusted and relied on. How adorable was that?
The innkeeper couldn’t help the way her eyes softened. She wrung out the cleaning cloth and hung it over the back of the chair, thinking that her initial hypothesis, as expected, hadn’t been even a little wrong. These two were either longtime friends whose romantic intentions toward each other were only separated by a single paper screen, or lovers who had already been together for many, many years. Earlier, when the young girl had proposed that she help take a few pictures of them, the innkeeper had been at a side watching, and had heard them say that they weren’t lovers.
Then if they weren’t lovers, they must be in the mutual pining stage, no?
No matter what concerns or misgivings had caused them to leave their relationship undefined until this day, they would be better off sincerely holding each other’s hands. Even if it only happened once, that might help them understand the desires hidden in their own hearts. Such was the ardent, passionate, romantic outlook on love held by this little frozen wasteland of a planet—in the midst of the unending night and this unending existence, the only thing that could boast the strength of a thousand pounds, that could serve as a compass to find one’s way, that could bring in the change of the seasons, was this one word, feeling.
Good times were hard to come by, and good days were hard to hold onto.
So if you were willing to be loved, if you desperately wanted to love someone else, if you couldn’t control yourself from the love you felt, then you had to make a move while the time was still right.
The innkeeper had set her heart on stoking this relationship. That would really be a beautiful thing.
“You truly flatter me. If the two of you are going outside, why don’t you bring along a fishing pole and a little bucket?”
The innkeeper turned and went to the small adjacent room, retrieving the communal fishing rod and fishing bucket. She carefully hung bait on the rod before she passed all of the supplies into Blade’s hands. With a warm gaze, she said, “In an hour or two, it’ll be the optimal time to see the aurora borealis. Visitors usually decide to crack open a bit of the ice on the lake and wait for the fish to come while they wait for the aurora. Why don’t you two honored guests try doing that as well? If you fish anything up and you bring it back, I’ll prepare it for you. You can have a pot of fish stew as a midnight snack.”
This sounded pretty interesting. Jing Yuan thanked her, then scooted in close to look at the little worm still wriggling on the fishing rod.
But Blade didn’t immediately start walking outside.
He was silent for half a minute, and then he asked, “Do the fish in this lake have a lot of bones?”
The innkeeper wasn’t sure why he was asking, but she answered, “In an environment as cold as this, all the fish tend to have fewer bones. Some of them even have soft bones that you can chew and eat along with the meat.”
Hearing this, Blade’s lips, which had been pressed into a straight line, finally relaxed. He nodded and gave Jing Yuan a pat on the back. Jing Yuan wasn’t sure what he was doing either. Was Blade afraid of eating fish bones? It couldn’t be. In his memory, Blade had never before been sneakily attacked by a bone while eating fish. Blade himself, after asking, seemed to regret opening his mouth. He turned his face to the side and put on the dramatic airs of someone who refused to explain himself, refused to give any answers, and refused to accept any questions.
Even though Jing Yuan could pry that mouth open if he really had to, he still preferred when Blade himself made the choice to speak honestly with him.
So he didn’t ask any extra questions, and only obediently followed along with Blade’s movements to go outside with him.
Walking behind him, Blade lifted the scarf he was holding in his hands in one smooth motion. It landed firmly and securely around Jing Yuan’s neck.
It was the innkeeper who considered the two of them and their retreating figures for quite some time, and finally started smiling as though she had come to some great realization.
Someone must have gotten a fish bone stuck in their throat before.
When they walked out of the inn, the streetlights were casting dim yellow shades onto the thick snow that covered the streets. Time seemed to have come to a standstill in this stretch of land, such that those who came here could relive how they had felt the first time they walked on these streets whenever they treaded on them again. It seemed that without knowing, the two of them had already created many memories on this little planet.
Jing Yuan wasn’t very good at dealing with thick snow, just like he wasn’t very good at dealing with fish bones. His feet couldn’t decide whether they were sinking deeply into the snow or stepping shallowly on its surface, and the more he walked, the more it was like the snow was hugging his legs and refusing to let him go.
Blade stared at him for a while, then lifted his arm and let Jing Yuan steady his wobbling body on it. Jing Yuan’s entire person came along, clinging to him.
“In a while, we can have desserts while we wait for the fish to bite.”
As he held onto Blade, Jing Yuan’s tone was more lighthearted than usual.
Because of this lightheartedness, Blade’s footsteps paused for a moment. From his blurry recollection, he dug out a little Jing Yuan that Silver Wolf had mentioned in her daily reports to him. If Jing Yuan wasn’t at the Seat of Divine Foresight, then he was by the garden where wild animals most frequently appeared. The farthest he walked was to the Alchemy Commission for his regularly scheduled health checkups. Doing something like treading over thick snow to go fishing was a pretty new thing for Jing Yuan, and so even if he kept tripping over his feet and nearly eating mouthfuls of snow, he was happy to do it.
This awareness took shape in Blade’s mind after a beat of delay, and it brought a wave of warmth along with it. This warmth was originating from the way Jing Yuan was holding onto the palm of his hand, and it both held a bit of sweetness and hinted at a bit of heartache. To Blade, the name of this feeling was a little unfamiliar.
An odd superstition like this had once been popular on the Luofu: if one day you suddenly feel like your heart is beating right against your ribs, and nothing is the way it normally is, then there’s definitely some kind of ghost or demon possessing you. And unless you yell its name out loud, it will never leave.
Blade wasn’t able to yell out the name of this warmth. All he could do was let it spread along all of his limbs, wrapping around every part of his body and burning. By the time it had burned its way to his shoulder blades, it was enough to make him uncomfortable. He was forced to lift his other hand and, through the thick layers of bandages, press it against his own chest so as to stop that warmth from continuing to climb upward.
“Jing Yuan.”
Jing Yuan didn’t turn his head. He let out a hum of a sound, lifting up at the end.
To divert his attention, Blade said, “Don’t forget, you can only have one piece of dessert a day.”
Jing Yuan immediately stopped making any noise, as though he hadn’t heard anything. He went to walk a step ahead of Blade, stumbling all over himself, finding joy in it.
After they had walked for a while, Jing Yuan looked back at Blade. The strands of hair that had been pushed up by his scarf were curled messily by the sides of his face, but he didn’t mind, and he only gave Blade a few cute blinks. With a smile that had wings, he handed him an olive branch. “Do you want to guess the flavor of the sweet desserts Qingzu sent to us?”
Rose-flavored? Peach-flavored? Black tea-flavored? Or honey-flavored, the flavor that Jing Yuan could eat a hundred times without getting tired of?
Blade had never missed a single broadcast of the Jing Yuan Daily Observation Report. But staring at Jing Yuan’s smile, he said, “I don’t know.”
“I’m guessing it’s rose-flavored. Peach-flavored is nice too. I’m not sure if the shopkeeper has made any black tea-flavored desserts recently… but honey-flavored desserts taste sweeter than any of the other three.”
It wasn’t as though Jing Yuan minded Blade’s stiff manner of speaking. All he wanted to do was let Blade talk a little more, and not just hang around by himself behind him, not speaking. As for what Blade said, it didn’t really matter as much.
Jing Yuan turned back around and continued walking. The snow crunched beneath his feet, flickering back and forth along with the strands of his hair in Blade’s vision. “The desserts made by that store are all quite good. Have a few more later when we get to them.”
How good can they really be?
Uncaringly, Blade took another step forward.
If he had the supplies, he could make all of those flavors that Jing Yuan liked to eat, and he could make them exactly as authentic as they should be.
How would the desserts he made compare to the ones the dessert stand made?
When Jing Yuan went back to the Luofu, would he bring up a person like Blade? Would he bring up the desserts that Blade had made for him the same way he now brought up the dessert stand on the Luofu? Would he have the same glimmer of brightness in his eyes and the same lightheartedness in his voice?
As soon as this thought rose up in Blade, that warmth began to clamor again, flooding his head and rushing all the way into his chest. It dodged his hands as he tried to slap it away, and it dodged his intentional retreat, not allowing him to pretend he couldn’t see or hear it, not allowing him to answer it with silence.
If he didn’t care, how could his feelings be stirred up like this?
Blade stopped short, and dipped his head.
The warmth had gathered into a bundle, and yet it still softly spread out around the edges. In the center of that heat, from which flames streamed like water in all directions, the thing that was beating heavily was a burning, fiery heart.
That odd superstition of the Luofu was incomplete.
What it didn’t tell the reader was that that demon, that dreadful one that could make one’s heart beat so viciously, could also be called by another name. This name was one that would make you embarrassed if you shouted it out loud, and yet it was too full of love to say in a whisper. If you read it very softly, blurring it in between your breaths, its name would be attachment—or longing.