Blood Before Buddha, General's Tears - Chapter 1

The first time I saw Ming Shi was in the Guanyin Hall of Jing’an Temple. The spring rain was like smoke, and he was kneeling on a prayer mat, reciting the Lotus Sutra. Water stains bloomed on the bluestone slab, like the frost that wouldn’t melt in his eyes. Clasping the dew-kissed sutra scroll, I suddenly recalled what a palace attendant had said: “This eminent monk is a reincarnated living Buddha from Jinshan Temple. Seeing him once can clear ten years of bad karma.”

“Princess, with your noble status, there’s no need to personally copy sutras.” He turned, his kasaya brushing against my knee. It was then I noticed the jade prayer beads on his wrist, the very ones I had ordered to be sent to him. Each bead was as clear as emerald water, gleaming softly in the candlelight.

“The eminent monk says all sentient beings suffer. I copy sutras and pray for blessings, merely wishing to share the burdens of the common people.” I looked up at him, the phoenix coronet pin in my hair swaying gently, its gold foil pendants making faint sounds as they tapped against the incense ash. Ming Shi lowered his gaze and picked up the sutra scroll for me, his fingertips brushing over the calloused base of my thumb, but he recoiled as if burned.

Three days later, a sudden downpour arrived. When I rushed into the meditation room, clutching a newly made moisture-proof sutra box, I stumbled upon a scene of mingled sandalwood and rouge scents—Ming Shi was half-kneeling, bandaging a green-sleeved woman’s forearm wound. His fingertips brushed over the cinnabar mole between her brows, and his voice was as soft as if coaxing a child: “Bear with it, it will be better tomorrow.” On the woman’s wrist dangled the jade prayer beads I had sent to him, the fragmented jade reflecting cold light in the candlelight.

“P-Princess?” The young novice monk’s startled cry made Ming Shi suddenly turn his head. As he rose, he kicked over a rouge box at his feet, and vermilion powder spilled onto my newly embroidered sutra box. “Donor, you are soaked through. Do not defile the purity before Buddha.” He lowered his eyes, avoiding the sutra box in my hand, and used the Shu brocade handkerchief I had given him to wipe the blood from the woman’s fingertips.

I clutched the dripping Xiangfei bamboo box, my knuckles white from the force. “So, the eminent monk’s ‘purity’ is to wipe rouge with a common woman’s blood-stained handkerchief?”

Ming Shi’s eyelashes trembled in the rain, but at the woman’s low sobs, he turned and pressed his palms together. “Donor is too attached to appearances.”

That night, I knelt before the Buddha for three hours, begging the Emperor to allocate funds for the renovation of the Sutra Repository for him. Chun Tao cried tears of heartache, saying my knees were bleeding from kneeling, but I stared at the butter lamp on the altar and smiled—when Ming Shi passed by, he eventually stopped, and used his monk’s robe to cushion my knees.

“Princess, your obsession is too deep.” His voice held an emotion I could not decipher. “The Buddha says to let go, only then can one be at ease.”

I looked up at him, the candlelight dancing on his eyelashes like scattered gold:

“If letting go can bring an eminent monk a smile, then I will let go of these myriad obsessions.”

As he turned to leave, his kasaya cast a long shadow on the bluestone. I touched the monk’s robe on my knees, smelling a faint scent of sandalwood mixed with lingering rouge on it. Suddenly, I felt that all the Buddha’s light in the hall was not as warm as one glance from him.

That year on Winter Solstice, I secretly embarked on a westward journey, concealing it from my imperial father.

The Gobi wind was like a knife, cutting painfully across my face. Wrapped in the dark blue cloak Ming Shi had given me, carrying the Heart Sutra he had copied in my embrace, I followed the caravan for three months until I finally fell gravely ill at the foot of the snowy mountains. The imperial physician accompanying me said I wouldn’t survive until Khotan, but I gritted my teeth and refused to turn back—I heard there was a lost Great Sun Sutra there, one Ming Shi had sought for three years without success.

“Princess, why do you torment yourself so?” Uncle Chen, the guard captain, looked at my blood-stained handkerchief, his eyes red. “That monk has never said he likes you. Even if you die in this ice and snow, he might not even know!”

I stuffed the handkerchief into my sleeve and smiled, gazing at the distant snow-capped mountains. “If he knew the hardships I endured for him, perhaps he would feel heartache.”

In a high fever and delirium, I clutched the jade Buddha beads Ming Shi had given me, caressing them. I suddenly discovered a fine crack on one of the beads. When I used my fingernail to pry it open, half a piece of parchment, smelling of oleaster blossoms, fell out. On it was Ming Shi’s handwriting: “The Western Regions trade route is open. Please transfer one hundred taels of gold quickly to…”

A sweet, metallic taste welled up in my throat, but I tucked the note into my inner garments and laughed through tears at the wind and snow outside the tent—it turned out these prayer beads were not a “talisman,” but a key he used to scheme against me. Yet, when I returned to Chang’an with the sutra scrolls and saw him standing at the city gate to greet me, I forgot all the pain—he was wearing the moonlight-white monk’s robe I had given him, its sleeves embroidered with lotuses I had personally drawn.

“This humble monk thanks the princess on behalf of the common people.” He pressed his palms together, behind him stood the newly renovated Jing’an Temple, its golden bells on the eaves tinkling softly in the wind. I gazed at his silhouette against the light, and suddenly noticed the sachet I had given him for his sixteenth birthday hanging at his waist. Beneath the Shu brocade embroidered with “Peace,” half a piece of a reddish-brown handkerchief, often worn by courtesans, was visible.

“Does the eminent monk smell the calming incense in the sachet?” I pressed my fiercely throbbing temples. The hazy vision of a “Bodhisattva’s dream guidance” that I had seen while copying sutras reappeared before my eyes. “This incense… it’s so similar to the smell on an executioner’s body.”

Ming Shi’s pupils suddenly constricted, but amidst the cheers of the common people, he resumed a compassionate expression. “Princess, you must be weary from your journey. Please return to the palace to rest quickly.” As he turned, the reddish-brown handkerchief brushed against the back of my hand, and the intertwined lotus flowers embroidered on it stung my eyes—that was a pattern I had personally taught him to draw just last month.

The day the rebel army besieged the city, I was in the Buddha Hall copying the Shurangama Sutra for Ming Shi.

When the palace attendants broke open the hall doors, my fingertips hovered over the character “眾” (zhòng, sentient beings) in the phrase “一切眾生，從無始來” (All sentient beings, from beginningless time). The ink blurred into a black mist, much like the overwhelming smoke outside the city, and also much like the lingering haze that refused to dissipate before my eyes every morning after waking for the past half year.

“Princess, escape quickly! The Emperor wants you to break through with General Qi!” Chun Tao dragged me towards the side door, but was blocked by Ming Shi’s novice monk. I saw Ming Shi standing in the center of the Mahavira Hall, clutching the jade Buddha I had given him, his expression as serene as if performing morning prayers. The sachet at his waist swayed gently with his breathing, emitting a familiar sweet, cloying scent.

“This humble monk observed the celestial phenomena last night and discovered the presence of a Lone Star of Calamity. Only by sacrificing imperial blood to the heavens can the enemy be repelled.” His voice reached me through the crowd, clear as frost, yet mixed with the lingering scent of the calming incense from the sachet. “Princess, do you still remember when you first copied sutras and asked this humble monk how to clear karma? Now is your opportunity to accumulate merit.”

I felt a chill run through my body and finally understood the source of my trances during each sutra copying session—he had long mixed a confusing incense into the sachet, making me believe in the illusion of “Bodhisattva’s guidance to help him achieve enlightenment.” The suffering of those late-night sutra copying sessions, the blood that pricked my fingertips, were merely part of the scheme he had laid out to make me a “chess piece for sacrifice to heaven.”

When the executioner’s blade was at my neck, I stared at the lotus embroidery on Ming Shi’s moonlight-white monk’s robe and laughed through tears: “Ming Shi, you said that letting go brings ease, but what you can’t let go of is this false reputation admired by thousands, isn’t it? The prayer beads on your wrist hide the secret of the Western Regions trade route; the sachet at your waist is steeped in the poisonous incense that leaves me at others’ mercy—you are the true ‘Lone Star of Calamity’.”

His eyelashes trembled violently, and the prayer beads slipped from his fingers, rolling across the bluestone with a brittle, shattering sound. It wasn’t until Qi Chengyu’s tears fell on my face that I realized there was truly someone who felt heartache for me in this life—that usually stern-faced young general, who had desperately fought his way up to the city wall amidst the chaotic army, his armor half shattered, his face covered in bloodstains.

My head was hung on the city gate for three days. Ming Shi would recite the Rebirth Mantra every day when he passed by. But I knew he wasn’t reciting for my rebirth, but for his own sins—when he used his monk’s robe to cushion my knees, when he used my handkerchief to wipe someone else’s blood, when he watched me fall into his trap while smelling the calming incense, the lamp before Buddha had already gone out.

The day Qi Chengyu risked his life to retrieve my body, I heard him roaring at the moon in the mass grave: “The red string on her wrist… it was the wolfstail grass I secretly tied!” And a thousand miles away in Jing’an Temple, Ming Shi smiled at his newly acquired golden sutra box, on his desk lay a secret letter from a powerful minister: “The eminent monk’s plan to quell the rebellion using the princess was indeed effective…”

The wick of the Buddha lamp was frozen, but my bones and blood nourished the Bodhi tree of Jing’an Temple. Later, some said that the tree bloomed with blood-colored flowers every year, their petals falling on Ming Shi’s kasaya, much like the gaze I cast upon him just before I passed away—not love, but hatred tempered with ice, a heart shattered to dust after finally seeing through his hypocritical mask.

When I opened my eyes again, the pearl tassels on the gilded bed curtains shimmered with fragmented light. I stared at the intricate intertwining lotus patterns on the canopy, my fingertips still feeling the dull ache from being struck by a wooden stick in my previous life. From outside the window came Chun Tao’s soft murmur: “The princess is calling General Qi’s name again…”

A pale face was reflected in the bronze mirror, the tear mole at the corner of my right eye not yet dotted—this was the day before my coming-of-age ceremony, the morning I first met Ming Shi in my previous life. On the desk, the imperial decree for a marriage alliance lay open, the three characters “戚承煜” (Qi Chengyu) written with a Northern Frontier wolf-hair brush, penetrating the paper like his handwriting when he erected a monument for me in my previous life.

At the third ke of the mao hour (5:45 AM), the bronze clepsydra in the gilded hall dripped icy water. I dotted my tear mole in the ornate mirror, purposely dipping too much cinnabar, creating a redder mark than in my previous life—it was a color mixed with gold powder found in Ming Shi’s underground palace, now my “battle makeup.”

“Princess is truly beautiful today.” Chun Tao placed the phoenix coronet on my head, her voice choked. This phoenix coronet in my previous life was adorned with jade gifted by Ming Shi; now, all of it had been replaced with blue agate from the northern border, each bead engraved with a hidden wolf head pattern—the betrothal gift sent by Qi Chengyu on horseback.

As the wedding palanquin was carried out of the Vermilion Bird Gate, a sudden strong wind arose. Through the palanquin curtains, I heard the whispers of the common people: “The General of Zhenbei (North Suppressing) is getting married in armor, he truly lacks manners.” “I heard the princess refused the eminent monk and chose to marry a killer star…”

I clutched the wolf-head jade pendant in my sleeve, feeling the engraved character “念” (niàn, remembrance) on its inner side. In my previous life, they had held wooden sticks and cursed me as a “demoness,” but now, as the wedding palanquin passed, they secretly added incense to the roadside censers—that was the “Peace Incense” that Qi Chengyu had ordered distributed, which could stop coughs and ward off cold, and the common people had already benefited from it.

The moment the palanquin curtain was lifted, wind and snow, carrying jade-like snowflakes, assailed me. Ice shards clung to Qi Chengyu’s armor shoulder plate, but the wolf-head totem on his breastplate gleamed, much like the moonlight reflected in his eyes when he risked his life to steal my body in my previous life.

“Princess, you must be startled.” He extended a hand to help me out of the palanquin, the calluses on his palm brushing the inside of my wrist—where the old marks from Ming Shi’s prayer beads still remained from my previous life. I deliberately wiggled the hand wearing the silver ring, watching his ear tip turn from red to purple, like a ripe mulberry.

Suddenly, a bell chimed from the direction of Jing’an Temple, and Ming Shi’s chanting drifted in with the wind and snow. I pressed Qi Chengyu’s hand, which was gripping his sword hilt, and laughed softly into his ear: “The eminent monk is praying for us.”

His pupils constricted sharply as he stared at the blue agate phoenix coronet pin in my hair. “If he dares to harm you…”

“I want him to see with his own eyes,” I straightened his wind-blown temples, my fingertips brushing over an old scar on the back of his neck—a wound from blocking an arrow for me in my previous life, “what true Bodhisattva compassion is.”

On our wedding night, the snow outside the gilded bed curtains cast a bright light throughout the room. Qi Chengyu sat at the table, half of his armor removed, revealing an inner garment embroidered with intertwining lotuses—which I had secretly embroidered while he napped, the stitches crooked, yet he cherished it so much he wouldn’t wear a second one.

“What is the General afraid of?” I removed my phoenix coronet, letting my dark hair fall. “Afraid I’ll be like in my previous life, with a false monk in my heart?”

He abruptly looked up, his grip on the wine cup cracking it. “Nian Qing…”

“Hush—” I pressed against his lips, feeling the rapid vibration of his Adam’s apple. “In my previous life, I was blind, mistaking a wolf for a Buddha. In this life, I will tell the whole world,” I picked up the wolfstail grass rope from the table and tied it around his wrist, “my General is cleaner, more sincere than any living Buddha.”

He suddenly stood up, his armor rustling as it scraped against the carpet. I was pressed against the dressing mirror, seeing the surging heat in his eyes, hotter than the bonfires of the northern border. In the bronze mirror, my tear mole and his reddened ear tip faced each other from afar, like two flowers blooming in the snow.

“Actually, I…” His voice was hoarse, like a bowstring stretched to its limit. “I dreamed of you countless times at the frontier, but I never dared to imagine this day would come.”

“Now you dare to imagine it.” I unfastened his last shoulder plate, revealing the grotesque scar on his chest—a wound he took for me in my previous life. “From now on, I will fill all your dreams.”

Suddenly, the night watchman’s drum sounded from outside the window; it was already the fifth ke of the zi hour (11:45 PM). Qi Chengyu lowered his head and kissed my forehead, as if kissing a treasured item found again after being lost. His breath, mixed with the scent of wine and snowmelt, sent shivers down my earlobe: “Nian Qing, from today onwards, your name will no longer be characters on a monument, but a poem between my lips.”

I laughed, pulling him into the wolf-head embroidered quilt, watching his ear tips turn so red they looked ready to bleed. The Buddha hall in my previous life was as cold as an ice cellar, but our bridal chamber tonight was as warm as spring. The snow outside the curtains fell heavier and heavier, yet it couldn’t melt the “囍” (double happiness) character on the window paper—it was pasted with Ming Shi’s fake sutra paper, now illuminated brightly by candlelight, much like our clear hearts.

As snowflakes fluttered against the window paper outside the gilded bed curtains, I coldly smiled, holding the fragments of the jade Buddha beads Ming Shi had given me in my previous life. On the remnants of the secret message inside the hollow beads, the words “Western Regions trade route” and “one hundred taels of gold” stung my eyes—it turned out that from our first encounter, the compassion on his wrist was a net woven from my blood and power.

“Princess, Ming Shi’s novice monk is waiting in the corridor.” Chun Tao’s voice trembled. I looked at my face in the bronze mirror, the tear mole not yet dotted, and suddenly remembered the calculation hidden in his eyes when he praised this mole as “like cinnabar before Buddha” in my previous life.

“Let him in.” I slipped half a pouch of Western Regions chili powder into my sleeve, smiling as I smoothed my skirt. The moment the novice monk stepped into the hall, holding the prayer beads, I raised my hand and threw the powder towards his face: “Ask your master for me, does he want my imperial father to know the secret in these prayer beads, or does he want the common people to know?”

The novice monk choked and coughed repeatedly, and the prayer beads rolled to the ground, splitting in two. Amidst the gasps of the surrounding palace maids, I picked up the inscribed fragments and shook them: “So, the eminent monk cultivates not Buddhism, but commerce?” Suddenly, the sound of armor clashing came from outside the hall. Qi Chengyu’s deputy general rode up and stopped in the corridor, his wolf-head jade pendant cutting a cold arc in the snow.

Eight days later, in front of the gate of Jing’an Temple, Ming Shi’s moonlight-white monk’s robe shone brightly, stained by incense smoke. As he raised his hand to bless an elderly woman, I noticed the cinnabar stain on his fingertips—the color left from drawing eyebrows for the courtesan in my previous life.

“These hands of the eminent monk, have they touched Buddhist scriptures, or rouge?” I pushed through the crowd and approached, deliberately letting the cinnabar from my cuff brush against his kasaya. As the common people gasped in astonishment, Ming Shi stepped back half a pace, knocking over an incense burner, revealing remnants of a reddish-brown handkerchief stuck to the sole of his shoe—the very token of his secret communication with the powerful minister in my previous life.

“Princess, you jest…” His voice cracked for the first time. I smiled and opened his prayer beads; each beeswax bead was inlaid with碎金 (shattered gold): “This must be melted down from the renovation funds I allocated to the Buddhist temple, isn’t it? Does the eminent monk know how much food for disaster victims these gold pieces could buy?”

An uproar of angry shouts erupted from the crowd. I seized the opportunity to open the wooden box I carried with me. Inside was the Diamond Sutra I had copied with my fingertip blood in my previous life, the cinnabar characters already faded to a pale pink, with Ming Shi’s annotations beside them: “This blood can beguile the Emperor’s heart.”

“So, the ‘Bodhisattva’s dream guidance’ I experienced while copying sutras was all an illusion created by you with calming incense!” I threw the sutra scroll at his feet. “You made me copy sutras with a virgin’s blood, while you yourself forged them with cinnabar! You deceived not only me, but the entire court and all the common people!”

Ming Shi fell to his knees with a thud, his prayer beads scattered across the ground. I saw him furtively glance at the rebel army’s hidden agents and suddenly recalled the contents of his secret letters colluding with the rebels in my previous life. My fingertips brushed the broken jade beads on his wrist, and I lowered my voice: “I won’t kill you today. I want you to witness with your own eyes—how General Qi’s ten thousand iron cavalry will flatten the rebel encampment you colluded with.”

In the underground palace of Jing’an Temple at midnight, the torches cast distorted shadows of Ming Shi. He cowered before the gold-stacked walls, trembling as he looked at the secret letter in my hand: “Princess, spare me… This humble monk only wanted to climb higher…”

“Climb higher?” I kicked over a wooden box filled with jewels, hearing the crisp sound of agate and jade colliding. “You used my blood to gain official position, my name to win the people’s hearts, and even on the day of my marriage alliance, you intended to use the rebel army to kill me and silence me!”

Qi Chengyu suddenly grabbed my sword-wielding hand, the calluses on his palm brushing against the old callus on the base of my thumb, like the touch when he bandaged my wounds in my previous life. “Leave him to me.” His voice was deep, his armor making a cold, hard sound in the tunnel. Ming Shi looked up and saw the wolf-head jade pendant at his waist, and suddenly let out a sharp scream—it was the same expression he had when he watched Qi Chengyu charge into the city gate in my previous life.

As I turned, I kicked a bronze box, and half a bottle of calming incense powder rolled out. Leaning closer to smell it, a hint of wormwood mixed with the sweet scent—it was the exact same smell from the executioner’s body in my previous life. “So you had calculated from the start that I would be pushed to the execution platform.” I scattered the incense powder over Ming Shi’s kasaya. “This smell should be thoroughly experienced by the common people.”

At noon, the execution ground drums thundered, and Ming Shi was chained to a cross stake. I stood beside Qi Chengyu, watching the fragments of jade beads on his wrist shatter into dust in the sunlight. The rotten vegetables thrown by the common people struck his face, revealing the terror beneath his mask.

“He’s not a living Buddha! He used confusing incense to trick the princess into copying sutras!”

“My child died from his illness, delayed by his ‘blessings’!”

Curses surged like a tide. I noticed Ming Shi staring intently at the wolf-head jade pendant at my waist—Qi Chengyu had specifically changed it today; it was the talisman he had used to protect my body in my previous life.

“Doesn’t the eminent monk know how to recite the Rebirth Mantra?” I smiled, throwing him a string of broken prayer beads. “Why don’t you recite how to atone for your sins of defrauding people and taking lives?”

Ming Shi trembled as he began to speak, but coughed up blood when he reached “Amitabha Buddha”—it was the slow-acting poison I had the imperial physician put in his tea, tasting exactly like the poison I had suffered in the snowy mountains in my previous life.

Qi Chengyu suddenly wrapped an arm around my waist, shielding me from the flying vegetables. The wolf-head totem on his armor brushed against my sleeve, much like the feeling of his breastplate pressing into my back when he held my body in my previous life. “Are you afraid?” he asked softly, his voice cutting through the clamor of the crowd.

“No.” I gazed at Ming Shi’s gradually paling face, remembering the monk’s robe he had placed under my head in my previous life—that robe was now trampled in the mud by the common people, covered in filth. Sunlight filtered through the branches of the Bodhi tree, casting a net-like shadow on his face, much like the grid of the window lattices reflected on the Xuan paper when I copied sutras for him back then.

At the fifth ke of the xu hour (8:45 PM), the Buddha lamps of Jing’an Temple extinguished one by one. I stood before the newly renovated Sutra Repository, watching Qi Chengyu throw Ming Shi’s fake sutras into a brazier. The flames licked at the forged Great Sun Sutra, revealing the courtesan song scores hidden within.

“Nian Qing, look at this.” Qi Chengyu handed me an account book. On the flyleaf, next to Ming Shi’s signature, was a lotus flower—the very design I had taught him to draw in my previous life. The account book was filled with records of money he had amassed in my name, with shocking entries like “one hundred taels of gold sent to Western Regions caravan” and “ten thousand taels of silver purchased fertile land.”

“He even used your blood to get letters of recommendation from powerful ministers.” Qi Chengyu’s fingertips traced a certain page of a secret letter, his voice as cold as the northern border wind. I touched the cinnabar fingerprint on the edge of the account book and suddenly laughed aloud—it was the thumbprint I had pressed while copying sutras in my previous life, now his death warrant.

Ashes from the brazier suddenly flew up, landing on my newly dotted tear mole. Qi Chengyu reached out to brush it away, his fingertips lingering at the corner of my eye for a moment: “No more Buddha lamps will blind your eyes from now on.”

I gazed at the flickering firelight in his eyes, remembering the moonlight in the mass grave from my previous life. The flames now were brighter and warmer than the butter lamps before Buddha, burning away Ming Shi’s hypocrisy cleanly, leaving only our clasped hands, casting long, overlapping shadows in the firelight.

“Mm.” I clutched the wolfstail grass rope in his palm. “From now on, I will only look at the lamps of the human world.”

In the late autumn grasslands of the northern border, the wolf-like north wind swept fine snow past the military tents. As I clutched the wolf-head jade pendant and lifted the tent flap, I saw Qi Chengyu polishing his armor by the bonfire. The movement of his fingertips suddenly paused, and his ear tips visibly reddened—ever since I exposed Ming Shi’s hypocrisy in the Buddha hall half a month ago, he often blushed inexplicably like this.

“Didn’t I tell you to warm your hands in the tent?” As he stood, his armor clinked softly, and the intertwined lotus totem on his breastplate brushed against the back of my hand. It was a design I had personally created, embroidered with gold thread on the inside of his soft personal armor, visible only to me.

I shook the fox fur in my hand: “I brought the General a cloak, so you won’t always say the northern wind is like a knife.”

His ear tips became even redder, but as he took the fox fur, he suddenly clasped my fingertips: “Your hands are so cold.” Saying this, he tucked my hands into his armor’s inner pocket, where there was a warm charcoal stove. “I told you long ago to bring a hand warmer…”

Suddenly, a horn sounded in the distance, and a team of scouts rode over. Qi Chengyu instantly released my hand, straightening his back: “What is it?”

“Reporting, General, Ming Shi has been escorted to the border.” The scout handed him a secret letter. “News from the Ministry of Justice, he contracted a strange illness in prison, his body is covered in festering sores, and he is crying out for the Bodhisattva’s mercy.”

My fingertips paused. I remembered that when he used calming incense to harm me in my previous life, he had also hypocritically prayed for me before Buddha. Qi Chengyu tilted his head to look at me, his armor shoulder plate brushing my hair: “Do you want to go see?”

“No need.” I gazed at the flickering bonfire, remembering how he had crawled over to embrace my ankles on the golden bricks of the underground palace. “Let him slowly repay the debts of his previous life in fear.”

As dusk settled, Qi Chengyu suddenly led two warhorses. Black Wind Trampling Snow pawed the ground, and by the saddle hung the quiver I had embroidered—he always said my stitches were crooked, yet he cherished it as if it were something precious.

“I’ll take you to see the ice lake.” He tightened my cloak for me, then suddenly leaned down and lifted me onto the horse’s back. “The lake surface will freeze before the first snow, like a mirror.”

As the horse hooves shattered the thin ice, I saw frost flowers clinging to his eyelashes. In the moonlight of the mass grave in my previous life, he had also carefully smoothed my disheveled hair like this, fearful of damaging my tattered clothes. Now, the warmth of his fingertips transmitted through his deerskin gloves, gently tightening around my waist: “Are you afraid?”

“No.” I clasped his reins-holding hand in return, feeling the newly formed callus at the base of his thumb—it was from carving a wooden hair簪 for me the day before. He suddenly stiffened, the reins winding halfway around his palm, startling a flock of cranes on the lake surface.

The ice lake glowed a faint blue under the moonlight, much like the myriad lights of the human world reflected in his eyes in my previous life. When Qi Chengyu dismounted, he accidentally slipped, and actually used his back to cushion my fall into the snowdrift. His armor pressed painfully against me, but when he saw snow falling on my hair, he gently brushed it away: “Nian Qing, actually, I…”

“I know.” I pressed against his hesitant lips, feeling the frequency of his Adam’s apple bobbing. In my previous life, his feelings hidden in paintings, the single character carved on his jade pendant, and the tears he shed in the mass grave, all now transformed into the starlight in his eyes. I pulled out half a piece of butter pastry from my sleeve, broke it into pieces, and fed it to the approaching gyrfalcon: “This is your favorite flavor.”

He suddenly laughed aloud, making the snow on his armor rustle down. That was the second time I saw him laugh heartily, the first being the day Ming Shi was punished. “Silly girl.” He rubbed my wind-reddened nose. “My favorite… is your burnt flatbread.”

The night wind, carrying the scent of pine resin, swept over us. He suddenly untied his cloak and spread it on the snow, then pulled out an oiled paper package from his saddlebag. When he opened it, there were two halves of golden-brown roasted flatbread, with my favorite oleaster honey in the middle: “Bought it when I passed by the market. Eat it while it’s hot.”

As I took the first bite, tears suddenly fell uncontrollably. In my previous life, when Ming Shi used me, no one ever remembered that I loved oleaster honey. Qi Chengyu panicked, clumsily wiping my tears with his armor sleeve: “Is it too sweet? I-I’ll go buy another…”

“No.” I shook my head, stuffing half the flatbread into his mouth. “It’s too bitter.” Bitter enough to finally understand that in this life, there was truly one person who would remember every casual preference I mentioned.

He paused, then suddenly lowered his head and kissed away the tears at the corner of my eye. This kiss was lighter and warmer than the snow of the northern border, like his touch when he covered me with a brocade quilt in my previous life, like the tremor when he first held my hand in this life. Wolf howls echoed in the distance, but they couldn’t stir the warmth of our clasped palms.

“Every year on this day, I’ll come with you to see the first snow.” His voice was muffled in my hair, carrying an undeniable tenderness. I gazed at my reflection in his breastplate, the tear mole at the corner of my eye reddened by the bonfire, and suddenly remembered the monk’s robe he had placed under my knees in the Buddha hall in my previous life—it now lay in the ashes of Jing’an Temple, covered by the white flowers of the Bodhi tree.

Eight days later, news came from the capital: Ming Shi died in prison, his rotting fingers covering the walls with lotus flowers, but he was never able to draw a complete one. I smiled, touching the wolfstail grass hair簪 Qi Chengyu had newly carved for me—he ultimately failed to achieve the perfection he desired, and the warmth in my palm was brighter than any butter lamp before Buddha.

Snow began to fall again, and Qi Chengyu wrapped me in his large cloak. The bronze hand warmer in my embrace emanated warmth, its lid engraved with characters he had newly learned: “Nian Qing, peace and warmth.” In the distance, the wolf-head military banner fluttered in the wind and snow, much like our entangled destiny across two lives—once separated by life and death, now finally, in this vast world, holding onto each other’s light.