Moonlight at the Frontier, Warmth from the Apricot Grove

He was Xiao Lin, the iron-blooded general feared by everyone in the northern frontier: cold-faced, ruthless, and indifferent to women. He had even made noblewomen cry when they gave him sachets. She was Lin Qi, a wandering physician with a medicine chest on her back, bold enough to take on anyone and publicly accuse him of “treating human lives like grass” in the military camp. During a sudden rain of arrows, he somehow found himself shielding her with his own body. Though he had always hated women, he began gazing absently at her hands as she changed the wounded soldiers’ dressings. Hadn’t he always despised women for being fragile? When she sprained her foot while gathering herbs, he crouched down with a stony expression. “Get on.” Now the whole camp was whispering that the fearsome General of Zhenbei always kept watch outside the medical tent late at night, his voice low and hoarse. “There’s still one ingredient missing from today’s medicine: you.”