[Not a wish-fulfillment story, slow burn, Republican-era China, tragic romance]
In Republican-era Suzhou, whoever holds the Lake Blue score can save one life, but loses one emotion.
After saving twelve lives, they lose their entire life.
Lose sweetness, lose color, lose the ability to feel pain. Even fear of guns and cannons becomes an unattainable luxury.
When I saved Lu Yanzhi, I lost the ability to feel love.
He was my only source of warmth in this world. He coughed up blood to warm my hands and guarded me through half a lifetime of snow and storms. But as I looked into his eyes, full of love for me, my heart remained as cold as ice.
On the sixteenth day of the first month of the Bingwu year, I burned the score, snapped the strings, and vanished into the wind and snow.
Fourteen years later, he returned after his name was cleared. He placed my thermometer in his mouth and used the warmth still left in his body to raise my freezing temperature by one last degree.
I could save everyone in the world, but in the end, I could not save us.
Loving you turned us into strangers.
