On the night a heavy snowfall sealed off the mountain, someone appeared on Zhu Xuan’s sled.
He was burning with fever and unconscious, with injuries on his body and calluses on his hands. When his eyes opened, they were as sharp as a blade drawn from its sheath. He said he couldn’t remember a thing, but Zhu Xuan was a blacksmith: one blow of her hammer was enough to tell good iron from bad.
She could usually tell whether a person was good or bad at a glance, too.
Even so, she took him in.
“My forge is small. I can’t afford any trouble.” She strapped a splint to his leg. “So you’d better get well soon and leave.”
He didn’t leave.
He started working the bellows, tending the fire, and drawing designs for her. He spoke less and less, but his gaze lingered on her longer and longer.
Then one day, officials surrounded the town, and the imperial court’s spies knelt in rows. Someone called out to him, “Your Highness.”
Only then did Zhu Xuan learn that the man she had taken in carried the secrets of the entire realm.
But he simply turned to her and asked:
“Is the fire still burning?”
[Blacksmith’s daughter × exiled prince | Common life and jianghu × court intrigue | Hard-core farming × mutual healing]
The strongest iron is the iron she forges. The coldest man is the one she warms.
When the forge fire rises, it lights up both the snow and the human heart.
