The fishy sweetness that surges up in your throat carries with it the sharp rusty smell unique to winter.
I lowered my head and looked at the dazzling red plums blooming on the plain white silk handkerchief. My fingertips were cold.
Outside the window are the carefully trimmed dead branches in the back garden of the Hou Mansion, covered with a thin layer of snow that fell last night. The noise of a banquet could be faintly heard in the distance - it was a dust-cleansing banquet held for the triumphant return of Xie Xuanyin, the prince of the Hou family.
And I, Yu Qinghuan, his nominal "childhood sweetheart" and the "white moonlight" who will sacrifice his flag on the road to blackening in the future, am now like a forgotten old thing, huddled alone in the cold Xinuang Pavilion.
The maid Azhi brought the medicine bowl with red eyes: "Miss, drink it while it's hot..."
I closed my eyes, and in my mind was the ending in the original novel where "Yu Qinghuan" coughed up blood and died and was hastily buried in a barren mountain.
No.
This box of snacks, this bowl of medicine, this seemingly warm Nuo Pavilion are all soaked with life-threatening poison.
I don't recognize this fate.
