When Tan Binnian finally confessed his feelings to Wen Qingsi, she calmly stopped what she was doing and rejected him.
Tan Binnian was confused and bewildered. "You saved me from danger, risked your life for me, and came close to death for my sake. You picked the first peach blossom for me, stood with me in the snow, watched the moon with me, comforted my withered flowers and trees, and even changed your stance for me... And none of that was because you liked me? You didn't have even the slightest ulterior motive?"
In the blink of an eye, Wen Qingsi remembered being force-fed poison until she thought her insides were rotting, being abandoned alone in the snow to live or die, the saltwater-lashed wounds, her pets tortured to death, and the flowers and plants trampled underfoot. Then she heard her elder brother's voice again:
"Qingsi, I do this because I care for you."
She smiled faintly and answered Tan Binnian, "Then I suppose it means I hate you."
Tan Binnian finally met the person he had come to save, Wen Qingsi's elder brother, who was already as good as dead.
Kneeling before the ice coffin, he pinched a corner of Wen Rao's sleeve, his expression gentle. "The young lady is pure and kind, but she suffers under the rules imposed on her."
"Could you, for her sake, at least die in peace, sir?"
An emotionally numb, machine-like person with broken logic ×
A pure-hearted gentleman who doesn't realize he's a black-hearted schemer + a selfish, cold-hearted foster brother + an obsessive, deranged elder brother who recognizes no family ties + a sickly rival who's good at acting sweet and seducing people + a younger brother who found someone to rely on when young and has lived with him ever since
(Here are the characters whose emotional arcs I think are the clearest and most enjoyable, to put on the cover.)
