Deep in the Bones

Heaven and earth shrank to a grain of millet. Far away, snow-covered mountains and frozen plains stretched on, all things vast and boundless, all living beings silent.

"Yan Hui!"

The call came again and again. The young man riding Zhaoye turned his head. His red robes were blood-red, and he held a freshly hunted goose. His petal-like lips curved slightly in a fleeting smile.

There was no further smile. When he saw who it was, the corners of his lips lifted a little more, his aloofness tinged with mockery. Goose blood had spattered his cheek, leaving a chillingly strange mark.

He hurried after him. "Yan Hui, actually, I..." The gale was too fierce, shattering his voice in his throat. His heart felt trapped between ice and fire, unable to breathe. At last, he gave up in despair and gritted out, "...Don't make me angry."

Don't make me angry.

For countless nights, this scene returned to his dreams. Shen Nian had rarely dreamed when he was young, and had not known what sorrow was. But after that, it was as if ants gnawed at his heart, leaving him restless and unable to sleep. Years later, when he looked back over the first half of his life, he wondered whether there was anything he had desperately longed for but could not obtain, anything lodged in his heart that he could never brush away, something that would make him think of it obsessively and regret it for the rest of his days... There was probably one such thing.

His name was Gu Yanhui. The Son of Heaven bestowed on him the courtesy name Feige, praising him as a peerless divine weapon of his age.

They had met as boys.

Pairing: A beautiful young general x a free-spirited young prince

A short story, just over ten thousand words.