(Zhan Zhao Fan Fiction) Cold, Lonely Sandbar

Juque and Huaying were bound together for three whole years. Over those three years, always by each other's side, they went from hostility to mutual admiration and unwavering loyalty. Facing each other day and night, were they friends? Brothers? Kindred spirits? Or... What exactly were they to each other? Even when faced with a final parting, with no hope of ever meeting again, neither of them ever gave it a name.

Jiang Ping watched from afar as the young man sat in the drizzle, dressed in a lake-blue shirt and covered in travel dust. He sat sideways, head slightly bowed, a strand of hair falling casually to the corner of his mouth, accentuating his handsome nose and dark brows. He was truly a product of Jiangnan's nurturing waters: alongside his tall, heroic bearing was a refined, scholarly air rarely found among people of the martial world. His deep, dark eyes seemed like bottomless pools, every emotion sunk to their depths, impossible for anyone to see clearly or understand.

“Bystanders see things clearly.” Jiang Ping had a keen eye and a perceptive mind. He had watched his fifth brother and the young man go from knowing each other's names to their “cat-and-mouse rivalry,” then to red robes and white shadows, Juque and Huaying always together. One was as calm as water, the other as fiery as flame. Never mind the unintentional glances and knowing smiles exchanged by the two themselves; even onlookers found them remarkably harmonious and pleasing to watch... Given time, if this ambiguous affection were allowed to grow, it might well have become love. But Heaven was ultimately merciless: the towering blaze that nearly consumed half of Xiangyang City burned away this feeling, already budding but not yet given the chance to flower and bear fruit!