1. In the winter of his sixteenth year, Lin Yuci moved with his mother to Rongcheng in the south after she remarried. The Gu family, rumored to dominate Jiangnan and be fabulously wealthy, lived in a mansion so vast it would take all day to walk through its pavilions and towers.
Hail fell in December, snow fell in January, and Lin Yuci couldn't adjust to the climate. He had one fever after another.
When the snow stopped, he joined the older boys and girls he'd just met to build a snowman in the courtyard. His temperature soared to 39 degrees, and the world spun before his eyes. A strong arm caught him before he could fall face-first into the snow.
The man smelled of pine resin and spoke in a casual drawl. "Which one of my younger sisters is this?"
With a fever, Lin Yuci's cheeks were flushed red on both sides. At the man's words, they turned so red they seemed ready to drip blood. "I'm a boy."
The butler hurried over, respectfully holding an umbrella over the man. He addressed him as "Young Master" and pointed at Lin Yuci. "This is the new madam's son. You'll be his older brother from now on."
The man abruptly let go, and Lin Yuci fell into the snow, landing on his knees and bruising them purple.
It had long been rumored that Gu Minxi, the eldest young master of the Gu family, held the power in his hands. He opposed his father, Gu Mintai, marrying again, and had come to hate Lin Yuci, his new stepmother's son, too.
After falling in the snow, Lin Yuci's fever wouldn't go down. He almost failed to make it through his first winter in the south.
2.
In early spring, on the second day of the second lunar month, the Gu family held a banquet at their ancestral home. Gu Minxi returned, and Lin Yuci was seated beside him, too afraid to look up.
Gu Minxi drank one glass after another, his gaze fixed on his weak and sickly stepbrother, who had almost died in the winter that had just passed. He leaned close to his ear. "Little Miss Lin, why won't you look at your big brother?"
Little Miss Lin was as exquisite as his name, like a pearl or jade. His skin was pale and luminous, and he trembled in front of Gu Minxi. Unable to resist, Gu Minxi reached out and pinched him.
Then Little Miss Lin's eyes turned red.
Gu Minxi's gaze slowly darkened and grew heavy.
3.
Lin Yuci gradually grew up in Rongcheng. His baby fat disappeared, and he shot up in height. Girls who liked him lined up outside the Gu estate, waiting to see the one they loved.
Inside the estate, Gu Minxi held him on his lap, scratched under his chin, then stroked his waist. "Oh, it's about time we found our Little Ci a partner."
Lin Yuci trembled as Gu Minxi held him down and kissed the edge of his ear. "We can't find someone too smart, or they'll figure out you and your big brother are having an affair sooner or later."
4.
One winter, Lin Yuci came down with pneumonia again, and his fever wouldn't break. Gu Minxi rushed around putting together a team of experts. In front of a temple, he climbed its 999 snow-covered steps again and again.
A young monk at the temple urged him to leave. Gu Minxi asked the monk whether the world truly ran on cause and effect, with everyone getting their due.
How could he have let Lin Yuci fall into the snow that winter when they first met?
Theme: May your dreams come true
