As night deepened, the courtyard of Nalan Mansion was completely enveloped in dense ink-black darkness. Even the gilded palace lanterns hanging beneath the covered corridors had gone out. Only the lattice window of Xiao Yan's room cast a warm yellow glow, like a steady lamp shining in the night, dispelling the stillness and chill around it and outlining a warm corner amid the darkness. Inside, the Glazed Lamp carved with entwining lotus patterns still burned. Its wick flickered softly beneath the glass shade atop its pale-blue base, the orange flame brightening and dimming as it scattered fragmented light and shadow across the walls and the brocade quilt embroidered with twin lotuses. The paired lotuses on the quilt were embroidered with lifelike detail, their petals outlined in silver thread that gleamed faintly in the lamplight. As the night breeze passed through the half-drawn window curtains, light, shadows, and patterns intertwined and swayed like a silent, gentle dance, lending the room a hazy, poetic air.
A faint orchid fragrance filled the air—the scent quietly released at night by the Night Orchid Grass on the windowsill. Crisp and touched with sweetness, it wreathed around every corner of the room, as though even the air had been dyed with tenderness. It mingled with the clear, bitter scent of medicinal herbs lingering on Xiao Yan from his years of refining pills—the unique fragrance that had settled upon him after the Green Lotus Core Flame blended with all manner of herbs, carrying a subtle sense of strength; Qing Lin's fresh grassy scent, like a field after rain—the natural aroma she picked up while tending flowers and plants in the courtyard, pure and soothing; and the barely perceptible rouge fragrance on Nalan Yanran—the delicate, understated scent of the peach-blossom rouge she often used, with a young girl's