Late January.
During the coldest time of the year, only withered branches remained tangled within the famed Epiphyllum Garden of Mount Tai Cang. The windbreak trees were all bare, and the place was bleak beyond measure.
Revisiting an old haunt.
Long E Ying lightly exhaled a mist of warmth, her hands behind her back as she tread on the yellowed dry grass. Like a silver-white fawn, she wandered lightly through it.
Liang Qu stood where he was, arms folded as he watched quietly.
With someone by her side, even if the flowers, grass, and trees were desolate, and the sun, moon, and stars cold and lonely, Long E Ying did not feel the slightest disappointment.
She stopped and turned back.
"I want to see snow!"
Liang Qu snapped his fingers. The fine rain fell still, freezing into snowflakes in midair and drifting down in a flutter.
Before long, the mountaintop had gathered a soft, shallow layer of white, her embroidered shoes crunching as she stepped upon it.
"It's too dark."
He snapped his fingers again.
The clouds broke and the moon emerged. A full moon hung at the center of the sky as great swathes of black cloud split apart and scattered, revealing the starry heavens, the entire sky filled with clear radiance.
The clouds dispersed, yet the snow did not stop.
Snow beneath clear skies.
Long E Ying's heartbeat quickened, and an idea suddenly flashed through her mind.
"Could there be epiphyllum?"
The moment the words left her mouth, Long E Ying regretted them. The request was too excessive; she was being too willful. In such bitter cold, how could epiphyllum possibly grow from the ground? Would she, just as her godmother had said, unknowingly wear away the feelings between them...
"Mm, let me think..."
Liang Qu pondered.
Her