The wind at Jialing Pass carried a faint salty tang, like a scent blown in from the sea, brushing over Bai Chenxiang's reddened eyes. Liu Erlong unfolded the letter written to her, her fingertips still marked by tears that had not yet dried. Her voice choked with emotion as she turned Lin Zhixia's handwriting into gentle words of advice that echoed across the empty battlefield.
"Chenxiang, by the time you open this letter, I should already be stepping over the lingering sand of Jiayu Pass, on my way to meet Zhi Nian..."
Bai Chenxiang clutched Ma Hongjun's sleeve, her knuckles whitening from the force of her grip as tears fell down her cheeks like pearls from a broken string. She remembered how Lin Zhixia had always loved hearing her complain about Ma Hongjun. She remembered the two of them curled up in a room, her grumbling, "Hongjun smells like fire all over," while Zhixia laughed and said, "But his heart is full of you." Those scattered moments had now become her most precious memories.
"The fingers gripping the Star River Shattering Bow had turned white... I remembered how you used to complain to me, 'That Hongjun guy smells like fire all over, and he's always sneaking off to eat roasted meat.' But whenever his cultivation went astray, you were always the most worried..."
Liu Erlong's voice was thick with tears as she read the details in the letter. Bai Chenxiang seemed to see Ma Hongjun again, clumsily carving a wooden hairpin for her. It had been crooked and ugly; she called it "hideous," yet wore it in her hair every day. She saw him by the river in Suotuo City, his nose red from the cold, smiling as he set off fireworks for her all night and said, "They're even