One winter day after the Western Border Campaign ended.
Imperial Capital, Cemetery.
It snowed heavily all night, finally stopping at dawn.
The gloomy sky showed a faint fish-belly white.
A figure sat on the steps before Jiang Xue's gravestone.
His head was full of white hair, as though he had melted into the snowy ground.
Gu Jinzhi simply sat there, like a soulless sculpture.
Less than a meter away in the snow before him lay another young man.
He looked eighteen or nineteen, his face filled with stubbornness.
It was Cheng Hao.
At that moment, Gu Jinzhi had faint bruises at the corners of his eyes and mouth.
A trace of blood had seeped from the corner of his lips and congealed against his pale skin, glaringly bright.
His collar, buttons, and seams were torn in many places, leaving him in an utterly wretched state.
Cheng Hao lay in the snow, both fists red, swollen, and scraped raw as he gasped for breath.
As a Quasi-Martial Artist, he had attacked a Martial Artist at the peak of the Third Realm.
Even though the other man had not fought back, he had exhausted himself to the point of collapse and fractured his bones.
Amid the absolute silence, Cheng Hao merely wept in silence.
His tears slid soundlessly down his face and froze there.
But before long, suppressed sobs began forcing their way from his throat.
"Urk... u-urk~ urk~"
The sound grew louder and more uncontrollable.
In the end, he could hold on no longer. He rolled from his back onto his side, his entire body curling into a shrimp in the snow as he convulsed violently.
"Give her back to me..."
"Give her back to me!"
Crying, he repeated the meaningless words over and over.
"Give her back..."
Yet