A-Xue was from the mortal world, just like Shen Mo. She was the first person Shen Mo met after waking from his injuries.
A-Xue said she had been picked up, but Shen Mo vaguely felt that someone had sold him. As for who it was, he had forgotten again.
A-Xue could not persuade him otherwise, so she stopped bringing it up. The two of them depended on each other for survival in this place.
One time, when he was bored, he asked A-Xue how she had come here. A-Xue smiled and said that she had been sold here as well.
That day, A-Xue rambled on about many things. Only after he grew up did he understand what those words meant. A-Xue's parents favored sons over daughters, and because A-Xue was pretty, they wanted to sell her for silver.
A-Xue said that she had not been called A-Xue back then. Her name had been Er Ya, and A-Xue was a name she later gave herself.
"The snow in the cultivation world does not make people feel cold. It looks so pure and flawless, so free. It can drift wherever it wants to go, and it can also cover up all the sins and darkness in the world. That is why I like snow."
A-Xue stretched out her jade-like hand and gently caught a snowflake drifting down from the air. The snowflake was translucent like an ice crystal, yet the moment it landed in her palm, it melted into water, as though telling of life's fragility and brevity.
An anxiety Shen Mo could not understand flickered in her eyes, as though endless sorrow lay hidden behind this snowy scene.
"I also want to live as myself, like them, even if only for that brief instant. That is why I named myself A-Xue."