Eight years ago...
It was a distant, gentle spring. The cherry blossoms were only half open, and their delicate fragrance suffused the entire mountainside with the freshness of clear spring water.
Today should have been a joyous occasion.
The little town whose name Feng Gu had already forgotten was celebrating the twentieth anniversary of its founding. Everyone was outside, taking part in lively communal activities-ceremonies, dancing processions, water games, and more.
Yet he was kneeling on the ground, looking at the woman he held in his arms, whose life force was barely flickering.
"Xuan'er, Xuan'er, wake up." He kept calling softly. He did not know how long he called; only when his eyes had grown so swollen and red that his vision blurred did she finally give a faint cough and slowly open them.
"Ah..." She looked at Feng Gu before her, and a hint of a smile actually appeared in her weary eyes. In a voice as faint as a mosquito's hum, she said, "Little Gu, you... what are you doing here?"
"You shouldn't have had to see me looking like this." She turned her head slightly, clearly feeling guilty.
"No, that's not true. Why would you say that?"
Though Feng Gu said this, the look in his eyes betrayed him. He plainly could not ignore the changes in her body.
Xuan'er's face was pale green, as though coated in licorice juice. Her arms were not only green but faintly purple as well; her calves and thighs were green with a slight bluish tinge.
He understood that these were all symptoms of an addiction caused by consuming silver mouse grass.
Feng Gu could not help recalling the past few years. Those years flashed through his mind...
His father had been the village chief. Honest, fair, trustworthy, and kind, he