Eighteen years ago, on the winter solstice.
Whoosh, whoosh...
Crosswinds swept the endless snowfields beyond Liangzhou's frontier pass. A crescent moon hung at the far edge of the sky, its pallid light illuminating the boundless earth.
A campfire burned in the wilderness beside a triangular tent hastily pitched with oilcloth. Two horses were tethered to a wooden stake.
Two men in sheepskin winter coats sat on the ground beside the fire.
One held a wineskin and roasted rabbit meat over the flames on a wooden stick.
The other gently stroked a silver hairpin, an old saber in a black sheath planted beside him.
The man roasting the rabbit raised the wineskin and took a long swig. White mist escaped his mouth and nose as he gazed blankly across the northern snowfields.
"Yuanfeng, we've been searching for a month or so. What exactly are you looking for? At least tell me."
The man opposite him looked a little over thirty and was quite handsome. His name was Pei Yuanfeng, though the martial world also knew him as Zheng Feng. But all that had long since become the past.
Now, Pei Yuanfeng was merely a wanderer from a border town, far removed from the martial world and worldly affairs, roaming aimlessly.
At the question, Pei Yuanfeng put away the silver hairpin, took the wineskin, and drank deeply.
"I'm looking for a medicinal herb called Snow Lake Flower. It grows beside Tianlang Lake and flowers in winter."
"You say that every time. I, Yang Chao, have spent over ten years around the frontier, and I've never heard of anything like that beyond the pass. Even if it exists, I hear there's fighting north of Tianlang Lake. With war raging everywhere, a couple of third-rate fighters like us would be pressed into service the