In winter, the snow accumulated deep in the mountains. Reflecting the sunlight, the snow-covered ground grew bright much earlier than during other seasons.
When Yun Ni woke up, Shen Tinglan was still resting beside her with his eyes closed. She hadn’t known that her husband had gotten out of bed during the night and assumed he had simply been feeling unwell, which was why he had slept longer.
Not wanting to wake him, Yun Ni quietly slipped out of bed.
She took her wooden bow and bamboo arrows, slung a bamboo basket over her shoulder, and prepared to check the traps she had set throughout the mountains with braided hemp rope.
Winter made the mountains barren and food scarce. Wild rabbits were especially likely to wander into traps while searching for something to eat.
The mountain paths were rugged, and Yun Ni had to trek through the snow in search of prey. There were plenty of times when she returned empty-handed.
She didn’t want Shen Tinglan to become discouraged or worry about how they would afford food and firewood, so she usually went into the mountains alone.
If she came back empty-handed, she would simply gather some wild vegetables and fruit to bring home for them to share.
After Yun Ni left, Shen Tinglan, who had been lying on his side, suddenly opened his striking, phoenix-shaped eyes.
He hadn’t slept deeply.
He wasn’t accustomed to Yun Ni’s constant warmth pressed against him, but this body seemed strangely familiar with her.
For example, last night, before Yun Ni could even wrap her arms around him, Shen Tinglan had instinctively slipped an arm around her slender waist and pulled her into his embrace…
He glanced around.
Yun Ni wasn’t in bed.
She had probably gone hunting.
Shen Tinglan lowered his gaze. His cold eyes swept over his solid chest, where a conspicuous red bite mark remained.
He had been too forceful the previous night and had apparently annoyed Yun Ni, earning himself this little punishment.
Shen Tinglan frowned slightly and slowly steadied his somewhat heavy breathing.
He had already tested it.
Whenever he approached Yun Ni and became intimate with her, a sense of relief and pleasure would wash over him, as though the torment had finally been released.
But if Yun Ni went too far away—into the mountains to hunt or into the city to sell goods—the pain in his chest would tighten and become unbearable, sometimes making it difficult for him to breathe.
This was the Love Gu brought from the barbarian lands of the southern frontier.
Yun Ni felt nothing.
But Shen Tinglan was controlled by the connection between them, unable to control his own thoughts and feelings.
It seemed that he had been infected with the Child Gu, while Yun Ni carried the Mother Gu.
Driven by the Love Gu, he had been reduced to this miserable state of being controlled by another person.
A cold, murderous look filled Shen Tinglan’s eyes.
No wonder he had inexplicably “fallen in love” with a lame country girl.
It turned out to be the work of the Love Gu.
It was a humiliation beyond words.
Shen Tinglan closed his eyes tightly. A few strands of his sharp black hair curled over his shoulders and arms, spilling across the collar of his white robe.
Only when the piercing cry of an eagle and the thunderous sound of approaching horses erupted outside did Shen Tinglan finally suppress his anger.
His voice was cold.
“Enter.”
At his command, the sounds of soldiers dismounting quickly followed, along with the clatter of medicinal-herb baskets being knocked onto the ground.
For some reason, Shen Tinglan’s brows furrowed.
He suddenly remembered something from several days ago.
At the time, Yun Ni had taken a hoe into the mountains and returned with several honeysuckle vines.
She had excitedly presented them to him like a treasure.
“Husband, look! These are the wild honeysuckle plants I marked when I went hunting in the mountains before. The stems have grown now, so we can dig them up, dry them, and sell them for some money.”
“I noticed your black boots are worn out too. Next time, I’ll buy several yards of cotton cloth and make you a pair of soft shoes!”
Shen Tinglan remembered Yun Ni’s hands, red and swollen from the cold, as well as the windburned skin on her cheeks.
A faint irritation stirred within him.
He pressed his lips together and said nothing.
After a long silence, the leader of his hidden guards, Wei Lingfeng, finally arrived.
The moment Wei Lingfeng saw the shabby little courtyard and the dilapidated house with almost nothing inside, his eyes reddened.
He fell to his knees.
“Young Master, you’ve suffered terribly this past year.”
Shen Tinglan didn’t respond.
He merely asked calmly,
“What about the Fan family?”
A trace of hatred flashed across Wei Lingfeng’s face.
“The Fan family dared to rebel and commit treason. They provoked war and deliberately attempted to assassinate Young Master. Naturally, we wiped them out completely. Not a single survivor was left.”
Shen Tinglan showed no joy at the answer.
He lightly tapped his fingers against the bed frame, seemingly lost in thought as he calculated his next move.
Seeing this, Wei Lingfeng held his breath and didn’t dare ask anything further.
Shen Tinglan was now twenty-six years old.
He was the eldest legitimate son of the main branch of the Longzhou Shen clan, the foremost aristocratic family in the State of Wu.
After the former family patriarch passed away, Shen Tinglan naturally became the head of the Shen family.
It was said that on the night Shen Tinglan was born, orchids across Longzhou bloomed magnificently overnight, filling the room with an extraordinary fragrance.
A red serpent even coiled around the delivery chamber, protecting the unborn child with its body.
Above them, the clouds seemed to burn across the heavens, filled with divine radiance, as though a deity had descended into the mortal world.
Because of this, from the moment Shen Tinglan was born, the Shen family treated him like the apple of their eye, carefully protecting and educating him, terrified that anything might happen to him.
Shen Tinglan also lived up to his reputation as a “son descended from the gods.”
At three, he was already fluent in classical texts.
At five, he could compose elegant essays.
At seven, he could wield a spear and ride a horse, accompanying his father into military camps and fighting across the borders of Wu, expanding its territory and defeating northern invaders.
Shen Tinglan was accomplished in both scholarship and martial arts, earning numerous military victories.
To protect the imperial authority of Wu, he had even led his troops to rescue the young Emperor Li Yi during a palace coup, preserving the Li dynasty.
Afterward, Shen Tinglan assisted the young Emperor Li Yi in ascending the throne.
For his role in protecting the emperor, the young ruler elevated him to Chancellor of Wu, granting him the extraordinary privilege of attending court armed with his sword and shoes, and allowing him to approach the emperor without the customary formalities.
The young emperor also bestowed upon Shen Tinglan the title Marquis of Boshan, granting him a fief of ten thousand households and several regions as his territory.
In private, the emperor even affectionately addressed him as:
“Imperial Father.”
Before he had even reached thirty, Shen Tinglan had already risen to the highest position beneath the emperor.
Naturally, he became the thorn in the eyes and flesh of countless powerful factions, who wanted nothing more than to kill him and take his place.
A year ago, Shen Tinglan had traveled on behalf of the emperor to inspect the realm and oversee disaster relief.
There, he was ambushed by rebel forces belonging to the Fan family.
The grain transport ships were damaged, Shen Tinglan was assassinated and infected with the Love Gu, and he disappeared into the sea.
He drifted helplessly in the water until powerful waves washed him onto a rocky shore.
That was where Yun Ni, who happened to be hunting in the mountains, found him.
The Love Gu inside Shen Tinglan was particularly vicious.
Under normal circumstances, it remained dormant within his body. But once it detected the presence of a woman’s blood, it would awaken completely.
The Mother Gu burrowed into Yun Ni’s body and settled beneath her pale skin.
The Child Gu remained near Shen Tinglan’s heart, forcing him under its influence and making him develop romantic feelings toward Yun Ni.
Shen Tinglan had been injured and lost his memories.
He mistook the heart palpitations caused by the Love Gu for genuine attraction and believed that he had fallen deeply in love with Yun Ni.
In reality, all those feelings were nothing more than illusions created by the Love Gu.
Shen Tinglan did not love Yun Ni.
He felt no genuine affection for her whatsoever.
Every intimate night they shared, every moment of closeness between husband and wife, was merely Shen Tinglan’s desperate attempt to relieve the agonizing pain caused by the Love Gu.
To him, Yun Ni was nothing more than medicine—something to take and swallow when the pain became unbearable.
How could he possibly fall in love with an illiterate country woman?
Perhaps Yun Ni had gone too far away this time.
The pain in Shen Tinglan’s chest began to throb again.
He swallowed the pain-relieving pill Wei Lingfeng handed him and forced down the bloody taste rising in his throat.
A vicious killing intent flashed through his eyes.
“This humiliation… I will make the rebels pay for it, piece by piece.”
This year’s snowfall was particularly heavy.
The mountains were wrapped in silver, filled with biting cold and the sharp, bitter fragrance of pine and winter vegetation.
Yun Ni shivered in the freezing wind, her steps unsteady.
Afraid the accumulated snow might collapse beneath her weight, she climbed carefully.
She had left many markers along the mountain paths, but the heavy snowfall during the night had buried many of them, nearly causing her to lose her way.
Fortunately, Yun Ni was lucky.
Every trap she managed to find had caught something.
She came away with two wild rabbits and even managed to catch a white fox!
Fur was valuable in the market.
Rabbit fur was cheap, while lynx and fox fur were among the most expensive. If the fur was thick, smooth, and of good quality, a single pelt could sell for dozens of taels of silver.
Unfortunately, this mountain fox had been starving.
It was thin, and its fur was somewhat patchy and uneven.
Yun Ni estimated that it might fetch two taels of silver at most.
But to someone as inexperienced with money as Yun Ni, two taels was still a considerable fortune—enough to cover half a year’s household expenses.
Without Shen Tinglan, Yun Ni could stretch her savings for an entire year by living frugally.
But now there was another person in the household, and her husband was still injured.
She wanted to make sure he ate well.
Then Yun Ni remembered how Shen Tinglan’s body was weak and his limbs often became cold.
They couldn’t afford the expensive coal that only wealthy families could use.
The fox’s fur was fairly thick.
Perhaps she could keep it and make Shen Tinglan a warm scarf to protect him from the wind.
At the thought of Shen Tinglan wearing a fluffy fur scarf around his neck, Yun Ni’s lips curled into a smile.
She gently stroked the fur and made up her mind.
She would keep it for Shen Tinglan.
After all, she didn’t want her family to suffer from the cold.
Yun Ni had been out for a long time, and the sky was already growing dark.
She was worried about the medicinal herbs drying outside at home and feared that rain or strong winds might come later, so she didn’t dare stay any longer.
Using a wooden stick to beat aside grass and check for snakes, Yun Ni hurried down the mountain.
Before she could reach home, an older woman from the village anxiously called out to her.
“Ni’er, hurry up and go take a look! A lot of soldiers came today. It looks like they’re trying to arrest someone at your house!”
Beside her, Brother Zhao immediately added,
“I told you your man had a suspicious background. For all we know, he’s a wanted criminal hiding out here! But you insisted on vouching for him before the village head and keeping him here. Look what happened now! You’ve brought trouble to the whole household!”
Yun Ni’s mind became a complete mess after hearing their words.
She knew Shen Tinglan’s gentle nature.
Her husband was absolutely not a bad person.
She didn’t dare waste another moment.
She pulled a chipped sickle from her bamboo basket, the kind she used to cut grass and vines, and put on the fiercest expression she could manage.
Then, limping and stumbling, she hurried toward her home halfway up the mountain.
From far away, Yun Ni could already see flags fluttering in the wind and warhorses snorting and tossing their manes.
Her legs began to tremble.
She was only a weak woman.
When had she ever seen such a terrifying sight?
But Shen Tinglan had no relatives or anyone else to rely on.
He only had her.
After everything they had shared as husband and wife, she couldn’t possibly abandon him.
No matter what happened, she had to save him.
With that thought, Yun Ni steeled herself.
She raised her sickle and rushed into the courtyard.
She stood directly in front of Shen Tinglan, shielding him with her body, the blade pointed toward the intruders.
Her voice rang out fiercely.
“Who are you? What do you want with my husband?!”
Yun Ni’s eyes were red, and her rounded shoulders trembled uncontrollably.
But she refused to retreat.
She glared angrily at the men who had barged into her home, trying her best to drive away these wolves and tigers who had invaded her household.
With her free hand, Yun Ni reached backward, searching blindly until her fingers caught Shen Tinglan’s sleeve.
She wanted to take his hand and reassure him:
Don’t be afraid. I’ll protect you.
Yun Ni was terrified for Shen Tinglan’s safety.
What she didn’t know was that Shen Tinglan didn’t appreciate her concern in the slightest.
When he heard her anxious, trembling cry of “Husband,” he felt no happiness.
Instead, the usually calm and gentle expression on his handsome face developed the slightest crack.
A chilling, distant look emerged from behind his eyes.
…
As if he were mocking her for overestimating herself.