After spending every day eating, sleeping, and eating some more, Lin Jiayan pinched her arms in frustration.
No matter how much she ate, she couldn’t seem to gain a single pound.
With these skinny arms and legs, if trouble came, she wouldn’t be able to fight her way out—or run away from it.
So she created a fitness plan for herself.
Starting with jogging.
Then gradually adding strength training.
And one day, she swore, she would get her abs back.
The moment she decided, she acted.
Lin Jiayan got up before dawn.
She tied back the wide sleeves of her robes with strips of silk and fastened her pant legs to keep them out of the way. Standing beside the endless grasslands, she took several deep breaths of fresh air and began stretching.
Once she felt her body warming up, she started jogging along the foot of the mountain.
Unfortunately—
Dreams were beautiful.
Reality was cruel.
After barely five hundred meters, she was already gasping for breath.
Refusing to admit defeat, she stood still until her breathing calmed and then started running again.
This time she didn’t even make it five hundred meters before she had to stop.
Run.
Rest.
Run.
Rest.
The cycle repeated itself for half an hour.
“What is she doing?”
Ajina and Chahar were riding down from the mountain on horseback and had been watching for quite some time.
“Trying to run away?”
Ajina scratched his head in confusion.
Chahar sat on his horse, watching Lin Jiayan lean against a tree and struggle to catch her breath.
“Run away?”
He snorted.
“She couldn’t even outrun A’ming.”
After another round of jogging and stopping, Lin Jiayan’s heart pounded violently.
Her hands and feet felt cold.
Her vision swam.
This useless body.
Its physical condition wasn’t even remotely comparable to her original one.
The more she thought about it, the angrier she became.
In a fit of frustration, she grabbed a nearby sapling and stripped every leaf from its branches.
Even that wasn’t enough.
Spotting a small dirt mound nearby, she angrily kicked it.
Unfortunately, the “dirt mound” turned out to be solid.
Not only did it refuse to move—
She twisted her ankle.
“Ow…”
She clutched her ankle and cried out in pain.
Having witnessed everything from beginning to end, Chahar dismounted immediately, tossed his reins to Ajina, and strode over.
“What are you doing?”
The moment Lin Jiayan looked up and saw him, she inwardly groaned.
Why did this man always appear whenever she embarrassed herself?
“I… I was admiring the scenery.”
Adjusting her posture, she sat down on the grass and casually pulled up a handful of grass blades, trying to look relaxed.
Chahar looked toward the forest.
“Admiring the trees?”
Then he glanced across the grassland.
“Or the grass?”
Lin Jiayan ground her teeth.
“Yes!”
She pointed dramatically.
“I’ve never seen this many trees or this much grass before. Can’t I sit here and appreciate it?”
“If you appreciate it much longer, this entire patch of grass will be bald.”
Lin Jiayan immediately threw the grass away and turned her head, refusing to speak to him.
“Should I leave, then?”
Chahar stood up as though preparing to walk away.
Seeing no reaction, he glanced toward the nearby woods and smiled slyly.
“Take your time admiring the scenery.”
His voice was deliberately casual.
“Though the forest around here is pretty deep. Maybe a few snakes will come out and admire it with you.”
Lin Jiayan instantly got goosebumps.
After the snake incident, merely hearing the word was enough.
When she saw Chahar genuinely turn and begin walking away, panic set in.
She hurried to stand.
The moment her right foot touched the ground—
A sharp pain shot through her ankle.
“Hiss—”
Chahar stopped.
“What happened?”
“I…”
Lin Jiayan awkwardly held her injured foot off the ground.
“I twisted my ankle.”
“So what are you going to do?”
What am I going to do?
Marinate myself and become snake food, apparently.
She silently fumed.
Of course, she only dared think that.
Actually staying here alone was absolutely not an option.
She tried hopping forward on one foot.
The uneven grassland made balancing nearly impossible.
Just as she was about to fall again, Chahar reached out and caught her.
Honestly.
This woman couldn’t soften her attitude even a little.
With a sigh, he crouched in front of her.
“Get on.”
He wanted to carry her on his back?
Lin Jiayan hesitated.
That felt far too intimate.
And what if someone saw?
When she still didn’t move after several seconds, Chahar looked back.
Noticing her long skirt, he assumed she found it inconvenient.
So he simply reached out, hooked an arm beneath her knees—
And lifted her into his arms.
“Ah!”
The sudden loss of footing startled her.
Instinctively, she wrapped both arms around his neck.
“Put me down!”
“Put you down so you can hop home on one leg?”
Lin Jiayan’s face turned bright red.
She immediately buried her face like an ostrich.
Seeing the crimson tips of her ears, Chahar chuckled.
He adjusted his hold, bouncing her slightly higher in his arms.
“Hold on tighter.”
Far behind them, Ajina followed while leading both horses.
The more he watched, the more confused he became.
Had the Taiji lost his mind?
There were perfectly good horses available.
Yet he insisted on carrying her himself.
Who could understand that?
Chahar walked with long, steady strides.
Holding a person seemed effortless for him.
Curled up against his chest, Lin Jiayan noticed he even had enough energy to stop and chat with people they passed.
Unable to bear it, she secretly pinched his waist.
Move faster!
The nearby tribesman burst into laughter and said something in Mongolian.
Though she couldn’t understand it, she was certain it wasn’t anything innocent.
Seeing her embarrassment, Chahar quickly ended the conversation and continued walking.
Not before deliberately bouncing her a little higher again.
When they finally arrived home, Chahar placed her gently on the couch.
Then, without hesitation, he lifted her skirt.
And removed her shoes and socks.
“Chahar!”
Lin Jiayan nearly exploded.
“What are you doing?!”
Looking down, Chahar saw that the area below her slender ankle was already red and swollen.
The injury was worse than he’d thought.
“Why aren’t you calling me ‘Taiji’ anymore?”
He reached toward her ankle.
“Hiss! Don’t touch it!”
She immediately tried pulling her foot away.
“Do you even know my name?”
“Chahar.”
She blinked.
Why was he suddenly asking something so strange?
“Chahar is my family name.”
He looked at her.
“My father and brother are both called Chahar.”
Lin Jiayan froze.
Thinking back carefully, he had introduced himself properly when they first met.
The problem was—
His name had been ridiculously long.
Who could possibly remember all that?
“Ala… Ara… Gada…”
Before she could finish—
“Ah!”
Chahar suddenly twisted her ankle.
A sharp pop sounded.
The displaced joint slid back into place.
“Alatangadasu.”
He grinned.
“Remember it now?”
Watching her face scrunch into a pitiful little bun from the pain, he couldn’t help laughing.
With her ankle injured, Lin Jiayan’s fitness plans came to an abrupt halt.
For several days she could do nothing except stay home and stare into space.
“Mother.”
One afternoon, while she was lazily basking in the sun and drifting toward sleep, she heard a familiar voice.
Dulan and A’ming had arrived.
“Sister-in-law, A’ming, what brings you here?”
Dulan placed a small food box on the table and bent down to inspect her ankle.
“I heard you got hurt and couldn’t go out anymore, so I brought A’ming to visit.”
Lin Jiayan rotated her ankle.
“It’s almost healed. Nothing serious.”
“I heard Chahar carried you back?”
Instantly, memories of that humiliating journey resurfaced.
She lowered her head and refused to answer.
Dulan smiled knowingly and changed the subject.
“A while ago, Chahar suddenly came to me asking to learn sewing.”
That caught Lin Jiayan’s attention.
She looked up.
Dulan continued,
“I told him sewing wasn’t men’s work. I asked what he wanted it for, but he wouldn’t say. He just kept insisting I teach him.”
Immediately, Lin Jiayan thought of the torn hole in her tent wall.
She fought the urge to turn and look.
Instead, she lowered her head and studied her fingers.
“Do you know what that was about, Yanyan?”
“Huh?”
She nearly jumped.
“I-I don’t know.”
Dulan merely smiled.
The two of them were remarkably alike.
Both stubborn.
Both awkward.
Both terrible at expressing themselves.
“Zhana is sixteen years older than Chahar.”
Her voice softened.
“Their mother died early. I’ve always treated Chahar as my own child.”
She looked toward the distant grasslands.
“But Chahar knew from a young age that he was different. He was the boy without a mother.”
“By the time he was eight or nine, he was already following the Khan into battle. He bled, he suffered, but he never cried. Whatever burden he carried, he carried it alone.”
Dulan turned back toward her.
“For all these years, I’ve been waiting for someone.”
“Someone who understands him.”
“Someone who loves him.”
“Someone who will stay beside him.”
Her eyes were warm and gentle.
“I think that person is you.”
After Dulan left, Lin Jiayan slowly walked to the side of her tent.
The ugly, crooked patch that used to leak cold air was gone.
In its place was a new piece of felt.
The stitches were rough and clearly made by inexperienced hands.
But they were neat.
Strong.
Reliable.
For some reason, she pictured that mountain-sized man secretly crouching here, painstakingly pushing a needle through thick felt one stitch at a time.
The image was so absurd that she couldn’t help laughing.
And for the first time in a long while—
The thought of Chahar made her smile instead of sigh.