It’s strange to say, but even though she shared a room with Pei Yunng and felt a subtle discomfort, she was actually not worried at all. This man was clearly no gentleman; his deanor couldn’t be considered proper. However, it seed that she fundantally trusted him. This trust was chilling, as she felt so at ease with him.
Pei Yunng snorted with laughter, didn’t fuss over it, and laid down with his hands pillow his head.
In the room, the lamp oil burned quietly, shielding them from the storm outside. The fireplace offered scant warmth in the bitter cold, but the two inside didn’t feel it, silently lost in their own thoughts.
After lying down for a while, Pei Yunng noticed sothing long near the foot of the bed. Thinking it was a snake at first, he frowned, sat up, and with a flick of the Silver Knife, he found it was just a rope.
It was a thick hemp rope, neither too long nor too short, seemingly used often over the years, bearing so signs of wear. It seed too short to tie up bundles of herbs.
He toyed with the rope using the tip of his knife and looked over at Lu Tong on the couch, "How co there’s a rope here?"
Lu Tong sat up and her face changed instantly when she saw what he was holding, snatching it back quickly.
Seeing the change in her expression, Pei Yunng’s eyes flickered, and after a mont’s thought, he spoke, "This place couldn’t really be a trap house, could it?"
The length of the rope wasn’t enough for hanging, barely sufficient for tying things, but ideal for binding hands and feet. The ropes used to bind prisoners’ limbs in the Interrogation Room of the Palace Front Office were exactly this length.
Lu Tong’s heart skipped, and she replied icily, "You’ve already moved in, ntioning that now seems a bit late." Fearing that he would see through her expression, she shoved the rope under the bed, turned away, and lay down without another word.
Pei Yunng turned to look at her back and was silent for a long while.
After a bit, he lay back down but his expression wasn’t as relaxed as before. Suddenly thinking of sothing, he raised his eyes to look at the mud wall above him.
The bedding was up against the wall, and when he had first surveyed the room, he had noticed scratch marks.
The position of these marks was intriguing, not very high, with more markings near the foot of the wall, chaotically imprinted as if soone had, in their agony, collapsed to the ground, leaving behind the marks of their nails on the wall.
He had seen similar marks in the cells of the Palace Front Office; prisoners in pain would roll on the ground and scratch the walls. He observed them clearly and was certain about it, the rope from before coming to mind...
Pei Yunng furrowed his brows slightly as he looked towards the couch.
Lu Tong turned her back to him, seemingly pouting, facing the wall with just the back of her head showing.
He paused for a mont, then felt slightly amused.
In a deserted mountain, sharing a room, he, after all, was a man. Considering Lu Tong’s usual cautious nature, it was remarkable that she would expose her back to him without any defenses...
She really wasn’t guarding against him at all.
He glanced at the wall marks one more ti, then withdrew his gaze and lay back down.
...
The night deepened.
The snow on Luoi Peak grew heavier.
Wind poured in through the window gaps, carrying the sound of snapping branches outside.
In such cold weather, she usually found it hard to sleep, but tonight, maybe due to exhaustion or the presence of another person in the room, Lu Tong lay on the couch, gazing at the dim light in the room. As she watched, her eyelids grew heavy and she slowly dozed off.
The snowfall beca more intense, the silver-white snowflakes drifting down, transforming into a skirt hem like clouds.
Soone called in her ear, "Seventeen."
Seventeen?
She looked up, following the sound.
Below the bright red plum tree, a woman with delicate features sat. She put down the book in her hand and beckoned to her.
"Co here."
Lady Yun...
She walked over in a daze.
Lady Yun sat beneath the tree, in front of her a small stove where a clay pot nestled warmly, bubbles forming in the steam that solidified into a fine mist amidst the snowy landscape.
A dicinal scent wafted from it.
Lady Yun reached out with a cloth to handle the pot, lifting it from the stove and pouring its content into an empty bowl on the stone table.
The bowl was soon filled. The woman stood up, approached her, took her hand, and asked, "You’ve been up the mountain for three days, have you gotten accustod to it yet?"
"Accustod."
Lady Yun nodded in satisfaction, "That’s good." She smiled, "Since you’re here, let introduce you to so friends."
Friends?
Lu Tong blinked in surprise.
She had followed Lady Yun from Changwu County all the way to Luoi Peak in Su Nan. In the three days since her arrival on the mountain, she hadn’t seen anyone else—it seed as if only she and Lady Yun were there. Where could these friends be?
Lady Yun took her by the hand, like a benevolent elder, patient and gentle. She led her to a vibrantly blooming thicket behind the house, and though Lu Tong didn’t know the plants, she found them luxuriant and brightly colored.
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