By the time the exchange gathering dispersed, the moon had already climbed to the zenith of the sky.
The crowd on the plaza dispersed in all directions. The halos of the spirit light lanterns swayed in the night wind, lengthening and shortening the receding shadows on the bluestone ground like a cluster of slowly closing clam shells.
Bai Qingxue walked along the path back to the residence. The dwarf trees on both sides leaned slightly in the sea breeze, and the moonlight filtering through the branches and leaves shattered into tiny flecks of light that shifted between brightness and shadow across her shoulders.
Lu Xueqing walked beside her.
This time, she did not lag half a step behind, nor did she forge half a step ahead. Instead, she walked exactly shoulder to shoulder with Bai Qingxue.
The distance between them was not intentionally narrowed, but it was just enough that Lu Xueqing's sleeve occasionally brushed against the back of Bai Qingxue's hand.
The courtyard door of the residence was half-ajar. Ning Qinghan was nowhere to be seen.
“Junior Sister Bai.”
Lu Xueqing's voice came from behind, slightly lower than usual, as if she were weighing her words.
Bai Qingxue stopped at the door.
She did not turn around. She simply stood there with one hand resting on the door panel. The moonlight shone in from behind her, casting a cold gleam over her silver-white hair.
Lu Xueqing walked up to her side, but she did not enter either.
She leaned against the doorframe, her gaze falling upon the cluster of slender bamboo swaying in the night wind in the courtyard. She watched it for a few breaths before speaking.
“How much do you still remember about the matters of Yunzhou that the person from the Falling Star Pavilion mentioned, Junior Sister Bai?”
Bai Qingxue fell silent for a moment.
She tried to recall, but those memories were like stones viewed through a body of water—their outlines remained, but the details had been worn smooth by the ripples.
The time she had spent in Yunzhou was too short. It was so short that aside from that broken engagement, there was almost nothing else left in her memory.
“I do not remember much,” Bai Qingxue said. These words were true.
Even as she spoke, she realized it sounded like an excuse, but she truly had nothing more she could draw upon.
Lu Xueqing did not respond.
She leaned against the other side of the doorframe. The moonlight fell on the ground between them like a spread-out silver boundary.
Bai Qingxue withdrew her gaze from the bamboo leaves, keeping her eyes lowered.
“If I must say something... it is simply the place where I was born.”
Lu Xueqing waited for a moment, but there was no follow-up.
She turned her head, looking at Bai Qingxue's profile.
The shadows cast by the moonlight fell along Bai Qingxue's jawline, leaving her cold, elegant face half in light and half in shadow.
Lu Xueqing remained silent for a moment.
“Just that?” Lu Xueqing asked.
“Yes.”
“Nothing else? For instance, friends? Or... someone important?” Lu Xueqing said.
“No.”
Lu Xueqing stood up straight and said, “Is that so... I understand.”
With that, Lu Xueqing turned and walked toward her own room.
As she crossed the courtyard, the hem of Lu Xueqing's robe brushed against the tips of a cluster of slender bamboo leaves, making a faint rustling sound, like someone whispering something in a very soft voice.
Bai Qingxue still stood at the doorway.
Her gaze followed Lu Xueqing's receding figure, watching the moonlight coat the frost-white Daoist robe with a thin silver trim, watching her shadow thread through the bamboo leaves, followed by the sound of a door being pushed open and then closed.
Quiet descended upon the courtyard.
The breeze blew in from the sea, weaving through the gaps in the bamboo leaves, through Bai Qingxue's hanging sleeves, and through her fingers.
Bai Qingxue walked into the main room and closed the door.
She did not light a lamp. Guided by the moonlight filtering through the window lattice paper, she sat down by the edge of the bed. The Frost Moon Chant rested on her knees, and her fingertips pressed against the flute holes, yet she did not play.
Bai Qingxue's fingers lingered on the body of the flute for a moment before she set it down, lay back, and closed her eyes as she stared at the ceiling.
The moonlight seeped in through the window lattice paper, casting a thin trail of light on the wall like a fine crack that had yet to heal, or like a past that had been washed pale by the sea but could never be entirely erased, quietly reflected there.
Unnoticed by anyone, yet continuing to stretch out in the darkness.
Inside the eastern wing, Lu Xueqing did not light a lamp either.
She sat at the edge of the bed as the moonlight poured in from the window, spreading out a silver-white shape on the floor in front of her, its edges so neat they looked as if they had been sliced like tofu.
Lu Xueqing stared at the patch of moonlight, her hands resting on her knees.
“None, is it...”
‘Liar, liar, liar...’
Clearly, back in Yunzhou, she had been connected to Ye Qingyao...
Perhaps Bai Qingxue had not hidden it from her on purpose. Perhaps she had simply forgotten.
Inexplicably, Lu Xueqing felt that she and Bai Qingxue had drifted even further apart.
She had thought she was getting closer.
In the courtyard of Xueji Peak, beside the cold pond, and when they stood side by side on the flying boat watching the sea of clouds, she had believed she was drawing closer.
She had even felt that they were only a final step away from each other.
If she only took that step slightly forward, Bai Qingxue would meet her halfway, or perhaps even take the initiative to walk toward her.
But now, Lu Xueqing was suddenly no longer sure.
Bai Qingxue's past was like a locked room whose door was not tightly shut, allowing a sliver of light to leak through the gap.
Yet when you stepped inside, all you saw was an empty room.
There was no furniture, no paintings, not even a speck of dust—so clean it looked as though no one had ever lived there.
Was that room truly empty?
Or had Bai Qingxue simply tucked everything away into some corner she could not see, storing it so thoroughly that even she herself had forgotten where it was placed?
Lu Xueqing raised her hands from her knees and placed them over her chest.
Her palms pressed against the fabric of her robe, feeling the heart beneath beating in a steady, unhurried rhythm.
Once, twice, thrice.
Every single beat whispered the same message: Still not enough.
Still not close enough.
Still did not understand her enough.
Still not enough to let her step behind that wall of snow that Bai Qingxue herself was not even aware she had built.
Lu Xueqing slowly clenched her fingers. A few shallow red marks were left in her palms.
She unclenched her hands and flattened her fingers again, watching the moonlight fall onto those red marks, illuminating the edges of the crescents until they shone, as if someone had used an extremely fine brush to trace a light red outline in her palm.
She recalled the sight of Bai Qingxue's back as she stood at the doorway. The moonlight had rendered her silver-white hair almost transparent. As she stood there, the lines of her profile had softened just a fraction in the darkness.
Not by much, just a tiny bit.
Like a thin layer of ice melting under the sun—it was still cold underneath, but the surface no longer carried that biting chill that made people shrink away.
Yet Lu Xueqing knew that the softening had not been for her.
It was the moonlight.
When moonlight fell on ice, it always made it look slightly warmer, but that was merely an illusion of the light.
Lu Xueqing lowered her head and buried her face in her hands.
Her palms still carried the warmth from when she had clenched them. Pressed against her skin, they felt slightly hot.
She did not cry. She only felt a quiet weariness seep up from the tips of her limbs, like a tide washing over a beach—not violent, yet one that would not recede anytime soon.
The moonlight shifted slowly across the room. From the very center of the floor, it crawled to the base of the wall, and then to the edge of Lu Xueqing's hanging sleeve.
The beam of light grew narrower bit by bit, like a door slowly closing.
Lu Xueqing knew that tomorrow, she would still stand by Bai Qingxue's side.
She would still embed herself within that frost-white shadow, maintaining that distance that was neither too close nor too far.
A self like this was truly sickening...
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