The veins on the young man’s hands rose instantly beneath the skin. His fingers dug fiercely into the earth, and his eyes glistened as if tears were about to fall.
In those eyes lived both shame and hatred.
He had lost — completely and utterly, with no ground left to stand on.
They had already walked some distance from the courtyard when Xiao Nanhui turned to look back at the forlorn figure collapsed on the ground, and felt an inexplicable wave of sympathy rise within her.
Everything An Lu had done, she could understand. If the person who had died had been Xiao Zhun, she too would have clutched at any offered lifeline and believed in whoever promised to help.
Even the most infinitesimal chance can drive a person to hurl themselves into it like a moth toward flame — when it comes down to it, that is simply obsession.
Yet in this world — how many people’s obsessions are ever rewarded?
A wind rose among the trees, moaning and sobbing through the branches, stirring up a swirl of dust.
When the dust settled, a small, slender figure crawled out from a clump of grass not far away, looked around, and slipped into the courtyard of that earthen dwelling.
“A’Lu, elder brother.”
The young man’s form had been pressed to the ground, motionless as a stone, for a long time. At the sound of the voice, he slowly raised his head.
The figure standing at the gate — not yet fully grown in stature — was looking at him with timid, nervous eyes. It was Jin Dou’er.
“A’Lu, elder brother,” Jin Dou’er called again, hesitating before taking a few steps forward. “Are you alright?”
An Lu’s eyes stared blankly at the person before him, without a word.
Jin Dou’er felt that the person standing before her bore no resemblance to the careful, cautious A’Lu she had known at the Wangchen Pavilion — but his hand reached into his sleeve and touched something he was keeping there, and gathering his courage, he held it out.
The small, thin hand slowly opened. In its palm was a crumpled piece of jade-green fabric.
“This is for you. It was something that belonged to A’Yun, elder sister.”
An Lu’s expression changed in an instant. The next second, he snatched the item from those hands like a starving wolf and carefully unfolded it.
A handkerchief embroidered with tuberose blossoms.
The dense, fine stitches were vivid and lifelike — yet the tuberose blossoms were not white. They were a dark, russet brown.
How had he never noticed before.
An Lu raised his head and regarded Jin Dou’er.
“Why are you giving this to me?”
Jin Dou’er looked at the handkerchief, as if recalling things from long past. The large, round eyes held an expression of tender longing. “A’Yun, elder sister, used to treat me very well. She was the kindest person in the entire pavilion to me. I was just too small — I couldn’t save her. This is the last thing she left behind in this world. If you miss her too, keep it — let it be a remembrance.”
An Lu looked at Jin Dou’er. In truth, the other was only a few years younger than him, yet considerably shorter in stature — the kind of appearance that came from years of heavy labor and too little proper food.
He himself had lived through such hard days — but still—
“When did you arrive here?”
Jin Dou’er, unaware of the subtle shift in the other’s eyes, answered reflexively: “I saw you leave the pavilion alone, so I followed along with Uncle Li who was making a delivery.”
So then — everything that should have been heard, had been heard.
An Lu staggered to his feet.
Ding Weixiang’s blow had been heavy, and his chest still ached dully — but he paid it no mind. He carefully folded the jade-green handkerchief and tucked it close against his body.
“Jin Dou’er.” An Lu called in a low voice, his tone carrying the gentle warmth of an elder brother. “Come here to me.”
Jin Dou’er looked at An Lu in a daze. The person before him naturally bore some resemblance to An Yun, and while the earlier unfamiliarity had been a little frightening, now that this warmth showed through, it brought to mind the way An Yun used to speak.
Jin Dou’er’s feet moved without thinking, drawing closer toward this boy with the elder-brother smile.
An Lu opened his arms and drew Jin Dou’er into an embrace. His voice was low, like a lullaby hummed to coax a child to sleep.
“Thank you for everything you did for my sister. I will bring her back.”
Jin Dou’er’s eyes, which had been drifting closed, snapped suddenly wide open. As something warm drained away from his body, his pupils gradually expanded — two hollow, empty voids.
An Lu’s voice, flat and without inflection, sounded again beside his ear.
“One of us is enough. Go in peace.”
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