The bitterness of herbs and disinfectant clung like a stubborn film to every inch of air inside the temporary tent. It was the most ordinary scent in the Serenitea Pot—the smell of sheer survival.
Jingyi leaned against a camp bed, her right ankle wrapped in thick bandages. The pallor of blood loss and shock lingered like a thin frost across her face, and her lips were drained of almost all color.
A logistics worker stepped in lightly, placing a neatly folded set of gray cloth clothes and a pair of sturdy flat cloth shoes on the edge of the bed. "Miss Jingyi," she said with an apologetic tone, "Mr. Baizhu said you need to rest your foot, so those..." She paused, her gaze sweeping toward the corner of the tent—to the mud-stained yet stubbornly upright Mary Jane heels— "really cannot be worn for now. It's safer and more practical this way."
Jingyi's gaze was pulled by an invisible thread toward those gray-brown, coarse flat shoes. The contrast was glaring. She pressed her pale lips together in a tight line, said nothing, and silently accepted them.
Stripping off her Akademiya uniform—the symbol of her scholarly status—and changing into the drab, oversized clothes felt like shedding a protective shell. She picked up the cloth shoes. Stepping barefoot onto the thick, rough soles, she eased her feet in. A sudden sense of weightlessness seized her. Holding onto the edge of the bed, she carefully stood straight.
Her field of vision dropped abruptly. Without those thirteen-centimeter supports, the loose garments wrapped around her made her look remarkably petite and fragile, like a tender sprout wilted by wind and rain. A cold sense of loss washed silently over her heart, and she instinctively clutched the rough hem of her clothes.
Right at that moment—
"Look! A dwarf violet melon scholar! Haha! Doesn't she look like an unripe Glaze Lily—so small and shriveled!"
A shrill childish voice, carrying the cruelty of ignorance, burst open at the entrance of the tent. Several children peered in, laughing boisterously as if they had discovered some novel toy.
Jingyi stiffened instantly. The blood that had drained from her cheeks rushed back in a sudden surge, burning all the way to the tips of her ears. A heavy mist of tears blurred the eyes behind her lenses. She lowered her head deeply, silently retreating into the shadow of the camp bed, almost blending into the drab canvas.
"What is all this noise about?" A voice, calm yet sounding like a stone dropped into water, cut through the din and instantly extinguished the uproar. "Have you copied the *Thousand Character Classic* ten times? Or do you simply have too much energy to burn?"
Limeng lifted the tent flap, holding two long rolls wrapped in cloth. With a cold sweep of his gaze, the children shrank their necks, stuck out their tongues, and scattered in all directions.
The tent returned to quiet, leaving only the scent of herbs and a faint... lingering aroma of fresh corn. Limeng walked over to the bed, setting down the cloth-wrapped bundles with a slight rustling sound. His gaze swept over the dusty high heels in the corner.
Jingyi still kept her head down, her sight nailed firmly to her fingers clutching the hem of her shirt. Her left foot curled unconsciously against the edge of the straw mat; beneath the wide trouser leg, only a pale ankle was visible.
Limeng said nothing. He squatted down so that his eye level matched her lowered head. Looking at the reddened rims of her eyes behind her glasses, he spoke in an even tone: "When a Glaze Lily isn't ripe yet, it's at its most beautiful wrapped in dew—crystal clear and full of vitality. Just like the light reflecting off a scholar's lenses when she's deeply focused." He handed over a warm cloth roll. "Freshly baked corn flatbread. Eat it while it's warm."
Jingyi's eyelashes fluttered before she slowly raised her hand to take it. As the cloth unfolded, the golden flatbread gave off a rustic, sweet grain fragrance. The moment she reached out, her loose trouser leg slipped down a fraction, exposing an ankle as slender as jade. Her uninjured left foot had a delicate instep, its five toes curving together like a newborn lotus petal tinged with a soft pink; the arch curved into an innocent, graceful line that was shockingly fragile. She quickly pulled her foot back, covered it with her trouser leg, and took small bites of the corn flatbread, silence her only fortress.
After a while, she struggled to her feet, wanting to tidy up the scattered, tattered ancient texts at the other end of the bed. Her movements were slow, her right foot unable to touch the ground, and every step was fraught with difficult awkwardness. Yet her gaze, as if drawn by a magnet, drifted repeatedly toward the corner of the tent—to those lonely "battle boots."
Limeng noticed. Without asking, he walked over and bent down to pick up the Mary Jane shoes.
The light leaking through the roof of the tent illuminated the details: ten-centimeter exposed chunky heels with a smooth lacquered finish, marked near the bottom with several clear scratches and scuffs; the pigskin latex lining at the back of the heels was slightly deformed at the edges, clearly having borne immense pressure; the soles were caked with dried, hardened mud and gravel, silently recording her stumbling struggle as she fled. This creation of Fontaine's artisans was like a weary soldier refusing to fall.
Deep into night. The tent held only the cold moonlight and Jingyi's light, barely audible breathing.
Limeng did not sleep. He sat on a small stool, using the moonlight and a clean soft cloth dipped in precious clear water to wipe the high heels bit by bit, with extreme patience. His fingertips brushed over the delicate leather and every tiny scar on the heels. His thumb rubbed the most worn inner side of the heels, moving slowly and attentively, almost devoutly. It was as if, through these worn marks, he could touch the panic and reckless determination of every step she had taken as she fled.
The sound of friction from the cloth was exceptionally clear in the stillness.
"...Mr. Limeng?" Jingyi's sleep-rough voice came from behind the curtain. She had been startled awake.
The moonlight poured down like a silver ribbon, illuminating the space beneath the curtain—where her injured right foot rested securely. Her uninjured left foot, however, had slipped out at some point. The ankle was so slender it seemed it might snap at a touch, and her heel was small and rounded, glowing with a pearlescent, warm luster in the moonlight that exuded a fragile beauty.
"Hmm?" Limeng stopped what he was doing, his voice dropping very low. "Did I wake you?"
"...No." Her voice was as light as a falling feather. "What... are you doing?"
"Cleaning the spoils of war." Limeng's gaze fell upon the shoes in his hand, now largely cleared of dirt and showing their elegant contours once more, before glancing through the gap in the curtain toward that pearl-white barefoot bathed in moonlight. "Stars covered in dust look best once they've been wiped clean."
Silence descended behind the curtain for a moment. Jingyi did not pull her foot back. The moonlight flowed quietly over her fair skin. After quite a while, her barely audible voice came through, carrying a trace of an imperceptible nasal inflection: "...Thank you."
The next morning.
"You still need to rest..." the logistics worker tried to dissuade her.
"No need," Jingyi interrupted, her tone calm yet as resolute as a boulder. She had changed into her gray cloth clothes, her feet encased in heavy flat cloth shoes, leaning on a crude wooden cane. The hem of her loose clothes was too long, sweeping against the insteps of her cloth shoes with her halting steps, empty and vast, making her figure appear all the more frail.
Limeng appeared outside the tent at some point, following at a close yet detached distance like a silent shadow.
The temporary schoolhouse was set up in a small clearing enclosed by a few tents, the ground uneven. Near the entrance, a small depression held puddles of rainwater left over from the night before, forming a muddy pool. Jingyi stopped with her cane, looking at the puddle and frowning slightly as she quickly calculated in her mind whether she could walk around it or hop across on one leg.
A slender, knuckle-defined hand naturally extended toward her. Palm upward, it bore the clear, light calluses belonging to physical labor.
Jingyi was startled and looked up. Limeng wore little expression, his gaze calm and undisturbed, as if offering his hand was the most natural thing in the world. She hesitated for a fraction of a second, her eyelashes fluttering softly, before finally resting her uninjured left hand lightly on his sturdy forearm. Through the coarse cloth of his sleeve, she could clearly feel the steady, powerful support radiating from the muscles of his arm.
Using his strength, Jingyi lightly stepped her left foot toward a slightly drier patch of hard ground beside the puddle. Her toes touched down with nimble lightness and instantly withdrew, like a sparrow skimming across a dew-kissed twig. Only a few imperceptible specks of mud splashed against the edge of her cloth shoe.
"Let's go," Limeng's voice came from above her, his arm's support as unyielding and motionless as a rock. "The children are waiting."
Jingyi nodded. Relying on that steadfastly transmitted strength, leaning on her cane, she walked step by steady step toward the tent from which childish reading voices echoed. The morning sunlight fell upon her, casting a warm, pale golden rim along the edges of her drab, dusty clothes.