The first time I saw Xie Yanzhi was upon the dragon boat at Taiye Pool. Dressed in blood-stained armor, he knelt on one knee, the red tassel on his helmet still dripping with snow from the northern frontier. When he raised his head, his gaze locked into mine—his eyes were like blades honed in ice, yet they softened into the faintest ripple when they brushed against the candied haws in my hand.
"Your Minister is late to protect Your Highness," he said. His voice was like an old pine brushed by the wind, carrying the rough rasp of gravel.
I hastily hid the candied haws behind my back, the sweet hawthorn syrup still clinging to my fingertips, staining a small dark red patch onto my court sash. To think the ruthless Prince of Northern Pacification in the rumors possessed such handsome hands beneath his armor, with clearly defined joints and thin calluses hardening the web of his thumbs.
Later on, I constantly ran to the martial arts grounds, using "observing military tactics" as an excuse, but actually squatting at the base of the city wall to watch him drill the troops. When he rode a black horse to demonstrate splitting strikes with his spear, his robes would stir up fine, scattered dust. I would pinch my handkerchief to dust off his shoulder, earning a raised eyebrow and a low chuckle from him: "Has the Princess seen enough?"
On the day of Frost's Descent, I stole my Imperial Brother's tally and shoved it into his hand. His fingers, gripping the gilded tiger tally, suddenly trembled, his thumb brushing across the cinnabar mole on my palm: "This is a capital offense."
I looked up at the furrowed lines between his brows, deliberately bringing my face very close: "Is the General afraid of death?"
He suddenly turned, his armor plates clashing together in a crisp ring, his voice muffled in his chest: "What Your Minister fears is never being able to hold this blade again."
At the Winter Solstice banquet, I wore the fox fur he had sent me. The snow-white fur collar made my face look all the more delicate. Through the interplay of goblets, he looked over, his gaze lingering on the pearl pendants at my earlobes—pearls ground down from those he had seized from Beidi.
Suddenly, my Imperial Brother raised his wine cup: "The General has rendered great and arduous service. We intend to send the Eldest Princess to Beidi for a marriage alliance, to secure our borders."
The sound of a wine cup shattering against the green bricks was exceptionally grating. I saw the knuckles of Xie Yanzhi's hand gripping his wine cup turn white, and beads of blood seeping from between his fingers dripped onto the table, looking precisely like the red plum blossoms that bloomed upon the hem of my skirt the year he blocked an arrow for me. He abruptly stood up, his armor casting a cold gleam under the candlelight: "This Minister believes that the Princess is of golden branches and jade leaves..."
"Does the General know," I interrupted him, my nails digging deep into my palms, "that the Beidi Khan has a fox fur woven from the chest hair of a hundred white foxes?"
The hall instantly fell silent. Only the crackling embers in the charcoal brazier could be heard. Xie Yanzhi's eyelashes trembled violently, and I saw my own reflection in his pupils, looking like a moon frozen beneath a glacial river.
On the day the marriage alliance procession departed, the northern wind whipped the yellow dust, battering the carriage curtains. As I lifted the tent curtain, I caught sight of Xie Yanzhi reining in his horse and standing beneath Yanmen Pass, his silver spear pointing obliquely toward the vault of heaven, the wolf-head totem on his armor stained the color of blood by the setting sun.
"Take good care of yourself, Princess." His voice was torn to shreds by the wind, and I suddenly remembered how he had once woven a floral crown for me under the moonlight, telling me that once this battle was won, he would take me to travel the length and breadth of Beidi and Jiangnan.
When the horses' hooves trampled the final boundary marker, I heard the mournful cry of a solitary wild goose echoing from behind. The jade pendant in my bosom pressed hard and painfully against my chest; it was forged from a melted Beidi battle-knife he had seized, and the side engraved with the character "Yen" had already been stroked by me until it was warm and smooth as jade. Beacon fires flickered in the distance, and in a daze, I saw him turn around once more by the edge of Taiye Pool, the red tassel brushing the stray hairs at my temples, leaving behind half a flake of unmelted snow.
Inside the Beidi tent, the instant the Khan lifted my veil, my hand suddenly brushed against the dagger concealed in my sleeve—a self-defense blade given to me by Xie Yanzhi, with the words "Protecting You" engraved upon the blade. Outside the tent came the sound of horse's hooves, and someone called out my childhood nickname in the wind and snow, just as urgent as when he used to shout "Watch the arrow!" at the martial arts grounds back then. I gripped the knife handle tightly, yet the moment I lifted the tent flap, I saw his silver spear thrust into the snow, the red tassel already soaked through with fresh blood.
The moon beyond Yanmen Pass is forever as cold as frost. In the end, I never managed to tell him that the silver hairpin tucked into my hair was ground from the tip of his broken spear. Now it accompanies me to rust in the cold winds of Beidi, just like that snowy night he left behind in the depths of my heart, forever suspended at the moment I turned away, alongside the tear about to fall from his eyes.