Su Mingyu watched as Jin Rong'er was pulled along by her father, and for some reason, a wave of envy washed over her. She had never known the love of parents. Although her adoptive father and Sanniang had treated her well since she was a child, there always seemed to be an invisible barrier between them; they lacked the natural closeness found in ordinary families. As she grew older, she often felt that the doting she received from Sanniang and her adoptive father was tinged with a measure of deference. She hadn't understood it when she was younger, but after witnessing how others interacted with their children, the dynamic felt increasingly awkward.
Su Mingyu looked up at the sky. It was indeed the lunar eleventh month, and snow had already begun to fall. She wondered how Sanniang was faring all alone in the Capital. She reached out her hand to catch a large snowflake as it drifted down. "So, this is snow."
The snowfall was ill news for the soldiers at the border. Murong Ke frowned as he listened to the military quartermaster report on the camp’s reserves.
Chapter 17