The afternoon light was like a layer of pale white frost, gilding the snowdrifts.
Because of it, the room was no longer so dim.
Shen Luolin struggled out from a muddled stupor, the agony of his high fever receding like the tide, leaving behind only a lingering, dull ache that sprawled through every limb and bone.
He shifted his stiff body, and a damp cloth slipped from his forehead, bringing a chill.
His mind cleared considerably.
He turned his head, his gaze sweeping around the room before finally settling near the fireplace.
The flames had long since died out. Moyin was curled up a few steps away by the ashes, clutching his tactical dagger tightly to her chest, fast asleep.
She wore only a thin, old fur draped over her, and even in sleep, her slender brows were knit in worry, as if she might awaken at any moment.
Beside her hand, a clay basin held clean water, with a fresh cloth and several rolls of newly torn bandages set nearby.
She had kept vigil for him, waiting for him to awaken.
Shen Luolin sat up carefully, but the movement still startled the lightly sleeping girl.
Moyin’s eyes flew open almost instantly. When she saw him sitting up, those silver eyes flashed with barely concealed joy.
But the joy lasted less than a second before being replaced by a heavy, unyielding stubbornness that allowed no refusal.
She immediately stood, picked up the basin, and walked straight to him.
“I’ll do it myself.”
Shen Luolin spoke on reflex, his voice hoarse from long disuse.
It was his habit—to refuse help from others, to maintain his own boundaries.
But when his words met Moyin’s eyes, they stuck in his throat.
In those silver eyes, there was no trace of former timidity, only unyielding resolve and a guilt deep enough to drown her.
There was a message clearly written within: Please, let me do this for you.
Suddenly, he understood.
To her, this wasn’t care, but atonement.
Refusing her would be crueler than stabbing her with a blade.
Shen Luolin’s Adam’s apple bobbed. In the end, under her almost pleading gaze, he nodded silently.
This was a negotiation without words.
His compromise was not out of weakness, but for the sake of the guilt threatening to crush her.
Once granted permission, Moyin finally seemed to relax.
She knelt in front of him, picked up the now-warm tactical dagger, and—though the blade was sharp—she used it with a reverence, carefully cutting away the old bandages stuck to his flesh.
Circle after circle.
When the terrible wound—charred black and red by dragonflame, its edges already beginning to fester—was fully exposed to the cold air, Moyin’s breath caught sharply.
She bit her lip so hard to keep from making a sound, but her tears were beyond control.
Large teardrops suddenly fell from her reddened eyes, landing with uncanny precision upon his inflamed wound.
“Plop.”
The scorching heat in that tear came not from temperature, but from pure, unreasonable emotion. Instantly, it ignited the pain in his nerves, spreading rapidly, burning so fiercely that even his heart clenched.
This was harder to deal with than dragonflame—it was formless, impossible to analyze or block.
Shen Luolin instinctively wanted to say “it’s alright,” but only a garbled syllable squeezed out from his throat.
The guilt etched so deep on Moyin’s face tormented him more than the wound itself.
This injury was her doing.
And she was enduring the pain with him.
At Moyin’s insistence, Shen Luolin finally turned his back and stripped off his already-tattered shirt.
His sturdy back was bared to the air, crisscrossed with not just the hideous burn, but many old scars as well.
The warm, damp cloth gently cleaned the skin around the wound. Her movements were so gentle as if she feared hurting him even in the slightest.
Shen Luolin’s whole body was tense.
It wasn’t from pain.
He could clearly hear the girl’s intentionally restrained, anxious breathing behind him. Each breath brushed his nape like a feather, barely there, yet enough to fracture his hard-won composure.
Her fingertips occasionally brushed over uninjured skin. That faint, uniquely girlish warmth disturbed him more than any pain from his wounds.
After treating his back, Moyin moved to his front, ready to tend the more severe wounds on his arm.
To see clearly, she had to get very close.
She knelt on one knee, leaning forward slightly. Her long silver hair slipped from her shoulder, a few stray strands lightly grazing Shen Luolin’s chest, sending a shiver through him.
For the first time, he realized that this girl—whom he had regarded as a burden and an experiment—could so easily shake the self-control he was proud of.
He could smell the faint scent on her, so clean it was unsettling.
Her face was so close.
In those silver eyes, there was nothing but the sight of his hideous wound. She was wholly focused on cleaning every inch of skin tainted with pus and blood, oblivious to how her breath—soft and steady—brushed over his collarbone.
Warm, tinged with a hint of moistness.
His fevered body, the sharp pain of his wounds, and this extreme proximity all mixed together, becoming a deadly catalyst.
For the first time, Shen Luolin’s mind glitched.
The firewall of reason and self-control was scorched through in an instant—his system crashed entirely.
For the first time, he was completely seized by pure instinct.
All that was left in his world was the top of her head, haloed by firelight, and those lashes trembling with concentration.
The room was frighteningly silent, broken only by the occasional crackle from the fireplace’s dying embers and the pounding of his own heart.
But seeing Moyin’s focused, utterly pure profile, Shen Luolin finally forced down the chaos within him.
He didn’t know how much time passed.
When Moyin finished wrapping the final layer of clean bandages around his wounds, the suffocating focus vanished at last.
The air, ignited by their closeness, exploded with unbearable tension.
Shen Luolin snapped back to himself as if burned, not even realizing his calm façade had been reduced to ashes.
He didn’t dare look at Moyin’s expression, only felt his ears and neck burning, averting his gaze in embarrassment, his voice rough and squeezed from between his teeth:
“…That’s enough. Next time, I’ll do it myself.”
Moyin kept her head down, long lashes casting a small shadow to hide all emotion in her eyes.
She only gave a soft “Mm,” then calmly gathered up the basin and bandages, turning to leave the room without a single pause.
Bang.
The fragile wooden door closed, locking in all the searing tension that could melt a person.
Outside, the wind was as sharp as blades. Moyin slid limply down to sit in the freezing snow.
She didn’t cover her face, but instead, trembling, reached out both hands to scoop up a handful of icy snow, pressing it hard against her chest.
But it was useless.
The snow melted instantly against her body’s heat, yet her heart raged even wilder than an out-of-control dragonflame.
Her pounding heart was about to shatter her ribs.
All she could smell was Shen Luolin—
That was the mix of cold pine, a faint trace of blood, and the strong, uniquely masculine scent that belonged to him alone.
That scent was like a deadly poison, seeping into every pore, making her crave—absurd and humble as it was—
Even if she was burned to ashes by that heat, she wanted to stay pressed against that burning chest just a second longer.
Just then, her mind went completely blank. Old grudges, her master, all boundaries—they vanished.
Repayment? Atonement?
No… Those thoughts had already been burned to ash before that blazing chest.
All she could smell was him. All she could think of was his taut back and reddened ears.
For the first time, she tasted the feeling called “possession.” In her world, there was only Shen Luolin as a “man.”
Here in this snowfield that never melted, she had finally found her Sun.
Even if that Sun would scorch her to the bone, she never wanted to return to the darkness again.