She hesitated, then timidly pulled her little feet back to the edge of the light.
Ahead of her the sliver of light seeping from the crack beneath another door seemed to give her strength.
At last, she mustered her courage and stepped out of her room.
Thud—Thud—Thud—
In the girl’s low voice, there was a tangle of complex emotions.
“Su Liumeng…”
“Can I sleep with you?”
The last shred of her dignity…kept her from admitting she was scared.
The girl herself hadn’t noticed—that a trace of pleading had already crept into her voice.
No one replied.
The anticipation in her heart slowly withered in the silence, just like the last glimmer in her eyes was gradually swallowed by the darkness.
To think of someone first in a moment of overwhelming fear—that must mean she trusted that person very much.
But that trust… was now fading.
There was no response she had hoped for, and the figure she’d imagined did not appear.
The girl’s small hand clutched tightly at the corner of her blanket, gripping it so hard that even her fingertips began to ache.
Just moments ago, she had imagined countless times—how she would pour out her grievances, how she would throw herself straight into that person’s arms.
“Su Liumeng…”
She lowered her head sadly, and a single crystal-clear tear finally fell through the air.
“Are you ignoring me…or… already asleep?”
She couldn’t quite believe she’d be left out in the cold like this.
Summoning the last of her courage, she reached out her soft, fair little hand and pushed open the door that blocked her way.
Click—
The sound of the unlocked door opening was unusually light in the darkness.
Just like her steps now—silent, as if she were a little cat treading softly.
Her naturally flowing black hair hung loosely down her back. Her already small, delicate face seemed even more dainty now.
Her long lashes were still damp. As she pushed open the door, she instinctively raised her arm and gently wiped the corner of her eye.
She didn’t want Su Liumeng to see her crying.
*****
The next second—
The sight that greeted her inside the room made my body freeze.
An endless chill was seeping from the source on the bed.
A thin layer of frost had already formed on the floor.
The air was filled with a bone-piercing cold that was steadily eating away at the girl’s frail body.
Su Liumeng’s breathing had become extremely faint.
It was as if the last remnants of her consciousness were on the verge of collapse.
Unlike the ceaseless storm raging outside, the suffocating cold inside the room didn’t feel icy to me at all—in fact, it made every pore in my body open wide.
A strange exhilaration surged up from deep within, urging me to open my mouth and greedily breathe in this air.
“Su Liumeng!”
I had no time to pay attention to any of that.
The fragile figure lying on the bed looked like she could slip away from me at any moment.
Was she going to die?
I instinctively clamped a hand over my mouth, the name I had just called out now turned into a high-pitched, desperate scream.
I threw away my favorite blanket without a second thought, barefoot, stepping directly onto the floor littered with sharp ice crystals, ignoring the biting cold that clawed at my feet.
Scarlet blood trickled from the soles of my feet, leaving one small footprint after another on the icy ground.
I scrambled onto the bed in a panic, tears falling in fat drops as I threw myself forward to hug the figure in front of me.
“Su Liumeng… please… please don’t die.”
Her body was terrifyingly cold, as if every drop of blood inside her had frozen solid.
A beautiful face now glazed over with a thin layer of snow-white frost.
I held her tightly in my arms, desperately trying to share my warmth to bring her temperature back up.
“Don’t die…”
“You bastard, Su—don’t you dare die on me!”
I sniffled through a stuffed nose, trying to stop the tears, but they still fell one after another, uncontrollably.
I didn’t want those salty drops to fall onto Su Liumeng’s body, so I kept lifting my pale arms to rub at my cheeks in a panic, wiping the tears away.
This suffocating, bone-deep sorrow—
It was so much worse than when I was alone just moments ago.
“Baby, baby…”
“You have to think of something—please…”
“She can’t die.”
I kept calling out Zhiruo’s name.
I remembered what she had said — that once she fell into a deep sleep, unless her life was in danger, no matter how much I called, she wouldn’t respond.
With trembling fingers, I carefully stroked Su Liumeng’s face.
The icy cold beneath my fingertips made my chest tighten so much I couldn’t speak.
My eyes shifted to the nightstand beside her bed.
There was a small dagger resting on it — the very one that had been confiscated from me.
I grabbed it at once, yanked the blade from its sheath without hesitation, and brought it to my arm.
But just as I was about to slash down, Su Liumeng suddenly moved.
Or perhaps, she’d always been conscious — aware of everything happening around her — just unable to respond.
And now, in the moment she sensed the person she loved most about to hurt herself for her…
She finally mustered enough willpower to break through the paralysis of the cold poison and raised her stiff arm to grab my wrist.
A weak smile tugged at Su Liumeng’s lips, as if trying to ease the oppressive atmosphere with a joke.
“Stupid girl, I’m not even dead yet and you’re already trying to die with me?”
“Who’s trying to die with you!” I was still shouting back loudly, but the second I saw her come back to life, I let out a choked sob and threw myself into her arms, my burning-hot body curling into her embrace. “You… What happened to you?”
Her face was devoid of color, yet her expression remained gentle as she softly stroked my hair.
“The cold poison suddenly flared up, that’s all.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t die.”
“I’ve gotten through it every time before, haven’t I?”
Su Liumeng was clearly forcing herself.
She didn’t say that just moments ago, she’d nearly failed to pull through.
Her last thread of consciousness had nearly unraveled.
This time, the cold poison hadn’t just flared up earlier than usual — it was far more intense than any of the previous episodes.
She’d known it might come, but still hadn’t had time to say a single word before the attack overwhelmed her.
“Are you sure you won’t die?” I lifted my teary, watery eyes, looking at her with pitiful earnestness, as if begging for a definite answer.
Su Liumeng suddenly looked a little guilty.
Facing Xiaoyan, she couldn’t bring herself to lie.
Her brief silence made my heart drop like a stone.
The panic in her eyes was so overwhelming that I couldn’t even form coherent words anymore.
“I… What can I do to help you?”
“Let’s not talk about me right now,” Su Liumeng tried to change the subject. “But you — you naughty little thing — sneaking into my room in the middle of the night instead of sleeping. What do you think you’re doing?”
I bit my lip, a hint of unease appearing on my little face as I explained softly, “I was a little scared… so I wanted to sleep with you…”
Boom—
The thunderstorm still raged outside.
All the rainwater that had seeped in through the edges of the window instantly froze into shimmering droplets.
Su Liumeng stared at the scene for a moment, then suddenly let out a soft chuckle. “I almost forgot. You’re a girl with an extreme yin constitution—you’re not affected by the source of this cold energy.”
Su Liumeng finally noticed the changes in her own body.
With this little girl holding her waist so closely, she could feel a significant improvement in her physical state.
The cold poison that had rampaged through her body like a raging beast now seemed to grow more subdued, almost docile.
Su Liumeng silently took it all in, and an overwhelming surge of confidence bloomed in her chest—she was certain she could get through this wave of even fiercer, more excruciating cold poison.
“I promise you…”
“I… won’t die.”
Her voice, filled with renewed certainty,
Made me instinctively want to lift my head from her embrace to see her face.
Just as I raised my little face slightly, a soft, wet kiss suddenly landed on my cheek.
The gentle touch, fleeting as it was, left my gaze blank with surprise, and in an instant, my entire face flushed with a deep, captivating red.
“Even now… you still have the mood to kiss me…” My eyes, still red from crying, looked at her helplessly. My tone was resigned, but there was a trace of exasperated laughter in it too.
Su Liumeng’s voice carried an irrepressible excitement.
“Baby…”
“Were you sent from heaven to save me?”
Hearing her words, a flicker of confusion surfaced in my big, beautiful eyes.
I was still trying to find the right words, when she suddenly leaned down, wrapping her arms tightly around my back and burying her face in the crook of my neck.
Her arms around my waist tensed and relaxed repeatedly, as though she were holding a rare and priceless treasure.
A voice trembling with joy rumbled in my ear like a sudden clap of thunder—not frightening like the storm outside, but instead striking straight into my heart.
“You must be… my one and only cure.”
I still didn’t fully understand, but I didn’t think too much.
My lashes fluttered, and as if by instinct, my small arms slowly wrapped around her in return.