Chapter 1121 — Valentine's Day Special: Xiao Ning's Story, Part 6

Why should I? Even if you're here to help the Yu family with these negotiations, that's still no excuse for acting so high and mighty.

Once the snowman was smashed to bits, Yu Ning felt a pang of regret. She had spent half a day on it for nothing, and ruined it in a single fit of temper. What a waste.

The Yu family lived in Yanjing, where it almost never snowed. Yu Ning had seldom laid eyes on white snow, and that was why she was playing so happily. Though the snowman was ruined and she had no heart to build another, she soon turned to other games, stamping footprints all across the snow.

Cold as it was outside, Yu Ning still played in utter delight, her little face flushed red with frost, yet for the first time in her life she was playing so freely, so free of care. At home, her hours went to the qin, chess, calligraphy, and painting, or to learning how to run the family and its schools; she had scarcely a moment left for play.

Wei Zhao ate nothing. He only stuffed into his mouth the scraps of bird meat Yu Ning had left behind, though in truth, when one is cultivating, there is little need to eat much.

Before anyone knew it, evening had come. Darkness fell outside, and wolf howls drifted in from the distance. Frightened now, Yu Ning ran back into the cave, her whole body already frozen stiff.

"So cold..." Yu Ning held her hands over the fire and warmed them.

Wei Zhao opened his eyes, picked up a few twigs without a word, and tossed them into the fire, making the flames burn brighter.

Yu Ning looked at Wei Zhao's cool poker face, and a sly little smile slid across the corner of her mouth. So he did care about her after all. He had added wood the very moment she leaned in to warm herself, surely afraid she was too cold.

In truth, Wei Zhao did care for her. He simply would not let it show.

"This is my first time spending the night outside, all by myself..." Yu Ning watched the burning fire and found it all so new, so thrilling. In her sixteen years of life, she had never once imagined she would spend a night in a cave.

Wei Zhao blinked, pointed at himself, then shook his head with a wry smile. By herself? Was he not a person? The young ladies of great families truly had the strangest way of thinking.

Seeing Wei Zhao's startled expression, Yu Ning realized her words had been a little off, and corrected herself, somewhat embarrassed, "I mean, spending the night with a stranger... no, not a stranger either... I mean spending the night with a boy..."

Watching Yu Ning stumble over her words, flustered and at a loss, Wei Zhao smiled faintly.

Firelight made Yu Ning's pretty face lovelier than it had been by day, enough to stir any heart. The scene was indeed romantic, and her words invited endless fancies. Wei Zhao sighed softly, and only after a great effort to master himself said, "It's nothing. Are you hungry?"

"No. I'm a little sleepy. I want to rest a while." Yu Ning shook her head.

"Awoo—" Just then, not far outside the cave, a wolf howled. By day the frontier was silent, but by night every sort of wild beast came out to prowl.

"I... I'm a little scared. You'll stay by my side and protect me, won't you?" Yu Ning instinctively shrank closer to the fire. She was only a sixteen-year-old girl; when had she ever faced a scene like this?

True enough, passing the night in a cave before a fire was thrilling and romantic. But if there were wild beasts nearby, that romance turned to terror.

"There's a fire here. The wolves won't come in," Wei Zhao said mildly.

Unless a wolf had some reason, or was starving past endurance, it would not lightly come near a fire. Wei Zhao knew this well from his experience of surviving in the wild.

"Oh..." Yu Ning nodded.

At night Wei Zhao did not sleep. He remained in a state of cultivation throughout, so that if a beast truly did enter the cave, he could respond at once and strike it dead.

Yu Ning sat before the fire and sank into a heavy sleep. She was truly exhausted. First the harrowing flight, then the mad play, both of which had drained her strength, and so she slipped quickly into dreams.

She did not know how long had passed when she began to feel wretched, her whole body cold, so cold, shivering without pause. Had the fire gone out? Yu Ning opened her eyes by instinct.

Even that faint stir from Yu Ning was enough to bring Wei Zhao back from his cultivation. Seeing that she had woken, he paid it no mind and closed his eyes again.

"So cold... I'm so cold..." Yu Ning found that the fire had not gone out, and yet the cold in her body was simply unbearable.

Wei Zhao opened his eyes again and glanced at her with some puzzlement. He felt no cold at all; on the contrary, with the fire burning, he felt quite warm. And precisely because of that, he sensed something was wrong.

"What's the matter?" Wei Zhao rose to his feet and walked to Xiao Ning's side.

"I'm so cold..." Xiao Ning was shivering with cold.

Wei Zhao looked at her closely. Seeing an unusual flush on her cheeks, he frowned at once and reached out to touch Xiao Ning's forehead.

Cold and miserable as she was, Xiao Ning was fully awake. The instant Wei Zhao's hand touched her forehead, her body gave a faint tremble, and a shyness and a racing of the heart she had never known spread through her whole body...

"This hot?" Wei Zhao frowned. He had not expected Yu Ning to come down with a fever at a time like this.

Thinking back to the day, Yu Ning had played in the snow for nearly a whole afternoon; that must have been when she caught a chill. At the time Wei Zhao had paid it no mind, but on reflection, Yu Ning was no cultivator. Outside, the world was frozen. Wei Zhao was fine, but for an ordinary person, a cold was the most natural thing in the world.

Wei Zhao grew anxious at once. Aside from wound medicine, he carried no other drugs on him; the common medicines were all in the luggage of Yu Ning and her party, and his silver needles were in that same luggage. Though he was skilled in medicine, there was nothing he could do.

A cold and fever were not things that massage could easily cure. If he had his silver needles in hand, he could pierce a few acupoints to bring the fever down.

"Cold..." Yu Ning felt colder and colder, her whole body shivering, her teeth chattering without pause.

Wei Zhao hesitated. Something struggled within him.

But seeing Yu Ning trembling so, he crouched down all the same, drew a deep breath, and wrapped his arms around her, hoping to help her that way.

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