"Get on the horse!" He extended his hand to her from the saddle. "We'll reach Xihe Town before dawn."

  At night, snowfkes began to fall. Along the way, she grew quiet. She remembered what Beitang Ken had said after killing the centipede yaokai. He coldly looked at the yaokai's corpse and remarked, "Yaokais are indeed always so ugly and repulsive." His eyes were filled with undisguised disdain and contempt. If the person he was holding in his arms now was also a yaokai in human form, how would he react?

  Ding Xiaocuo pressed her lips tightly together, deep in thought. She realized that she had begun to crave his embrace. In her memory, she had seen many handsome men, but none had ever made her feel this way. This was bad. They had only known each other for a few days. Spring was still far away, and here she was, suddenly overwhelmed by a bout of infatuation.

  As they passed a river with a thin yer of ice, he stopped, dismounted, and walked toward a pile of stones by the riverbank. When he returned, he was holding a red fruit with icicles hanging from it. "This is an acid fruit, the only edible thing in the wild during winter," he said, pcing the fruit in Ding Xiaocuo's hand. "The growling in your stomach sounds quite annoying."

  Starving, Ding Xiaocuo swallowed hard and took a bite. Her face instantly contorted. It was so sour! She forced herself to swallow the fruit and took another bite. This time, it was a little sweeter. By the third bite, it was even sweeter. She spat out the pit, and he satisfiedly licked his lips. The lingering sweetness in her mouth was accompanied by a strange sense of warmth. She clearly saw that when he handed her the fruit, small thorns had pierced his hand, and there were a few red scratches on his skin.

  As he had said, they finally arrived at a decent little town, Xihe Town, before dawn. The steamed buns at the small inn there were delicious, and the glutinous rice wine was just as good. Ding Xiaocuo ate twelve steamed buns and three bowls of rice wine. He leisurely munched on a chicken leg and said, "You're the most capable eater of any woman I've ever met."

  Ding Xiaocuo nearly choked on a bun. Did he know she was a woman?

  "You... how did you know?" She looked herself over, her outfit completely convincing as a man.

  He drained the st of his strong wine and said, "After carrying you from the bottom of the cliff to the mountaintop, with your front pressed against my back, if I still couldn't tell whether you're a man or a woman, wouldn't that be strange?"

  Ding Xiaocuo's face turned red, and she hurriedly lowered her head to nibble on her bun, trying to hide her embarrassment. Her flustered demeanor was somewhat endearing. A faint smile curved at the corner of Beitang Ken's lips. She had cimed she was from nine hundred years in the future, which sounded ridiculous. Yet, strangely, he found himself believing a little of it.

  For this girl, who fell from the sky with such outndish behavior, Beitang Ken had to admit that he was beginning to be intrigued.

  There was a line in a book called The Guide to Love by the Matchmaker, which said—love often starts with curiosity. Too bad neither Ding Xiaocuo nor Beitang Ken had read that book. Nine hundred years ago, the Old Matchmaker hadn′t yet published it.

  That night, Beitang Ken sat in his room, polishing his sword, unable to sleep. The thoughts of the endless wilderness, Ye Nishang, and the mysterious Zhao Zhi circled around in his mind, never settling.

  On the other side of the room, Ding Xiaocuo y soundly asleep. He could almost imagine her awkward, drooling sleeping posture, the same one she had when she slept on horseback. In fact, Ding Xiaocuo was indeed curled up in the bnket, snoring away, her sleeping position as ungraceful as he had imagined.

  Ye Nishang would never have such "ugly" moments. She cherished her beauty as if it were the wings of a bird. Her robes were perfect, so meticulously crafted that even the flowers embroidered on them bloomed just right. The jewels embedded in her garments were the finest of the fine. Her cosmetics—perfumed and tinted with an exclusive fragrance and color—were made by specialists, unique and never to be shared. She never allowed anyone to possess the same brilliance as she did.

  He put down the sword and walked to the window, pushing it open. The cold wind and snowfkes pressed against his face, feeling quite pleasant. The Endless Wilderness was not an end but a beginning. He suddenly had a strange premonition.

  They left Xihe Town

  On the third day, they encountered a group of bandits robbing a caravan on a narrow mountain path, with dust swirling in the air. The bandits were beating the men in the caravan and harassing the women. Ding Xiaocuo couldn't stand it, so she jumped out, trying to be a hero, but ended up being chased by the bandits, causing chaos and shouting for help.

  After dealing with the bandits, Beitang Ken told her that if she couldn't swim, she shouldn't try to save anyone. There are too many things in the world that aren't worth meddling in. She replied, "I'll help as much as I can. If I don't, I'll feel guilty." He shook his head.

  On the fifth day, they stayed at a farmer's house for the night. She volunteered to make dinner, but after several hours, the food was nowhere to be seen, and she had burned the kitchen instead. He paid for the damages. That night, she knocked on his door and pced a roasted sweet potato, charred beyond recognition, in front of him. "I stole this from the field. It's the best one I roasted. I didn't let you have dinner earlier, so this is my way of making it up." He looked at her, covered in soot, and couldn't help but ugh despite the ridiculousness.

  On the tenth day, tired from travel, they passed by a marketpce. Her eyes lingered on the array of goods, particurly the finely crafted women's clothes with a foreign fir, and she couldn't take her eyes off them.

  He bought her a set of clothes. A thick, snow-white dress with cloud-shaped patterns embroidered in gold along the edges. She tied a cape around her shoulders, flipping over the hood with fur trim to wear it. The purest color highlighted her porcein-like face with delicate cheeks. She grabbed the edge of the hood, grinned at him, and said, ``Thank you, it looks really good.” He had never seen a woman smile in such an awkward way, but surprisingly, he found it endearing.

  On their journey, her new clothes fluttered in the wind, carrying her unique fragrance—a soft, lingering scent unlike any perfume. Leaning into his arm, she continued her chatter, talking about anything that came to mind: her drunken master, the tree yaokai witch, Avatar. That world was beyond his understanding. He unexpectedly felt a hint of loneliness.

  On the twentieth day, they were not far from Yanmen Pass. They stopped in a vilge to rest and replenish their water and supplies. The vilgers were simple and kind, with children running around, their noses dripping as they giggled and curiously observed the two strangers.

  The sunset in the desert was more vibrant than anywhere else. The unduting lines of the ground stretched toward the distance, merging perfectly with the fiery glow of the sky. She shared sugar cubes with the children, chasing and pying with them, teaching them songs like “Happy Sheep, Warm Sheep.” A few little mbs bleated near the mud walls, their heads turned toward the direction of the singing. The smoke from the vilge kitchen rose in gentle spirals, and they sat side by side on a haystack beneath the earth wall. The solitary smoke rose straight into the air, the long river and the setting sun forming a perfect circle. As they gazed at the poetic ndscape before them, their hearts swelled with a sense of vastness.

  "Build a small house here, with a fence around it," she said, tilting her head and swinging her feet, casually yet earnestly gesturing. "Then, behind the house, I'll have a patch of nd to grow vegetables." Her words flowed on with increasing enthusiasm. "We could build a barn for cows, a pen for sheep, a chicken coop... and keep a sheepdog. Every day, we'd take the flock to graze, the sheep eating the grass while I sit on the hillside reading, and the dog running around in front." Her face, glowing with the rosy hue of the sunset, brightened as she spoke. "Of course, it'd be nice to have someone with me. We'd tend to the horses and sheep, working at sunrise and resting at sunset. Every now and then, we'd go on a trip, visit lively markets, or return to the bustling city for some fun, to immerse ourselves in the human world, before coming back to our home and continuing our peaceful, simple life."