Chapter 3 The Cold Wind Does Not Cross

Lin Daiqiao remained silent for a moment, then suddenly lost his imposing aura. The immense internal energy around him receded like a receding tide, and everyone in the hall finally breathed a sigh of relief. Lin Chengye remained upright. However, deep welts appeared on the fabric of his back, and his hair was matted together at his temples, making him look as if he had just been pulled out of the water.

Lin Daiqiao slumped back onto the stool, the veins on his forehead throbbing under his fingers, his chest heaving violently, and even his breathing becoming heavier.

Wei Liu quickly offered Lin Daiqiao a cup of herbal tea to calm her down, as getting too angry is bad for her health.

While Lin Daiqiao was serving tea, Wei Liu secretly glanced at Lin Chengye, who was kneeling upright with his neck stiff. For a moment, he felt a headache coming on, and even someone as clever as him felt helpless.

Regardless of whether Lord Lin will eventually relent, a beating or punishment is definitely inevitable. Wei Liu sighed.

Lin Chengye appears mature and composed, but when his youthful temper flares up, he truly would rather die than live in dishonor.

Wei Liu smiled wryly, his fingers gently kneading the Laogong acupoint on Lin Daiqiao's palm from his sleeve. This was nothing like what others said about him; he was clearly more like Lord Lin in temperament than could be.

The large hall remained silent for a while before Lin Daiqiao finally calmed down. She glanced at the younger generation below who dared not even breathe, and Liu Yue was even more frightened to death. On the other hand, Prefect Liu was used to it and sat to the side, watching the show and drinking tea with a smile.

"Lord Liu, you flatter me. Please continue, everyone. Today is Chengye's birthday, and I don't want to spoil the mood like this."

Lin Daiqiao pinched the bridge of her nose wearily, feeling a sudden and unexpected sense of exhaustion. She waved her hand, signaling the interrupted song and dance to continue, and then glared fiercely at Lin Chengye.

"Alright, get up now, stop kneeling here. You're grounded for three days starting tonight."

The musicians, who had been standing tremblingly to one side with their instruments and silks, looked at each other. After a suffocating silence, someone finally blew a vibrato with a look of grim determination and stepped forward with trembling toes. The hall was then restored to its previous bustling and noisy state.

Are you alright...?

Liu Yue had long been unable to contain herself, and disregarding all etiquette, she moved from Governor Liu's side to Lin Chengye's side when she saw General Lin busy whispering to Wei Liu, and tugged at her sleeve under the table.

"It's alright, it's already much better than I expected. There might actually be hope for this."

Lin Chengye rubbed his knees, which were aching from kneeling, but his dark eyes reflected the flickering candlelight of the night, which transformed into a new flame in his eyes.

Suddenly, she lowered her head and started laughing, her lips parted in a wide grin, as genuine and unadulterated as a newborn child's laughter, her shoulders even trembling.

Liu Yue watched, puzzled, as the sleeve she was clutching slowly slipped from her fingers.

Is Cheng Ye happy? But... but why? Is it necessary to be this happy? It's just the martial world, what's so great about it compared to making a name for oneself in Lai Kingdom? Someone as smart as her, how can she be content with merely living in the martial world?

"Great... I can finally, I can finally go and see it."

Lin Chengye's soft murmur was muffled by the gentle and melodious singing, and even Liu Yue beside him couldn't hear the last breathy sigh.

"The martial arts world".

...

"No one is allowed to bring her food for the next two days. Let her reflect on her actions!"

Even more effective than hangover soup, Lin Chengye's eyes widened instantly, and he was wide awake.

Although she hasn't been given a single meal in the past two days, expecting her to reflect on her actions is simply wishful thinking.

Lin Chengye, unusually, sat on the bed and practiced the Lin family's ancestral technique "Overturning the Seas and Moving the Mountains" day and night. This technique was inherently domineering and powerful, and when it was practiced, one would feel a burning sensation in all four limbs and bones. Over the years, her progress had been slow, and her level could only be described as half-baked, so she couldn't control it at all.

The internal energy surged through his body, causing unbearable pain in every meridian. The pain gradually overwhelmed his body, surpassing the hunger in his abdomen and making his mind clearer. Scenes from last night surged back to him.

Without the atmosphere of that time, Lin Chengye was no longer impulsive. Upon careful reflection, he realized that what he had said to his mother was too blunt and reckless, completely forgetting the importance of reasoning with her.

Mother's "Overturning Seas and Moving Mountains" technique has already broken through to the eighth level, and Lin Chengtong, at a young age, has also broken through to the sixth level. Given time, he will surely be on par with his mother. Whether he wants to return to the capital or take over his mother's duty of guarding the frontier, he can bring the Lin family to a higher level.

In the end, she was just a leisurely young lady from a noble family. She still understood some of the rules of the court. The Lin family held 60,000 Weilai troops. Even though her mother had volunteered to guard the frontier and not come to the capital unless necessary, a wise monarch like His Majesty might still be wary of her.

She yearned for the carefree and romantic life of a chivalrous knight-errant, wandering the world with a sword, a horse, and a clear sky, living a simple life of joy and sorrow.

Besides, it's not like she's not going back to the Lin family mansion or cutting all ties with her parents. If she can't find Bian Yi or he's already married and retired, and she finds the martial world boring, she might as well go back to the mansion and become her brother's military advisor.

But that sounds so pathetic!

Lin Chengye suddenly opened his eyes and slammed his fist on his forehead.

"What's going on in your head all of a sudden... Yao Wan, help me tidy up."

The cultivation technique takes about two hours to complete one cycle within her body, and it takes her even longer. By the time she opened her eyes again, the moon was already high in the sky. Lin Chengye stretched his sore neck and slowly got out of bed.

What do you want to do?

Since his young mistress didn't go out, Yao Wan naturally stayed by her side out of boredom, occasionally teasing the cats and dogs in the yard and making the stove in the house burn extra brightly.

She watched as Lin Chengye quickly got up and dressed, sighed, and draped a dark-colored gauze robe over her shoulders.

"As expected, it's impossible for him to stay put." Yao Wan muttered to himself, looking down.

"Go find your mother."

Lin Chengye sighed, a rare look of melancholy in his eyes. She even considered whether to simply wear the gold-threaded soft armor her mother had given her when she was fifteen, which Yao Wan had probably already put away in the most inconspicuous cabinet.

"Lord Lin hasn't lifted your confinement. If I go with you, wouldn't I just be seeing you get beaten?"

Yao Wan curled her lip.

"It's alright, I'll go by myself this time. If they're going to beat me, they'll only beat me. They said they'd confine me for three days, and then they said they wouldn't give me food for two days. That's what they meant by going to see her on the second night. Maybe the third day will be spared."

Having been mother and daughter for many years, they still had this much understanding. Lin Chengye couldn't help but feel a little melancholy.

"...I feel like I'm going to beat you up all day long on this third day."

Yao Wan's hand trembled as he fastened the jade disc around Zhao Ge's waist.

"Hey, that sounds scary. I'm not my brother. I'd be dead after two hours of beating. What, General Lin, don't you have any pride?"

Lin Chengye raised his hand to stop Yao Wan from tidying up her hair again, and instead took a red silk ribbon and tied her hair up halfway. Looking at himself in the bronze mirror, he looked crisp and neat in his wide-sleeved black gauze, truly resembling a martial arts expert.

"Pah! Don't say such things."

Yao Wan was so startled that he jumped up and spat twice on the ground.

Night had fallen, and she slipped a lantern into Lin Chengye's hand. Squatting by the door, she watched Lin Chengye's departing figure with bated breath, closed her eyes, clasped her hands together, unsure which deity to pray to for protection, and muttered to herself.

"Miss, you must come back standing up..."

...

Her courtyard was right next to her mother's, just a few steps away. Lin Chengye walked with great difficulty, dawdling for quite a while before finally reaching the courtyard gate.

A short pain is better than a long one; it will be over after tonight. Lin Chengye gritted his teeth and continued walking forward. The candlelight in the room was bright, casting swaying shadows on the window and revealing his mother standing with her hands behind her back and the maid beside her.

wrong.

Suddenly, Lin Chengye stopped in his tracks, frowned deeply, and looked at the rather strange scene before him.

The maid suddenly reached out and grabbed the tassel of the jade pendant at her mother's waist, intending to kneel down. However, her mother knelt down first, supported the person, held the person's wrist tightly, and pulled her into her arms, smoothing the person's hair that had fallen on her shoulder as if coaxing a child.

Upon closer inspection, the figure was taller than the maidservant beside the mother, dressed in what appeared to be a wide-sleeved, front-opening outer garment, with something covering her face, and a decorative element resembling auspicious clouds near her eyes and ears. A maidservant in the household would never dress like this; rather, she seemed to belong to someone of noble birth.

Lin Chengye's heart skipped a beat, and her hand holding the lantern unconsciously tightened. She didn't know why she felt this sudden palpitation, as if the river of fate was converging here, and she could hear the murmuring water flowing towards the person inside the house.

Who would see their mother at this time? Besides, normal visits usually take place during the day; a visitor arriving late at night is definitely not normal.

Did they come uninvited?

Lin Chengye slowed his breathing and tiptoed a few more steps forward. He was only four or five steps from the window; any closer and his mother would notice him. He could only barely make out some of the conversation from the background noise.

"Why did you have to do this...you..."

"Impossible! His Majesty would never do such a thing."

"...Then take this with you."

"If it's true... Cheng Ye, she..."

Suddenly, the conversation inside the room stopped abruptly. The person got up from his mother's arms, and with a slight movement, the shadow on the window disappeared. His mother's voice was carried out of the room by powerful internal energy, making Lin Chengye's eardrums tingle.

"Now that we're here, let's not just stand outside, come in!"

Has she left?

Lin Chengye pursed her lips, feeling inexplicably lost. The wooden pole of the lantern had already etched a red mark on her palm, which ached faintly with each heavy step she took.

Unexpectedly, the wooden door in front of him was suddenly pushed open by a long, strong hand. Lin Chengye froze, almost forgetting to breathe, staring intently at the door.

The man walked out of the house without any hesitation. He was dressed in a moon-white, black-trimmed, wide-sleeved, double-breasted outer garment, with a white waist belt from which black ribbons hung down. A silver mask on half of his face was made of stacked auspicious clouds, which shimmered under the clear moonlight. A round jade pendant with yellow tassels hung from his waist, swaying with each step.

But the only thing that stood out was the hair ornament, which was carved from wood into the shape of a flying swallow kite, with black hair hanging down from it, giving it a somewhat playful appearance.

The man walked up to her, squatted down, picked up the lantern that had fallen into the grass at her feet, and placed it back in Lin Chengye's sweaty palm.

Lin Chengye then realized with a start that the lantern had slipped from his hand at some point.

"May I have your name?"

The man suddenly leaned very close, smiling as he reached out to brush the dust off Lin Chengye's collar. Lin Chengye instinctively shrank back, but still met the man's somewhat light-colored pupils. At that moment, the heart that had been dormant in his chest suddenly and rudely proclaimed its presence.

"...Lin Chengye".

She heard her own voice seem to squeeze out of her chest, roll over her hoarse throat, and finally stop at the tip of her soft tongue.

"Ye, Ye... What a good name, what a good name..."

The man lowered his head and recited it many times, finally tilting his head slightly and smiling at her. He then looked up at the sky, and suddenly raised his palm as if reaching out to catch a wisp of cold air. She asked again for no apparent reason.

Did it snow heavily this year?

"Not yet, it's a bit later than usual."

Lin Chengye swallowed, hoping she would ask more questions so that the scent of alcohol on her would intoxicate them both.

"...Really? Then this winter won't be easy."

Something slipped from the person's wide sleeve. She was still smiling, but Lin Chengye inexplicably saw a hint of sorrow in her eyes. The person waved the object in her hand in the cold winter, then turned and continued walking in the opposite direction from Lin Chengye. Each step shattered the moonlight on the ground, and a gust of wind rose from her wide sleeve. When Lin Chengye looked back again, the person had already disappeared without a trace.

Lin Chengye's pupils trembled slightly, as if surprised and delighted.

A white silk sandalwood fan.

...

"Mother, who was that person just now...?"

Lin Chengye rushed in, forgetting all manners, and stumbled toward his mother, panting heavily as he spoke.

"Just an old friend I haven't seen for a very long time."

Lin Daiqiao abruptly interrupted her. In the instant their eyes met, Lin Chengye saw tears welling up in his mother's eyes, and the question he was about to ask was swallowed back down.

Perhaps realizing her lapse in composure, Lin Daiqiao turned away, brushing her sleeve past her eyes, her tone tinged with melancholy.

"Don't ask any more questions, these are all... old stories."

The desk, lit by the dim candlelight, was a mess, the ink stains soaking through the open military treatise. Lin Daiqiao sighed and picked up the slightly cool tea from the table to moisten his chapped lips.

Lin Chengye then lowered his eyelids, lifted the hem of his clothes, and knelt down straight down, making a muffled sound in the quiet night.

No one spoke; only the crisp, rapid crackling sounds of the fire burning filled the air.

The muffled thud seemed to linger in Lin Daiqiao's ears, like a hammer pounding into her heart. She closed her eyes, somewhat numb.

She knew perfectly well that her daughter was completely unyielding, even more stubborn than Lin Chengtong. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the teacup, desperately trying to suppress the grief that welled up from seeing an old friend.

"Chengye, this world of martial arts... isn't what you think."

His hoarse voice carried a hint of desolation.

Lin Chengye was stunned for a moment, and his unyielding momentum suddenly weakened a little. Like a stream winding down a majestic mountain, she saw a soft pain in her mother's sharp and stern eyes for the first time.

"What talk of wandering the world with a sword and forgetting past grievances with a smile is just empty talk... Only the deep-seated blood feuds that cannot be erased constitute the martial world. There is no such thing as a clean and pure place; it is all just... selfish desires."

Lin Daiqiao became more and more agitated as he spoke, sweeping his wide sleeves across the wooden table, causing the paper, inkstone, and brush to tumble to the ground in a disheveled state, emitting several sharp cries of pain.

Black ink splattered on Lin Chengye's cheek, and she tasted the bitterness of the ink on her lips.

"The martial world is different from the imperial court. Dynastic changes cannot erase those deep-seated hatreds; only a fight to the death can end it all. Chengye, I don't want you to be dragged into such a helpless cycle. I have also wandered the martial world, experienced days of chivalry and revenge, and witnessed firsthand what hatred can turn a person into. Even so, you..."

"I understand, and I will do my best to protect myself from the storms of life. But... Mother, I still want to go and see."

The sparks falling from Lin Chengye's burning eyes almost scalded the corners of Lin Daiqiao's eyes, and for the first time, she remembered those wrinkles left by the years.

She really looks a lot like her when she was young.

Even the words they spoke were exactly the same. Lin Daiqiao suddenly felt as if she saw herself as a child, who had also followed the still-nascent Emperor Lai into the martial arts world without hesitation, thinking that chivalrous people were so dashing and romantic.

The memories that followed were always tinged with blood and tears. Tonight, when I see an old friend again, she is no longer the proud and arrogant little girl I remember.

That's why she was so reluctant to let Lin Chengye enter the martial arts world.

Unlike Lin Chengtong, Lin Chengye is more carefree and thoughtful. She tends to hold onto certain people and events in her heart. If she were to get involved, how would she ever be able to extricate herself from the situation?

Even she has reached the age of fifty, and only now, with her temples graying, has she stopped clinging to the past.

Lin Daiqiao sighed, helped Lin Chengye up, and hugged her daughter, who was now taller than herself, tightly, patting her back repeatedly. The shared inner energy flowed into Lin Chengye's body through his meridians, and he immediately felt light and warm.

"...Let's stay for another three months."

Lin Chengye heard his mother's voice mixed with a sigh, which lightly dropped like a winter thunderclap.

"Wait until after the New Year, when spring is approaching, before you leave. I will personally escort you to the outskirts of the city."

...

As the wind swept away the clouds and the last withered leaf fell to the ground, the glint of swords and the rain of rockets tore through the night. The 200,000 soldiers of Southern Qi and Northern Yan shattered the eighteen years of peace on the border of Lai Kingdom.

In the twentieth year of Yongjing, the city of Litao fell, and white bones covered the fields.

No one in the Lin family was able to see the moment when spring was about to arrive.