The wind was howling outside, but it was quite warm inside the house with the windows closed. The stove for decocting medicine was moved inside the house, and steaming dumplings were placed around the stove.

Wen Ling took the chopsticks, but felt like something was missing, so she called out again, "Wen En, bring a dish of vinegar."

"Okay." Liu Guiyuan walked out of the low eaves of the kitchen, listened to the instructions, and then went back with his head down.

The two of them hadn't done any physical work for a long time and had been hiding in the house for the winter. Wen Ling had a small appetite, and Liu Guiyuan's mind was full of things, so he felt that the dumplings didn't smell good anymore.

"Come, eat. Eat more. I put several medicinal herbs in here. They are all good for your health. I don't know when I can make up for the trouble you suffered."

Wen Ling picked up a few and put them in Liu Guiyuan's bowl, constantly urging him to hurry up.

Liu Guiyuan took a few dumplings with the bowl and waved his hand to let Wen Ling eat them by herself. After the dumplings were cooked, the medicinal taste was much lighter. He bit into one, but still felt a little uncomfortable with the herbal taste, and frowned slightly.

For such a long time, Cao'er's pitiful appearance was all in his mind. Liu Guiyuan couldn't help but feel curious about the scream he heard last time, and secretly asked Wen Ling what happened.

However, Wen Ling didn't seem to want to say anything else to him. She interrupted his question with a bad look on her face, and she didn't even say why Cao'er wanted to leave.

After Liu Guiyuan woke up, he was told that he was Wen Ling's fiancé. He never doubted it. Seeing Wen Ling so angry, he just thought that he cared too much about the other boy and made Wen Ling feel uncomfortable.

But it was not wrong to think so. Liu Guiyuan himself felt that it was a lecher's behavior to care so much about a young man from another family, so he suppressed his doubts and did not ask any more questions.

But sometimes he couldn't help but feel curious. He could vaguely feel that he knew Cao'er before, and the farmyard in the picture he remembered was different from this herbal yard. More importantly, he had never seen Wen Ling in those fleeting fragments.

According to Wen Ling, if the two of them had known each other since childhood, then there shouldn't be any memory of Wen Ling at all.

Every time the past was mentioned, Wen Ling didn't like to talk to him, and always dismissed him with a few words. If he asked any more questions, she would get angry. Liu Guiyuan was a man, and no matter whether he could remember the past or not, he felt that making a girl angry was not a manly act.

Wen Ling was angry and didn't want him to ask about it, so Liu Guiyuan listened to Wen Ling and didn't ask about it, but he would just let his mind wander, just like now.

Liu Guiyuan stopped eating after eating one dumpling, and the other dumplings in the bowl were unconsciously poke into pieces with his chopsticks.

Seeing that he was distracted again, Wen Ling tapped the edge of the bowl in displeasure: "Hey, are the dumplings I made so unpalatable? You find it so hard to swallow them."

Liu Guiyuan came back to his senses, looked at the mess in the bowl, and gave her a slightly apologetic smile: "I was distracted. It's quite delicious. Eat more yourself."

This happened not once or twice, but more and more frequently. Wen Ling felt uneasy. Her fingers unconsciously clenched the chopsticks and she suddenly said, "Wen En, marry me. We'll get married after the New Year."

The two of them had been together for such a long time as if they were engaged. Liu Guiyuan had a premonition that this day would come. According to his personality, he should have said it first and happily welcomed Wen Ling into the family. But for some reason, he avoided this matter from the bottom of his heart.

Now that Wen Ling brought it up, Liu Guiyuan had no choice but to avoid it, but he didn't give a quick answer.

Seeing that he didn't respond, Wen Ling became anxious. "You don't want to? We've lived together for so long, and to outsiders, we're like family. So many people come to see me for treatment, and everyone knows we're going to get married in the future. If you don't want to now, how can I explain it to others? What will happen to my reputation?"

She was anxious in her heart without pretending, and her voice was anxious with a hint of tears. In fact, she didn't care about the empty things others said. She said this for Liu Guiyuan to hear.

Liu Guiyuan is a responsible person. Putting aside the fact that he saved his life, the rumors spread by outsiders about his private parts over the past few days are enough to make him take responsibility for himself.

Sure enough, Liu Guiyuan immediately spoke to comfort her: "It's not that I don't want to. We have already been engaged, and you have taken care of me for so long. I should be responsible for you. I will listen to you and marry you."

As soon as he finished speaking, he felt as if he had lost something in his heart. He felt depressed and uncomfortable, with a dull pain in his heart.

Liu Guiyuan was puzzled. How could this be? This was a natural thing. Why didn't he feel happy at all? Instead, he felt so sad.

I don’t know if Wen Ling noticed his reluctance, or maybe she did but pretended not to notice. She smiled happily after getting the promise and continued to talk a lot to herself.

"We don't need to have a grand ceremony like others do. A simple meal with the villagers will be fine. I don't care if there are wedding dresses or not. We can just light two red candles and pray to heaven and earth for a happy life. What do you think?"

Seeing her excited look, Liu Guiyuan did not spoil her fun and nodded in agreement with her words. However, he felt that she must have eaten too many herbal dumplings and her mouth tasted bitter.

Having made the promise to get married, Wen Ling felt much more at ease. She went to see Liu Guiyuan in a daze without disturbing him, and was planning her own wedding day in her mind.

The snow fell for several days. When Zhao Luochuan and Liu Ji returned to the herbal medicine garden together, it had been five days since the winter solstice. Today was the last day of the winter month, and tomorrow would be the beginning of the twelfth lunar month. Liu Ji was determined to bring the person back no matter what to comfort the two elders.

He and Liu Guiyuan were close friends. When he heard that Liu Guiyuan might die at the hands of Li Shangcai, he wanted to kill the evil man to vent his anger.

Now that I know my good friend is still alive and has no missing limbs, I am happier than angry.

The door of the herbal medicine yard was closed. Liu Ji was a scholar after all, so he was polite. He knocked on the door several times but no one came out. He gradually became anxious.

Zhao Luochuan was a rough man, and he just went up and banged on the door without thinking. The snow on the eaves fell down with his banging. He was still angry from last time, and the force was so great that even the tightly closed door was shaken open to a gap of two fingers wide, and the two doors were a little misaligned when they closed again.

Someone in the house must have heard such a loud noise. Either Wen Ling knew they were coming and didn't want to open the door, or she and Liu Guiyuan went to the nearby mountains again.

"Brother Zhao, I don't think there's anyone in the room. Why don't we wait here for a while?"

Zhao Luochuan nodded. The melting snow after the snow stopped was even colder than the snow itself. His body would become stiff if he just stood there for a while. He rubbed his hands and paced back and forth at the door.