On the wedding day, my wife was abnormal

The concept of a year seems vague and distant on this vast and harsh land.

There were no red lanterns, no firecrackers, no aroma of rice cakes rising from the chimneys, only endless whiteness and a bone-chilling cold.

The heavy snow that had lasted for three days and three nights finally stopped, but the sky did not clear up. Instead, it was a dull, leaden gray murky sky, pressing down low on the lifeless grassland covered by thick snow.

Looking around, only one color remained in the world—white, a cold white that devoured all life.

The distant mountains lost their sharp edges, turning into bloated snow-covered hills.

The withered grass nearby was completely bent and buried by the snow, with only a few particularly tough grass stems occasionally piercing through the snow crust, trembling in the cold wind like the fingers of a dying person.

The sprawling felt tents of the Northern Desert Royal Court have been transformed into solitary mounds covered with thick snow on the snow-covered plains. The wolf-head banners erected atop the tents are frozen stiff, pointing motionless at the gray sky.

The cold wind was like countless icy files, scraping along the ground, stirring up fine snowflakes that stung my face like needles.

The air was so cold it seemed to freeze. Every breath felt like inhaling countless tiny ice crystals, stinging my nasal cavity and lungs. The exhaled breath instantly condensed into frost on my eyelashes and eyebrows.

In this extreme cold and silence, a lean horse slowly trudged through the knee-deep snow on the edge of the Dragon City.

On horseback sat Kong Zhiqian, dressed in a thick fur robe and wearing a fur hat that covered his ears.

He was ordered by the Left Wise King Uvi to follow a seasoned scout centurion and learn to orient himself and track tracks in extreme weather. This was both training and a form of invisible surveillance.

The old centurion reined in his horse a short distance away, twirling a pinch of snow between his rough fingers and sniffing it, trying to determine the wind direction and any signs of life that might be present in the distance.

Kong Zhiqian reined in his horse, letting the cold-resistant Mongolian horse beneath him snort impatiently, exhaling thick clouds of white smoke.

He looked up and surveyed his surroundings. Apart from the sound of the wind, there was no other sound in the world. A profound, unsettling loneliness, like the cold air, enveloped him from all directions, pressing heavily on his heart.

This deathly white is completely different from the winters in Qufu that I remember.

Winter in Qufu is both bustling and warm.

Memories are like water quietly flowing beneath a frozen river surface, breaking through the ice uncontrollably.

He seemed to see again the vermilion gate of the Confucius Mansion, and the two stone lions in front of the gate, weathered by time, covered with a thin layer of snow, yet still majestic.

In the courtyard, those old plum trees must be in full bloom. Snow has accumulated on their gnarled branches, but it cannot stop the pure and persistent fragrance of the plum trees that bloom alone in the cold, which is refreshing and delightful.

In the main room, there would always be a warm charcoal brazier burning, and Granny Zhang would prepare a hand warmer in advance. His mother would gently call to him, "Qian'er, come and warm yourself by the fire, and have a bowl of hot almond tea."

His father might, unusually, put down his books and test him on yesterday's lessons, or give him pointers on the calligraphy he was copying.

On the window frames, there would be paper-cut window decorations made by the mother herself, symbolizing good fortune... The air was filled with the scent of ink, tea, and the sweet aroma of various pastries and cakes unique to the New Year.

Even when it snows, it's gentle and soft, and children laugh and build snowmen and have snowball fights in the yard, unlike here where the snow is a deadly knife and the wind is a deadly ghost.

At this moment, all that can be seen is despairing white.

What you inhale is the cold that cuts your throat.

The wind howled mournfully, like that of a hungry wolf.

The air around my nose was filled with the lingering, fishy smell of the fur coat and the strong body odor of the horses.

The warm memories and the cruel reality before my eyes form a sharp and suffocating contrast.

A sharp, piercing pain, like being stabbed by an ice pick, suddenly surged from the deepest part of his heart, instantly shattering the defenses he had built up with hatred and indifference over the past few days.

He misses home.

This thought, like a poisonous weed, grew wildly beneath the frozen lake of his heart, entwining his internal organs, tightening more and more, causing him so much pain that he could barely breathe.

He missed his home in Qufu, a place that, though strictly regulated, was filled with scholarly atmosphere and warmth.

He missed his father's stern yet loving gaze, his mother's gentle embrace, Granny Zhang's nagging admonitions, and even the cousins ​​he had teased...

I miss that city, every familiar cobblestone street, every little shop wafting with the aroma of food, and that cypress tree that Confucius is said to have planted himself, requiring several people to encircle it...

But where is home?

The Confucius Mansion in Qufu has become a scorched earth, a ruin soaked in blood.

Those he longed for had all become cold corpses, perhaps their bones left uncollected, to be devoured by wild dogs and buried by wind and snow.

He himself, however, wore the robes given to him by his enemies, found himself in this wild and cold land, recognized his enemy as his father, and associated with wolves and jackals.

"Ugh..." An uncontrollable whimper, like that of a wounded young animal, escaped from the depths of his throat, only to be quickly torn apart and swallowed up by the howling wind.

Tears welled up without warning; the scalding tears froze into icicles as soon as they slid out of their eyes, hanging on their long eyelashes and blurring their vision.

He bit his lower lip hard until a metallic, sweet taste filled his mouth, barely managing to stop himself from crying out.

Don't cry!

Here, tears are weakness, a path to death!

He suddenly raised his hand and roughly wiped the ice crystals off his face with the back of his thickly gloved hand, the movement so forceful it almost broke his skin.

"Your Highness, what's wrong?" The old centurion, who was not far away, seemed to notice his strange behavior. He rode a few steps closer, his cloudy eyes scanning the surroundings warily. "Have you found something? Or are you cold?"

His northern dialect had a heavy accent.

Kong Zhiqian quickly lowered his head, using the action of adjusting his leather hat to conceal the tear stains on his face and his out-of-control emotions. When he looked up again, his face had regained its usual numb calmness, which was inconsistent with his age. He answered in slightly stiff but clear Mongolian:

"It's nothing, Master Batel. It's just windy, and it got in my eyes."

His voice trailed off in the cold wind, but he tried his best to remain steady.

The old centurion gave him a suspicious look. Seeing that he didn't seem to have discovered the enemy, he muttered, "This damn weather, we need to be careful. Stay close, we'll go check that hill ahead again and I'll teach you how to tell if there are any people or horses passing by by looking at the tracks in the snow."

"Yes," Kong Zhiqian responded softly, urging his horse forward to follow.

He forced himself to focus all his attention on the old centurion's explanation, on identifying the chaotic marks on the snow, and on resisting the all-pervasive cold.

He must forget, he must become numb.

Longing is a luxury, a poison; it will make him vulnerable and lead him to utter ruin.

However, that deep-seated homesickness did not truly disappear. Like the frozen soil beneath the snowfield, it appeared hard, but contained endless coldness and desolation within, and was firmly frozen together with that overwhelming hatred.

Every warm memory of his hometown is like rubbing salt into the wound in his heart, which is then quickly frozen by the ice and snow of reality, becoming harder and colder.

Night fell, and training ended. Kong Zhiqian dragged his almost frozen body back to his magnificent yet cold prince consort tent.

Inside the tent, a tallow lamp was lit, casting a dim light.

Princess Saren had already been taken away by the nanny to rest. He took off his heavy, cold fur robe and sat alone on the wolf-skin rug, staring motionlessly at the flickering lamplight.

Outside the tent, the wind still howled mournfully.

Inside the tent, there was deathly silence.

He slowly took out a small fragment of jade pendant, charred black and with sharp edges, from his inner pocket. It had been brought from Qufu.

This is the only memento his mother left him.

The cold touch came from my fingertips, yet strangely brought a sense of illusory comfort.

He gripped it tightly, his fingertips turning white from the force, as if trying to draw a trace of warmth that was no longer there from this cold, lifeless object.

“Murong Yan…Lin Zhen…” He spoke these two names again in a barely audible voice, facing the flickering lamplight.

This time, however, the voice contained not only overwhelming hatred, but also a deeper, more desperate, and boundless desolation, as cold as the northern winter.

He knew he could never go back.

The Qufu that was filled with the fragrance of plum blossoms, the sound of reading, and warmth only exists in his memory, and is forever shrouded in a bloody shadow.

His future path is now only one: to survive and grow stronger in this icy wasteland, and then, with the iron cavalry of the northern desert, march south to the world that has taken everything from him.

Nostalgia is merely another form of torture that must be endured on this path of revenge.