The snow had not yet melted in the gardens of the Lin estate, and the bare branches of the plum trees stood like ink strokes against the pale sky, brittle with frost. A hush clung to the world like a veil of silk—thin, translucent, but enough to make everything feel a step removed from reality.
Lady Shen Yueli stood beneath one of the old trees, its bark mottled and dark against the snow-covered stones. Her fingers, tucked within her embroidered sleeves, were stiff from the cold, yet she made no move to retreat indoors. This garden was the only place where she could think without interruption. It was also the place where she felt most like a ghost—hovering at the edge of someone else's story.
Inside the estate, the servants had begun to murmur: General Lin Yuan was returning.
He had been summoned by the Emperor two months ago to inspect defenses at the northern border. He had left with no farewell longer than a formal nod and a word to the steward. Now, he would return with the same quiet efficiency, and the same absence of warmth that had colored every moment of their three-year marriage.
She should be relieved. Or pleased. Or at the very least, dutifully welcoming. That was what a wife should be. What she had always tried to be.
But all she felt was the cold. And something heavier, pressing in her chest like a stone left there by a version of herself that still believed love could grow in a place it was never planted.
Their wedding had been a political arrangement. Her father had been honored—eager, even. Lin Yuan was a rising star then, the empire's youngest general, noble of bearing, iron-willed in battle, and untouched by scandal. She remembered her wedding day vividly—not for joy, but for the look in Yuan's eyes when he lifted her bridal veil.
Polite. Measured. Empty.
That was when she had first understood. There was someone else.
No name was ever spoken aloud, but Yueli had come to know the presence of the other woman like a second shadow. In the way Yuan sat too long by the fire, staring into the flicker of memories she would never be part of. In the way he avoided lingering in the east wing, where her chambers were. In the way he addressed her—always with the careful distance of a man speaking to duty, not desire.
She knew the woman's name now, whispered through veils of gossip and pity. Wen Qingxue.
The scholar's daughter. A woman of poetry and fierce conviction, who had once challenged the ministers during a spring banquet and made the Crown Prince laugh with her wit. She had loved Yuan—deeply, boldly. And from what little Yueli had pieced together, he had loved her in return. But Qingxue had been deemed unsuitable. Her family had fallen from grace, and General Lin could not afford scandal when the Emperor's favor hung by a thread.
So he had married Shen Yueli. The perfect wife. The obedient one.
And yet, here she stood, with frost on her lashes and silence in her bones, wondering:
Would he have smiled more often, if it had been her?
Would he have stayed longer, laughed louder, loved softer?
Would the man who came home have been warmer, if he had not felt so far from home?
A soft crunch of snow broke the stillness behind her. She turned, heart clenching instinctively.
He was there.
General Lin Yuan stood just past the garden gate, snow on his shoulders, a travel-worn cloak draped over his broad frame. His face was the same as always—stern, calm, unreadable. A face sculpted by years of battle and loss. But for a fleeting second, when his gaze met hers, something cracked. Not enough to see through—but enough to feel.
"My lady," he said, voice low and formal, with a faint bow of his head. "I trust all has been well in my absence."
Yueli inclined her head, lips curved into a smile as fragile as the ice coating the plum blossoms above them. "Of course, my lord. The estate runs as it should."
He nodded, as if that was all he needed. No "I missed you." No "Did you wait for me?" He turned slightly, already halfway toward the main hall.
But something in Yueli refused to follow. Her feet remained rooted in the snow, her eyes on the plum tree—the same one that had bloomed the year she first came here as his bride. It had not bloomed since.
And she could not help but think, as the wind passed through its withered branches:
Perhaps it grieved, too.