The trio's footprints left long trails in the snow.
Changli gazed at the vast whiteness and sighed, "Back in my hometown, whenever the first snow fell, people would leave footprints in the snow, write messages, and make wishes, hoping they would come true once the snow melted."
Lucian asked curiously, "Really? What did you wish for when you were little?"
Changli smiled faintly, though there was a hint of melancholy in her expression. "My Resonance ability always made the snow melt too quickly... So, I could only watch from afar."
"Is that so?" Lucian grinned brightly. "Then what do you wish for now? I can write it for you."
Rover raised her hand. "I want to make a wish too! Lucian, write mine!"
Changli covered her mouth with a soft laugh, her beautiful eyes flickering toward Lucian. "Very well, then I'll leave it to you, Lucian."
Lucian gave an OK sign and walked to an open area with undisturbed snow before asking, "Alright, what are your wishes?"
Seeing Changli still deep in thought, Rover spoke up first. "My wish is for Lucian to love only me from now on!"
Lucian: "?"
He tiptoed and wrote Rover's wish in the snow.
Lucian sighed dramatically. "Looks like this patch of snow will never melt."
Rover sneered. "If it really doesn't melt, I'll bury your head in it and lick it away with my tongue!"
Lucian: "..."
He turned to Changli, who had been thinking for a while. "Changli, what's your wish?"
Changli seemed lost in memories. "My wish is..."
She recalled the resolute words of that silver-haired girl from years ago.
"My wish is—a prosperous and peaceful world."
"Nice!" Lucian gave a thumbs-up. "Rover, look at her! So noble! So lofty!"
"And then there's you... sigh!"
He shook his head in disappointment.
Rover crossed her arms and scoffed. "What about you? What's your wish?"
She stepped forward, eager to see what Lucian would write.
With a flourish of his foot, Lucian scrawled in the snow:
"I, Lucian, want to be with Rover, Chixia, Jianxin, Sanhua, Baizhi, Yinlin, Jinhsi, Changli, Zhezhi, Danjin, Encore, Verina, and Youhu forever."
Rover's fist clenched the moment she saw the long list of names.
"You're already eyeing the next pot while eating from this one?!"
She punched Lucian square in the stomach. With a pained groan, he was sent flying backward—straight into Changli's arms.
Peering over the towering white peaks, Lucian looked up pitifully at Changli's slightly flushed face.
"Changli, you're so refined and cultured... You wouldn't resort to domestic violence after marriage, right?"
Changli gently set him down and smiled. "I prefer to convince with reason."
Lucian nodded thoughtfully, then suddenly looked inspired. "Changli, you're a Counselor, and I'm an Intelligence Officer."
"If we got married, our life together would surely be thriving and exciting..."
Changli's eyes curved with amusement as she reached out, her warm fingers brushing Lucian's cheek. She gazed at him tenderly. "Oh? So, Mr. Lucian wants to marry me?"
Feeling the warmth on his face, Lucian straightened up solemnly. "Absolutely!"
"You see, these days, freedom in love is all the rage—and I, Lucian, am the embodiment of freedom! The only thing missing is the love part!"
Changli chuckled. "Is that how Mr. Lucian interprets freedom in love?"
"However... in my opinion, Mr. Lucian doesn't seem all that free either..."
As she spoke, Rover suddenly appeared out of nowhere, pinching Lucian's ear and dragging out her words in a cold voice:
"What. Are. You. Doing?"
Lucian froze under Rover's murderous glare, his mind blank. He stammered, "I'm... uh... no, I'm not... wait, no—"
Rover: "..."
She pulled Lucian behind her, crossed her arms, and said to Changli with a diplomatic smile,
"Changli, as a Counselor, surely you wouldn't fall for Lucian's sweet talk, right?"
"Besides, Lucian's a philandering scoundrel—not something just anyone can handle. Better leave him to me."
Changli laughed softly and took a few steps toward where Lucian had written his wish. She noticed that the long list of names had been erased, leaving only Rover's name behind. A strange flutter stirred in her heart.
With a playful tone, she mused, "Now that Jinzhou has entered a period of stability, and Jinhsi has grown more mature... I suppose it's about time I considered marriage..."
Lucian perked up immediately, raising his hand from behind Rover. "I coul—"
But before he could finish, Rover's delicate hand clamped over his mouth.
Rover grinned. "If Counselor Changli announced she was looking for a husband, the line would stretch from Jinzhou all the way to the Black Shores, wouldn't it?"
Changli turned away, a fire fan now in her hand. She hid her smile behind it and said,
"My future husband must, of course, be someone I deem worthy and exceptional."
Rover raised an eyebrow. "And what are your standards?"
Changli glanced at Lucian behind Rover, then snapped her fan shut. With an enigmatic smile, she walked away, saying,
"At the very least... he should possess three Resonance attributes."
Rover: "???"
Why not just recite Lucian's terminal ID at this point?
Rover was baffled. Since when had Changli set her sights on Lucian? That faintly teasing smile—surely she was joking, right?
And just a few days ago, she'd been so serious. Why the sudden change?
Had Lucian infected her?
She shot a sidelong glance at Lucian, who was still muffled by her hand.
Unable to speak, Lucian could only widen his eyes at Changli's retreating figure in the snow. Then, noticing Rover's darkening expression, he shook his head vigorously.
Rover understood his silent plea: I didn't do anything!
"Hmph."
She snorted and followed Changli's footprints, which had yet to be buried by the falling snow.
Lucian spent the entire walk coaxing and sweet-talking Rover until they reached the end of the footprints—a small pavilion.
Changli stood at the edge, gazing into the distance.
When the two approached, they saw that the entire vista of Hongzhen was visible from here, breathtakingly beautiful.
Changli murmured, "From here, you can see all of Hongzhen."
"Whenever I visited before, I never noticed how moving the view was from this spot."
"The mountains are still the same... but this time, my heart feels entirely different..."