Pei Jingyi nodded instantly. “I will certainly ask next time.”
They traveled a bit further until a low wooden cabin appeared, hidden among the snow-laden pines.
Pei Jingyi pushed the door open while still holding him. The interior was sparse: a pile of ragged furs, a three-legged wooden table leaning against a wall, and several lopsided stools scattered about.
In the corner stood a cast-iron stove. A few unburnt coals remained in the belly of the furnace, with a few sparks of dark red glowing amidst the white ash.
He carefully placed Gu Huaiyu on the only sturdy bench and found a relatively clean piece of deerskin, shaking it out and laying it carefully on the floor in front of the stove.
Gu Huaiyu’s legs and feet were so frozen they were numb. He frowned, stretching his legs out and offering his arches to Pei Jingyi. “Cold.”
The bare, snow-white feet looked lifeless. The toes were curled from the chill, and the nails had a faint bluish-purple tint—a truly pitiful sight.
Pei Jingyi gathered the icy, jade-like feet into his large hands and began to rub them slowly. His palms were hot and calloused, the warmth gradually seeping into the pallid skin.
“Can you feel anything?” he asked in a low voice, looking up as he rubbed.
Gu Huaiyu felt the numbness slowly transition into a stinging ache. He nodded slightly. “Mmh.”
Pei Jingyi didn’t stop, kneading with firm, measured pressure. “Bingzhou is colder than the capital. When the snow falls, the soldiers in the camps fear losing sensation in their feet the most.”
“Once the feeling is gone, you can be walking and your toes will fall off without you even knowing it.”
His thumb pressed into the center of Gu Huaiyu’s sole, rubbing in patient circles. “Those men don’t live to see the spring. You must take better care of yourself, Chancellor.”
Gu Huaiyu’s feet gradually warmed in his grip, a faint flush returning to the pale skin. He curled his toes, and only when he was certain there would be no lasting damage did he find the energy to scoff. “Do you think I need you to tell me that?”
Pei Jingyi chuckled, gently placing the elegant feet onto the deerskin and wrapping them up carefully.
He then knelt on one knee before the stove. He cleared the embers and pulled a flint and steel from a leather pouch at his waist. With two sharp clicks, sparks showered onto a pile of dried moss.
He leaned in and blew gently, and a bright orange flame immediately surged upward.
His movements were efficient, as if he had performed this task a thousand times.
As the fire grew, he pulled two sweet potatoes from a wicker basket in the corner and tossed them into the hot ash at the edge of the furnace.
The cold was still biting into Gu Huaiyu, so he sat down on the deerskin, hugging his knees to get closer to the stove.
With nothing else to do, his gaze drifted to Pei Jingyi as he began to chop wood. Each swing of the axe was precise, the wood splitting into clean halves with the ease of a master.
“Governor Pei was quite ruthless, it seems,” Gu Huaiyu remarked. “To make you climb up from the very bottom of the military… he wouldn’t even grant you a position as a lieutenant directly?”
Pei Jingyi threw a split log into the stove and wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. “The Chancellor is a man of the capital; you don’t realize that the military is different from the imperial court.”
“In the army, a commander’s reputation is worth more than his life.”
Gu Huaiyu warmed his hands by the fire, listening with half-interest.
Pei Jingyi continued to chop wood with one hand, speaking casually. “A soldier can be slow, he can be stubborn, but he cannot lack faith in his general. If I had relied on my father’s protection, no one in the Northern Frontier Army would have respected me, let alone died for me.”
“Unlike the Imperial Court—”
Gu Huaiyu lifted his eyes to look at him.
Pei Jingyi’s lips curled into a sneer. “No matter how many overseers the court sends, the only flag the Northern Frontier Army recognizes is the flag of the Pei family.”
Gu Huaiyu was well aware of this reality. What Pei Jingyi said was true.
But the perspective he held was broader than Pei’s.
The Emperors of the Yuan family had grown increasingly incompetent with each generation. The royal family’s credibility had long since been squandered; it was simply Yuan Zhuo’s misfortune to inherit the debt.
Now, the soldiers ignored orders and the citizens ignored edicts—it was the retribution for their ancestors’ failures.
This land appeared to still be in the hands of the Yuan family, but in truth, it was a pile of loose sand. It only needed one strong gust of wind to collapse entirely.
He needed a thread—a single line that could sew this loose sand back together.
But Yuan Zhuo was too young. Even if his talent and character were superior to his predecessors, it would be impossible to restore the family’s lost honor in a short time.
And as for Pei Jingyi…
