Li Zhao, although still uneasy, agreed since after all, Gu Fan'an tended to handle matters more cautiously than he did.
Li Zhao didn't know how long they had stood there; when Zhao Hanchen returned, he felt a numbness in his feet.
"Hanchen, have you had your fill of watching the snow?" Li Zhao, rubbing his face numb from the wind, suggested, "Well then, shall we head back now?"
"I've just lost someone very important," Zhao Hanchen said abruptly, his voice raspy and solemn, as if brushed by icy snow.
His complexion was not good, one could even say haggard.
"What important person? Isn't your uncle still on the sickbed? Hanchen, didn't the doctor say there's still a great chance of saving him?"
Zhao Hanchen, however, looked down, a self-deprecating smile on his lips.
His fair face was a pallid white of decline, his hand hidden within the sleeve of his suit trembling.
Li Zhao heard him say, "There's no hope left, she... won't be coming back."