Eventually, the two separated and returned to their meal. As an awkward silence stretched between them, Wu Ling praised Yao Meifeng's cooking, comparing it to one of the most awkward meals they'd ever eaten at the home of a mutual friend during their school days. Back then, the food had been delicious, but their friend's odd topics and constant desire to gossip made it hard to just relax and enjoy the meal.
It was different, of course, from their current awkwardness, but it helped to break the tension that had formed in the air between them. One story about the past led to another and soon both of them were laughing and reminiscing about their days together in school and news of classmates that had moved on since Yao Meifeng had left the school.
Finally, long after the dishes had been cleared away, Yao Meifeng embraced Wu Ling with all the strength her slender arms possessed. She knew that she'd rushed in her confession and Wu Ling might have been right to tell her to wait. Right now, however, her heart shivered at the notions of what Wu Ling would face in the wilderness.
Who knew how long he would be gone on this expedition? While he said that both he and Su Xiang were close to their breakthrough, 'close' could be within months or even a year at this stage. When they'd only recently discovered each other again, and she'd just confessed her feelings, every day apart loomed like a knife, slowly slicing into the red cord of love she wanted to tie between them.
If he was gone too long, would these fragile feelings fade? The notion terrified her and so she clung to him, as though to imprint the feeling of her body on his so that he couldn't forget her in the long nights they'd be apart. Eventually, she pulled herself back and looked into his calming, silvery eyes, finding that storms raged in his gaze as much as they raged in her own heart.
"Go get Sister Xiang," she told him fiercely. "Now that I'm safe in the sect, you need to make sure she's safe too. Then, don't keep me waiting too long before you come back home. Remember, Hall Master says that you're supposed to help Sister Su Yao and me this summer so you can't stay gone too long or she'll be angry too," she said, trying to cover up the anxiety she felt at Wu Ling's impending departure for a dangerous expedition.
"I'll be home as soon as I can. Mei'er," he said gently, leaning in to press his soft lips to her forehead. "I'll be back for you."
And then, like smoke in the breeze, he was gone.
For over an hour, Yao Meifeng sat alone on the pile of cushions Wu Ling had sat on, feeling his warmth fading and trying to hold back the flood of tears that threatened to burst forth. For a moment, she'd really thought… thought that she could have… But no sooner had she found someone who genuinely cared for her, who made her feel safe in a way that no one her parents tried to match her with ever had than he had to leave her side.
She wanted to go with him. More than anything else at the moment, she wanted to grab her zither and rush out into the night, to tell him that she'd go wherever he went and face danger together with him. She couldn't though.
Even if the sect let her, which it wouldn't, she had no business going into the mountains with a bunch of cultivators seeking a breakthrough amidst dangerous encounters. Wu Ling was rapidly leaving her behind and if he was injured protecting her, she'd never forgive herself.
Long after the sunset, Yao Meifeng picked up the purpleheart zither he'd gifted her and carried it to one of the many small gardens in the back of the sect. Sitting on a stone bench, she leafed through the Requiem of Frozen Heart until she found the music she needed and began to play.
As her fingers danced over the strings of her zither, pulling forth long, rich, warm notes, she bundled up everything she felt for Wu Ling and pulled it into the deepest core of her heart, like a flame to keep her warm on a cold winter day. Along with it, she pulled in more tenuous feelings, her growing bond with the Su cousins, with Wu Ningli who she hoped to address as Mother-in-law one day… For these few people, there would always be warmth in her heart.
Shifting the tone of her playing, colder, higher-pitched notes spilled forth, like the sound of icicles tinkling on the swaying branches of trees in the winter wind. Around the small, warm fire in the center of her heart, she built layer after layer of frozen shield, walling off the things that were precious to her so they couldn't be hurt by anything outside. Her parents, in fact, the whole of the Yao family, had no place near her flame so she formed a wall of ice between her heart and those people who had never treated her the way a family should.
The more she played, the more her heart relaxed. All the dangers of the world were outside the thick walls of ice she built around her heart. Those dangers couldn't threaten her, couldn't disturb what she felt, and most certainly couldn't take it away from her. Only those few things that burned deep inside could truly move her heart. Everything else, she slowly covered with ice.
All around her, the wind grew colder as she continued to play. The fountain splashing in the corner of the garden grew sluggish as layer after layer of ice formed over it and the rocks it splashed on. At the moment, she was far too weak to accompany Wu Ling and face dangers together with him but within the small burning flame in her heart, a fierce determination to change that fact propelled her across the line separating early-stage Aesthetes from the middle stage.
By the time the sun rose in the morning, the entire garden was covered in a layer of ice and snow. Yao Meifeng returned her zither to its case, casting a cool gaze over the aftereffects of her breakthrough. Unknowingly, she'd reformed her inner world to closely resemble this snow-covered garden. Eventually, she'd need to find a way to add a bit of warmth to her inner world but that would have to wait until her close ones came home.
Until then, she'd dwell within this frozen world, learning to harness its power to keep her close ones safe and warm, even if she had to live in the cold to do it.