Luke pulled his gaze back from the bag.
A set of quick, light footsteps came from the hallway, and he looked up just in time to see Poppy running into the living room.
There was still snow clinging to her clothes that she had not fully shaken off. "It's snowing so hard outside!"
At that, Luke stood up and went out into the courtyard for another look.
Vayne and Frey were by the gate, brushing snow off themselves.
The light snowfall from before had already turned into a full white blizzard, with thick flakes swirling through the air. The ground was covered in a clean layer of white, as if the whole world had been wrapped in snow.
The footprints everyone had made vanished again only moments later, buried beneath the fresh fall.
The first snow of the year seemed determined to make an impression.
At the courtyard gate, Fiora stepped in through the snow in a white outfit, each footfall pressing softly into the ground. The falling snow seemed to tint her hair white as well, while her skin looked even fairer than the snow itself. Her eyes were as clear as spring water, proud and alive. Walking through the storm, she carried a kind of noble elegance that seemed entirely her own.
It was almost as if the snowfall had come just for her.
Together, the scene and the woman matched in a way that was simply breathtaking.
Only when she drew close did Luke ask, "Aren't you cold?"
Fiora shot him a look. "What do you think?"
With snow coming down that hard, of course she was cold.
Luke thought that made sense. Not everyone was like the little blonde, who happily ran outside just to stand in the snow. More likely, Fiora had been caught on the way back when the snowfall suddenly intensified.
"Come inside and warm up."
It really was cold out, so after saying that, Luke turned and headed toward the house.
"Hiss!"
Suddenly he sucked in a sharp breath. The icy shock at the back of his neck sent a full-body shudder straight from the top of his head down to his heels.
He nearly ascended on the spot.
Fiora had shoved both of her freezing little hands down the back of his collar. Watching him twitch like a fish flopping on a cutting board, amusement appeared in her eyes.
Luke jumped away and turned to look at her with quiet grievance. "Do you have any idea how cold your hands are?"
Fiora answered as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "That's exactly why I needed somewhere warm to thaw them out."
The look in her eyes made it obvious she had done it on purpose, and since Luke could not really afford to start something with her, he swallowed the injustice in silence and quickened his pace into the house.
Fiora smiled faintly, brushed the snow off herself first, and only then stepped into the living room.
After breakfast, the snow outside showed no sign of stopping.
In just an hour, it had already piled up into a noticeable layer.
At this rate, it was clearly going to keep falling for a while yet.
With the snow coming down so hard, there was no chance Vayne and Frey were making it to the guard camp, so they stayed.
Lux and Kahina went back to the basement to continue memorizing the pharmacology volume.
Sona sat on the sofa, practicing her music.
Bored out of her mind, Vayne pulled Poppy and Frey over, and the three of them sat together playing poker.
Fiora, meanwhile, carried over the five-in-a-row board and sat down across from Luke, saying calmly, "Play."
Luke glanced at it and instinctively wanted to refuse.
"A hundred days have already passed."
The quiet look in Miss Swordmaster's eyes made the words of refusal die in his throat.
He had not expected the hundred-day cooldown to go by so fast. So he sat up and sighed. "Fine. I'll reluctantly play a couple rounds with you."
Fiora continued in the same calm tone. "I want to change the terms of the wager."
Luke casually picked up a black stone, still not realizing how serious the situation was. "And what do you want to change it to?"
Fiora said evenly, "One round, one time."
"?"
Luke froze with the stone in hand, a question mark practically appearing over his head. Then he gave an awkward laugh. "Isn't that wager a little too extreme?"
Fiora looked at him. "If you win, you can ask for anything you want."
"Uh..."
Luke still did not want to agree.
No matter how he looked at it, he was still the one getting the worse deal.
But when he saw the dangerous look forming in Fiora's eyes, he immediately imagined the consequences of refusing.
He took a deep breath and put on the most serious expression of his life. "All right. Then let's do it."
"There's another new rule." Fiora continued lightly. "Forbidden moves. Double open threes, double fours, and overlines."
Luke: "..."
That one casual sentence suddenly drained the color from his world.
He had originally planned to gamble on getting first move, then rely on the guaranteed-first-move-winning trick to steal the victory.
That was exactly how he had made the swordmaster suffer last time.
But the moment forbidden moves came into play, Luke did not even have the chance to cheat anymore.
And judging by the way Fiora was casually rattling off technical terms one after another, her skill level had clearly reached a terrifying point.
After all, during all this time, Fiora had never stopped practicing five-in-a-row.
Meanwhile, Luke could barely even be bothered to look at the board half the time.
But as the original creator of this game, Luke absolutely refused to surrender that easily.
He only needed to win one round.
If he could pull that off, he could seal away five-in-a-row for another hundred days.
Thinking that, Luke said, "Let's begin!"
Fiora smiled faintly and said, almost lazily, "You go first."
With forbidden-move rules in effect, it hardly mattered who moved first anymore.
Luke did not waste time. He took up the black stone and fixed both eyes on the board with utmost seriousness.
An hour and a half later, Luke lay slumped sideways against the sofa, pale-faced and utterly hollow, staring blankly at the ceiling.
Fifty times. Fifty.
He had the horrible feeling that this was a debt he would never finish repaying in his lifetime.
On average, each game had not even lasted two minutes.
That alone showed the terrifying gap in skill between him and the swordmaster now.
After that many rounds, Luke had not managed to win even once. The more he lost, the more stubborn he got. The more stubborn he got, the harder he fell.
In the end, he had plunged straight into a bottomless abyss.
"No rush. Pay it back slowly." Fiora, in an exceptionally good mood, looked at the Luke who had completely accepted his fate. The smile on her face somehow looked even prettier than usual.
She glanced out the window and said, "The snow stopped."
The moment she mentioned it, Lux seemed to sense it instantly and came running up from the basement.
The second she saw the thick white blanket outside, her eyes lit up, and without another word she dashed out the door.
Luke had no desire to remain in a place filled with this much sorrow, so he stood up too and headed outside.
The other girls gradually followed.
Everywhere they looked, the outside world had turned completely white, clean in a way that seemed untouched by a single speck of impurity.
A world after snowfall really was beautiful. It had a kind of purity that felt like it could cleanse the soul.
"Let's have a snowball fight!"
Standing out in the snow, Lux cheerfully threw out the invitation.
The snow was already up to her calves, but she did not seem to care one bit. On the contrary, she looked thrilled, eager to start.
And in her hands she already had a snowball ready to go.
"I'm in!"
As always, the first one to enthusiastically answer her was Poppy.
The little shorty happily raised a hand and ran into the snow, where it nearly came up to her waist.
The second she made it in, the snowball in Lux's hand smacked right into her face.
"Hehe!"
Lux let out two wicked little laughs and quickly started packing another one, clearly intending to follow up.
Then Kahina joined, and after that Sona.
Luke thought it looked fun, so he stepped into the snow and entered the battlefield as well. Looking at Fiora, he said, "Come on. Snowball fight."
"Childish."
Fiora answered flatly. She had no interest in joining a game like this.
The instant the words left her mouth, a snowball smacked her clean in the face with a soft thump.
Expressionless, Fiora reached up and brushed the snow from her face, then looked toward Luke, who was openly provoking her. One eyebrow rose, and then she calmly stepped forward into the snow.
Vayne had been thinking much the same as Fiora, sitting in the living room and reading, when suddenly a snowball flew through the window and exploded in her face.
She looked outside to find out who had thrown it.
But after seeing the crowd outside, every last one of them looked suspicious.
A woman specializing in marksmanship naturally could not let something like that slide. Since she could not figure out who had thrown it, she decided she might as well just wipe them all out.
And so she joined the battle too.
By the end of it, even Yurna and Frey, who had originally only been watching from the sidelines, got dragged into the great snow war.
Once everyone got into it, nobody cared anymore about how cold the day was or how frozen their hands felt.
The only thought on anyone's mind was that if someone had just hit them with a snowball, they absolutely had to throw one back.
During the snowball fight, Luke did not activate Sixth Sense, nor did he use any movement technique. He was relying purely on instinct.
Maybe it was because he usually attracted too much hostility, but it felt like any time someone had a snowball in hand, their first thought was to throw it at his face.
It was hard to describe what it felt like when more than a dozen snowballs came flying at Luke in the space of a single second.
"Time out, time out! I got snow in my ear!"
Completely dazed from being pelted, Luke raised a hand and tried to call for a ceasefire.
The response was several more snowballs to the face.
Seeing her own shot land cleanly on Luke's face, Fiora let out a cold little laugh.
The very next second, another snowball hit her in the face with a soft thump.
A snowball war was every person for themselves. There had never been any such thing as teams.
Fiora turned to the direction the snowball had come from and found, to her surprise, that it had been thrown by the usually gentle and delicate Sona.
At that moment, Sona's aqua-blue eyes met hers without yielding in the slightest, another snowball already prepared in her hand.
And so, a buffed version of war between women began.
Meanwhile, off to one side, Lux had quietly gone into stealth mode and was charging up her ultimate.
She carefully packed a massive snowball while keeping a close eye on Luke, who was already under siege, intending to give him a huge surprise in a moment.
Once the giant snowball was about the size of two watermelons, Lux decided the time had come.
She hefted the thing into her arms, spotted that Luke's back was turned, then suddenly burst into a sprint, raising the giant snowball high above her head as though preparing to slam-dunk it onto him.
Just as she was about to enter attack range, excitement flashed in her eyes.
But people always forget something when they get too pleased with themselves.
Right in the middle of her charge, Lux's foot suddenly slipped. A moment of weightlessness hit her, and her face instantly filled with stunned disbelief.
The giant snowball flew from her hands and hit the ground, while Lux herself crashed straight into the snow, face-first, her head burying itself squarely into the giant snowball she had spent so long making.
In this one move, Miss Crownguard perfectly demonstrated what it meant to try to steal the chicken and lose the rice.
Hearing the commotion behind him, Luke turned around and saw Lux sprawled flat in the snow.
It did not take much imagination to figure out what kind of dirty trick she had just been trying to pull.
"HAHAHAHA!"
The sight made him burst into completely unrestrained laughter on the spot.
Maybe his laughter was simply too cruel. Lux lifted her head out of the snow, her face red from the cold, her eyes bright and watery, and glared at Luke in utter humiliation and rage.
Luke laughed so hard his stomach started to hurt.
"I'm taking you down with me!"
Lux snapped in fury, throwing both arms wide and wildly gathering up all the snow in front of her. Then, carrying it in both arms, she launched herself at Luke in a full suicidal charge.
In Luke's stunned gaze, she rammed straight into him with a heavy whomp, snow exploding everywhere.
She crashed into the snow with him, but Luke ended up as the one cushioning her fall.
"Who fights a snowball war like that?!"
Buried in the snow, Luke loudly protested.
"I don't care!"
Sitting right on top of him, Lux scooped snow up from both sides with her hands and kept dumping it onto him, looking fully prepared to bury him alive.
"I'll save you, Your Highness!"
Fortunately, a perfectly timed snowball from Kahina rescued Luke.
And Luke immediately repaid her by stabbing her in the back.
The melee descended into complete chaos. Snowballs flew everywhere.
After the war ended, and while everyone still had some energy left, Lux suggested they build snowmen.
So she teamed up with Kahina.
Sona teamed up with Poppy.
Fiora teamed up with Vayne.
Luke was on a team by himself.
Yurna and Frey, meanwhile, went inside to change clothes before heading out again.
Frey, in fact, had been placed on the banned list halfway through the snowball fight.
As a Freljordian, she had basically received a massive buff in snowy weather.
She possessed a faint trace of iceborn blood, and Freljordians with iceborn blood were naturally stronger in snow and freezing weather.
As a result, not only was she not cold at all, but the snowballs she made were perfectly round and hit like weapons.
So she got banned.
After ten or twenty minutes of effort, Poppy and Sona finished first.
Looking at the snowman they had made into the shape of a hammer, Luke was not even slightly surprised.
Seeing the hopeful look in Poppy's eyes, Judge Luke delivered his verdict with ruthless seriousness. "Completely off-topic. Zero."
Poppy's disappointment became instantly visible, and Sona had to pat her head to comfort her.
A little later, Lux and Kahina finished theirs too.
Luke looked it over. The two girls had built a chubby little boy, with a tiny head and an oversized body. It was not ugly, exactly, but it definitely was not attractive either.
So he gave his score. "Way off on proportion. I'll be generous and give it a fifty."
"Why are you the one judging us at all?!"
Lux demanded indignantly.
"Because my artistic eye is four or five stories higher than yours."
Luke let out a smug little snort, looking completely confident.
"Then what about this thing of yours?! Can you even call that a snowman?!"
Lux turned to look at his and immediately made a disgusted sound, her whole little face resisting the sight.
"It's kind of creepy..." Kahina nodded in full agreement.
Luke's snowman was the kind of thing you could not look at directly. It was misshapen, bizarre, even had feet, one higher than the other. It looked less like a snowman and more like some horror-version monster, and because Luke's craftsmanship was actually decent, he had even managed to sculpt a disturbingly twisted expression on its face.
Luke looked at his masterpiece with total satisfaction. "You don't understand. Full marks wouldn't even begin to do my snowman justice."
Lux let out a dry laugh. "I think ten is already being generous."
"Agreed," Kahina said.
Luke narrowed his eyes at them. "No scoring based on personal feelings."
"I agree too!"
Poppy raised a hand, followed by Sona.
Then, with both Fiora and Vayne firmly supporting the decision, Luke's creation officially received a score of ten.
All he could do was shake his head helplessly and conclude that none of them had any artistic vision whatsoever.
In the end, it was the icy pair of Fiora and Vayne who built the most normal snowman of all.
The proportions of the head and body were just right, it had a carrot nose, two black pebble eyes, and a bright smile.
It received full marks.
"Is there any prize for a perfect score?"
Vayne could not help asking.
Luke shook his head. "Nope."
A wave of silence fell over the group.
Then a gust of wind blew through.
Every single person present shuddered at once.
All the cold they had successfully ignored until now came rushing back in full force.
They looked at one another. Not one of them said a word.
Instead, they all silently quickened their pace back toward the house.
After changing clothes, the group gathered around the fireplace and sat there in silence, warming themselves. The only thing anyone felt now was cold.
Once the excitement had worn off, nobody had the slightest interest in stepping outside again to admire the snow.
Luke, however, still started preparing lunch. After being out in the cold that long, they needed something hot to warm them through.
He went back outside, cleared out a patch of snow, and began assembling a simple outdoor stove.
The girls watched curiously from inside as he busied himself in the courtyard.
By the time Yurna and Frey came back, Luke had already finished setting up the stove.
The two of them unloaded a mountain of ingredients and seasonings from the carriage, looking like they had just returned from stocking up a small store.
"Lunch is basically ready!"
Luke called into the house.
Not long after, the girls all came out.
Lux asked curiously, "We're eating outside today? What are we having?"
"Hot pot."
Luke smiled. In winter, not eating hot pot was like going to a brothel and not sleeping with anyone, absolutely shameful.
He set the prepared hot pot over the stove. The fire had already been lit earlier, and now it was burning strong.
Once the pot was filled with water, it began to boil not long after.
What intrigued the girls was that the large pot was split into two halves. As Luke started adding ingredients and seasonings, one side slowly turned into a milky-white broth that released a rich, fragrant aroma.
The other half, however, took a darker turn.
They watched as Luke pulled out handful after handful of different chilies and added them with the other spices. Very quickly, that side became an intense vivid red, almost like blood.
It looked a little terrifying.
Then a wave of spicy fragrance rose and spread through the entire courtyard. It smelled hot, yes, but even more than that it smelled wonderfully rich.
"The dipping station's over here. Mix yours however you like, and just cook whatever you want yourself."
Luke picked up a small bowl and began mixing his sauce with practiced ease. Not long later, he had a glossy, fragrant-looking dip ready.
Seeing that, the girls all copied his method and made bowls for themselves too.
This style of eating, cooking as they went and eating straight from the pot, felt fresh and new to them.
No woman could resist hot pot. Once they truly started eating and felt the warmth spreading through their bodies, satisfied expressions immediately bloomed across their faces.
The spicy side was claimed only by Luke, Yurna, and Frey.
So Luke glanced up at the others and said, "Come on, try this side too. It's really good."
Lux and Fiora looked at the bright red spicy broth and immediately recalled some rather unfortunate past experiences. Shadows passed over their hearts.
Vayne, who had also suffered badly from spice before, merely glanced once and then looked away.
"It's honestly not that spicy."
Seeing that none of them were moving, Luke fished out a slice of cooked marbled beef, dipped it in his sauce, and popped it into his mouth.
Instantly, his face filled with pure satisfaction and bliss.
The way he ate it was so convincing that the girls across from him started wavering.
"I'll try it!"
At last, Kahina, the first brave warrior, stepped forward to test the spice with her own body.
She fished a piece of tofu from the spicy side, set it in her bowl, blew on it, and then picked it up. She stared at it for a moment, as if gathering immense courage, and finally put it in her mouth.
The tofu was still a little hot, so she chewed while huffing, then swallowed it.
The other girls watched her eagerly, waiting for the verdict.
"It's spicy..." Kahina hissed a little. The heat came fast, but even as she spoke, she could not help scooping out another piece. "But it's really good."
The moment those words fell, several girls immediately migrated to the spicy side of the pot.
Compared to the mild broth, the spicy broth smelled more and more irresistible the longer it sat there.
Regret eating it for a moment, regret not eating it for a lifetime.
Spicy was spicy. Whatever.
And so the next scene looked like this.
The girls, hissing constantly from the heat, kept eating more and more enthusiastically, throwing one ingredient after another into the spicy broth.
They were standing in the snow, but their cheeks had turned bright red, and they all felt so warm they had forgotten all about the cold.
By the end, they did not even want the divider in the middle anymore.
The whole pot became spicy.
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