Snow falls again.
The snowflakes, pure white and delicate like threads from heaven, gently landed on the freezing earth like a voiceless sorrow. Each flake was a hidden pain, a buried memory of lives dwelling on the edge of light. The wind was still. Trees stood bare, like gaunt ghosts lingering in a dead land. The small village of Vân Hà nestled at the foot of a mist-covered mountain range, now completely engulfed by the harsh, white expanse of winter.
In the bone-chilling cold, there was no longer a trace of warmth. Doors were tightly shut, fires no longer burned in stoves—only the faint howl of wind whistling through the gaps of rotting thatch. The cold was not just in the snow and ice, but in the eerie silence blanketing everything. Even the crows, usually cawing at dawn, were silent as if frozen by the heavens' bitter frost.
Amid the curtain of snow, a crooked thatched house stood alone, hidden on a low hillside. Wild grasses around it had withered, and there were no footprints nearby. A thin wisp of smoke rose, faint like the dying breath of a fading soul.
Inside that frigid home, a young girl sat by a small fire, quietly warming her cracked hands near the flickering flame. She sat motionless, like a porcelain statue placed within the snowy mountain realm—so beautiful that no one dared touch her, only watched from afar in silence and pity.
Her name was Bạch Ngọc Tuyết.
A name as pure as snow, as clear as jade, and as gentle as morning dew. But here, no one called her by that name. Perhaps the villagers had never even looked at her as a person. To them, she was just "the shadow without a father."
The "consequence of a filthy night of lust."
A girl who bore the bewitching face of a fox spirit that had once bewitched men—therefore cursed by life and despised by all.
Since she was a child, Ngọc Tuyết had lived under rejection. No one let her play with their children. No one sold her food without counting every coin. No one wanted to touch her hand, believing that just her gaze could make crops fail and livestock die.
Even so, she lived. In silence. Endurance. Bowing her head as she walked snowy paths, carrying heavy bundles of firewood on her small shoulders. Every cut on her hands, every bruise on her skin—she never uttered a word of complaint.
---
"Cough, cough."
A harsh cough from the inner room startled her. Her hands, warming by the fire, pulled back at once. She stood up, brushed the ash off her skirt, picked up a bowl of reheated medicine, and walked toward the creaking wooden door.
Behind it was the only person in the world who loved her: her mother.
That woman was now just a shadow of her former self. The face that once stirred the capital was now pale as paper, her eyes sunken with red veins, her lips cracked and bleeding with every cough. The thin blanket could not keep warm the body already as frail as ashes.
"Mother, I've brought your medicine..." Ngọc Tuyết knelt by the bed, her voice as soft as mist.
"Please try to drink a little."
Her mother opened her eyes, gazing at her daughter with a tender look—though behind that gaze lay endless guilt.
"Ngọc Tuyết..." she whispered, her voice so faint only the wind could hear.
"If I die... perhaps your life would be better..."
Ngọc Tuyết said nothing. She quietly brought the medicine to her mother's lips—spoon by spoon, drop by drop, pouring her entire heart into each motion. Her eyes burned, but no tears fell. She knew that if she cried, her mother's pain would only grow deeper.
"My daughter has to bear the sins I've caused…"
"It's not your fault, Mother," she whispered, gently squeezing her mother's hand.
"I've never regretted being born from you."
The small room fell silent, filled only by weak breaths and the sound of wind brushing through the door. That night, snow fell again—like fragments of a glorious past, now melting into stillness.
---
The next morning, Ngọc Tuyết wrapped herself in a patchwork coat, held two bundles of dry firewood, and stepped out of the house. Her steps left tiny prints on the thick snow. Her straw shoes had lost shape, exposing her frostbitten toes, red and swollen. The wind slashed her face, sharp as blades slicing her skin.
The market at the edge of the town was already open. The smell of smoke, fried cakes, people shouting, laughing—everything created a lively scene. But the moment Ngọc Tuyết stepped in, all that life paused for a second. People turned away, some spat, some children giggled and threw mud at her feet.
Ngọc Tuyết didn't react. She placed her firewood down in front of a stall.
"I'd like to trade this for flour and some salt."
The stall woman scowled, glaring at her like spotting filth.
"Don't come here again, got it? Trade whatever you want, but your face brings misfortune!"
Ngọc Tuyết lowered her head. "Yes."
She took the items and left quietly, amidst jeers and cruel stares.
---
The afternoon waned.
Snow fell thicker. The sky turned gloomy, as if darkness was about to swallow the world. Ngọc Tuyết sat by a small wooden table, patching her mother's old coat. Her fingers trembled from the cold, but she persisted stitch by stitch. Each time blood seeped from her finger, she bit her lip, wrapped the wound in torn cloth, and continued sewing.
Outside, snow covered the yard. Inside her heart were burdens never spoken. Who would know she once dreamed of becoming a healer, of opening a small pharmacy at the town's edge to treat and save people? But that dream had frozen beneath the weight of insults and the silent slaps of fate.
Ngọc Tuyết looked up at the window. Snow still fell. Unending. Like sorrow with no end.
She sighed softly, as if quietly resenting this cruel destiny.
"Maybe... tomorrow I'll really have to go to the neighboring village."
But even as she said that, her heart resisted. The other village lay beyond a mountain range, through a steep, icy mountain path.
---
In the stillness of the night, a dark figure dragged himself along the snow-covered mountain trail. He struggled to move, finally collapsing inside a small nearby cave. Blood from his leg dripped onto the pristine snow, drop by drop.
His breath was ragged, blood continued to trickle from his lips. He gritted his teeth and pulled the arrow from his leg. His eyes began to close.
All he hoped… was to still be alive by morning.
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