Chapter 261

On that day only one true mark was left behind, his name written in the heavy snow and quietly covered by more and more layers, later trampled by numberless feet, erased so well that even if he ascended to immortality he would never find it.

A true secret never to be revealed.

Traceless as melted snow.

The basket sat empty, the twelve finely designed layers and their objects symbols of a journey.

He was saying: never forget, and here she stood alone in the wind stepped steppes.

Where had she hidden her heart?

He asked, but she could not answer. Perhaps it was hidden in a bloody hole by her mother's grave, perhaps it lay in the coffin by Feng Hao's unclosed eyes; it even might lie hidden in a lonely wood at the foot of a mountain in Dijing's suburb, or perhaps it has long since fluttered away with the burnt joss paper and was buried in the snow.