Morning light is crushed breathless beneath thick snow.
Icicles hang from the eaves of the Liu family’s ancestral home,
like the bared fangs of some great beast.

Crouched beside the brass charcoal brazier in the warm chamber,
paw tips idly poke at the silver-frost charcoal, now and then.

When sparks scatter, the memory rises of last month, when Liu Xiyu stubbornly used a charcoal pencil to draw rabbit heads in the account books—looking ridiculous.

“Ayue—”

The dragged-out final syllable arrives together with the clatter of wooden clogs,
thudding and tapping across the threshold.

Her jade-green quilted jacket is speckled with snow grit, her nose tip frozen red— like a radish just dug out of a snowdrift.

“Father said we’re having a family hearth dinner tonight,
and I’m specially allowed to drink osmanthus wine!“

She drops the wine jar onto the low table with a solid thump,
sending the pine-nut candies in the preserved-fruit dish hopping in alarm.

“And I even stole— cough! borrowed the sobering-soup recipe from the kitchen!”

A glance falls on the prescription, kneaded into something resembling pickled greens.
A paw pad presses down on the inked words—
‘three bowls of water boiled down to one’—

Last time she brewed medicine, she nearly turned the clay pot into an alchemy furnace.

Liu Xiyu is completely oblivious, busy arranging mugwort cushions into a bagua formation.

“Ayue, sit here—this spot’s closest to the brazier!”

“I’ll sit opposite. That way, if I get drunk, I can still lunge over…”

Smack!

A single paw slaps the cushion array apart,
a sweeping tail clearing out a neat, square space.

“So boring…”

Her lips pout, but she still obediently sits down cross-legged,
the red-bean silver hairpin tucked in her hair swaying and scattering flecks of light as she moves.

As the charcoal fire grows stronger, Liu’s father sends someone over with a warming hot pot.

In the copper pot, a milky-white fish broth boils and churns.
When the servant turns away, she secretly ladles up a spoonful, trying to feed Yun Cangyue—
only to have a rabbit paw press against the rim of the bowl.

“Just one sip!”

She waggles the spoon, shamelessly wheedling.

“Granny Li said drinking fish soup in cold weather helps you grow fur…”

A paw points toward the bamboo basket of rabbit feed in the corner—
inside, the fodder cakes Liu Xiyu wove by hand give off a gentle fragrance.

The fishy scent clinging to her fingertips mingles with the clean aroma of the grass cakes,
turning the moment into a thoroughly absurd feeding farce.

Liu Xiyu’s cheeks glow rosy as clouds, and she starts tapping her bowl with her chopsticks, chanting a verse:

“Green ants in newly brewed wine,
a small clay stove with red embers…”

“Ayue, give me the next line!”

Staring at the chopstick tip thrust in front of her,
Yun Cangyue arches her back and leaps onto the food cabinet,
then returns with a ceramic jar of pine-nut candy clamped in her teeth,
stuffing it into Liu Xiyu’s arms.

“If you think I’m noisy, just say so!”

She chomps on the sweets in a huff, crunch crunch echoing.

“Last time I taught you drinking games too— you could’ve totally cheated with your paw prints…”

Before the words can finish, a gust of snowy wind suddenly whirls in through the window.

Yun Cangyue darts onto her lap, fur puffing up into a snowball to block the cold.

Seizing the moment, Liu Xiyu buries her face in that warm cloud and mutters,

“Mean Ayue…
you get to warm me— but I don’t get to feed you…

Near midnight, Liu Xiyu is already so drunk she’s treating osmanthus wine like ink.

Swaying unsteadily, she spreads out a sheet of xuan paper.
The brush tip, dipped in wine, dots the page at random.

“Th-this… this is Ayue in the snow…”

Ink blots bleed into a crooked black mass.
She frowns, muttering “Doesn’t look right,” then simply tosses the brush aside and reaches for a paw, trying to press it onto the inkstone.

“Come on—
let’s paint plum blossoms with paw prints…”

Yun Cangyue twists away.
Her tail sweeps over a celadon wine cup, tipping it;
amber liquid splashes across the paper, washing over the ink mass and staining it into utter chaos.

Liu Xiyu stares for a long moment—
then suddenly slaps the table and bursts into laughter.

“That’s it!
After getting drunk, mountains are no longer mountains…”

She lifts the dripping sheet and holds it toward the charcoal fire.
As ink and wine steam together with rising moisture,
they blur and bloom into a hazy scene of snow-clad peaks and drifting clouds.

Crouched at the corner of the table, she watches this drunkard fling ink about at random,
somehow forcing stains into pale silhouettes of distant mountains—
and even remembering to press a rabbit pawprint in the corner as a signature.

“Look!
Our joint masterpiece—Drunken Snow!”

She lifts the painting high.
Ink has smeared onto the gold-threaded chi dragon pattern at her cuff,
and with the motion, a few flecks scatter like shooting stars.

A paw reaches out to slap at her wrist,
a soft pad pinning down the wildly wobbling sheet of paper.

Liu Xiyu obligingly topples sideways,
the back of her head coming to rest on a warm blanket of rabbit fur,
her fingertip poking at the pawprint in the painting.

“Later we’ll have this mounted and say it was tribute from the Western Regions…”

“Hic…”

“An authentic work by an ancient divine rabbit…”

She lies slumped on the fur blanket, still clutching that absurd painting, Drunken Snow, tight against her chest.

The xuan paper, its ink not yet dry, sticks to her cheek,
smearing into a half-moon of black—
like someone caught red-handed after sneaking spoonfuls of black sesame paste.

Yun Cangyue squats at the corner of the table, tail flicking.
Sparks burst from the charcoal brazier,
exploding into pinpricks of gold within her amber eyes.

She hops up onto the low table first,
paw tips nudging aside the toppled, lopsided wine cups.

At the bottom of a celadon cup, leftover osmanthus brew has thickened into honeyed amber,
reflecting Liu Xiyu’s foolish, deeply sleeping grin.

“Drunk on the battlefield…”
“…the rabbit mustn’t laugh…”

An ear tip twitches— even in her sleep, this one is still humming off-key nonsense.

She carries over a cloth soaked in warm water,
then hops lightly back onto the fur blanket.

A soft paw pins down the stray, sticking-up strands of hair.
The cloth wipes from her temple to the tip of her nose,
the touch gentler than when grooming her own fur.

Liu Xiyu murmurs and rolls over,
ink smearing onto her jade-green padded jacket.
Yun Cangyue’s tail fluffs up like a feather duster,
and she swats once at her waist with a paw.

“Mmm… Ayue, don’t fuss…”

A hand waves, trying to brush the paw aside—
but catches only air, her fingertips poking straight into the pile of ash in the charcoal brazier.

Panicking, Yun Cangyue clamps her teeth onto the sleeve and yanks backward.
Sparks fly—
just shy of scorching the gold-threaded chi dragon pattern.

After dealing with the drunkard, she turns her attention to the painting, Drunken Snow.

The xuan paper has been crumpled into something resembling pickled greens,
the pawprint signature smeared into a black lump.

She catches the edge of the paper delicately between her teeth,
carefully spreads it flat on the table,
and with a paw pad dipped in clean water, gently pats at the ink stains.

As the water blooms, outlining snowy mountain forms,
she suddenly recalls how last month, during the account audit,
Liu Xiyu had insisted on marking shortfalls by painting rabbit heads in cinnabar.

Clumsy… honestly.

A wordless tease in her thoughts as her tail sweeps toward the inkstone.

The ink stick is nudged into a slow spin,
gradually grinding out ripples of dark indigo ink.

A claw tip, dipped in ink, hovers over the stains—
then suddenly draws a few curved strokes.
The muddled pawprint becomes a full moon;
the splashed wine stains turn into snow-laden pines.
An abandoned painting is transformed into Moonlit Snow Pines.

Just as she hesitates over whether to add an ink-painted rabbit,
the sound of fabric brushing softly rises behind her.

At some point, Liu Xiyu has rolled right up beside the charcoal brazier.
Her front lapel is dusted with ash, and she’s still mumbling,

“Add another spoonful of sugar icing…”

Yun Cangyue abandons the painting and leaps down from the table.
From a hidden compartment in the warm room, she drags out a wicker chest.

Inside are neatly stacked tufts of combed silver-gray rabbit fur,
each bundle tied with silk thread and mixed with dried honeysuckle blossoms—
hoarded in secret since the start of winter,
meant to be made into a scarf for Liu Xiyu’s birthday.

She hooks out cotton batting to line the base,
divides the fur into small clusters,
and, imitating Liu Xiyu’s embroidery motions, layers them one by one.

This takes far more concentration than auditing accounts;
one slip, and everything mats into a tangled puff.

As she pats apart the knotted clump for the third time,
a soft murmur of dream-talk drifts from behind her ear—

“Ayue’s tail…
would make just the right brush tip…”

Drunken nonsense…

Her ear tips burn hot,
yet she lightens her touch, carefully easing the fur into place.

By the time dawn nears, the fur blanket has taken on its first rough shape.

She crouches beside the piece, tail flicking,
picking at the edges with a critical pat—
the left side too thin, the right overloaded with honeysuckle,
the center needing an extra tuft of thick fur to block the wind…

By the third remake, Liu Xiyu suddenly curls in on herself, shivering.

Snow-laden wind slips through the cracks of the window,
gnawing away more than half the warmth of the room.

Forgetting all about the unfinished blanket,
Yun Cangyue darts off at once to drag out a spare quilt.

Unfortunately, the drunkard is anything but cooperative,
constantly kicking the covers away.

With a quiet sigh, she has no choice but to climb into Liu Xiyu’s arms herself,
her fur flaring into a small mound of snow.

“…Cold…”

By instinct, arms tighten around the nearest source of warmth,
a cheek burrowing into rabbit fur with a soft rub.

Yun Cangyue freezes like a stone statue.
Only when she hears steady, even breathing
does she gently pull the quilt back over her,
slip free, and return to finishing the fur blanket.

Morning light bleaches the window paper white.
The fur blanket is finally finished.

She lays it over that person,
a claw tip brushing away the charcoal dust from her nose.

In her sleep, Liu Xiyu’s lips curve into a smile.
She suddenly grabs that paw and presses it to her cheek.

“Ayue is the best…”

There’s no time to pull free.
Embarrassed and annoyed, her tail pats the floor.

The other only pushes her luck further,
burying her whole face into the fur blanket and mumbling,

“It smells like sunshine… and honeysuckle…”

The charcoal brazier is on the verge of dying out.
Yun Cangyue adds fresh coals.

As sparks crackle and burst,
she hears Liu Xiyu’s indistinct dream-murmur:

“From now on, every winter…
we’ll live like this…”

Moonlight slips through a break in the clouds into the warm room,
silvering the edges of the uncollected Moonlit Snow Pines.

Crouching beside the painting,
a claw tip lightly traces the outline of the ink-painted rabbit,
while the tip of her tail quietly curls around a loose strand of her hair.

At dawn, with the rooster’s crow, Liu Xiyu is curled into a shrimp-like ball, groaning.

A strip of ramie cloth—chilled overnight by Yun Cangyue—rests against her temple.
Her hair is a tangled mess, like yarn mauled by a cat,
and she mutters thickly through half-formed words:

“Next time…
I’m definitely switching to plum wine…”

Crouching by the pillow, a claw tip nudges a celadon bowl closer.

Inside, the medicinal soup is pitch-black,
with a few suspicious herb stems floating on top—
the unmistakable result of that crumpled sobering recipe.

“Ayue… attempted murder…”

She rolls over and buries her face into the fur blanket,
but her back collar is promptly hooked and lifted.

Unusually firm, Yun Cangyue pins her shoulder down.
A soft paw smacks the rim of the bowl, splashing dark liquid—
looking every bit like a stern village medicine woman.

Just as she’s about to complain,
a slice of honeyed ginger is suddenly stuffed into her mouth.
Sweet and spicy collide, surging hard enough to bring tears to her eyes.

“When did you stash this?
The kitchen was clearly—”

A flick of a tail points toward the hidden compartment of the food cabinet.
There, neatly stacked oil-paper packets sit in rows, each tied with a simple grass-cord knot—
all sobering snacks she had “requisitioned” from the kitchen
while Liu Xiyu was drunk.

As the sun climbs up to the eaves, Liu Xiyu curls by the window, wrapped in a rabbit-fur blanket.

Yun Cangyue perches on her knees,
the tips of her ears brushing lightly now and then against Liu Xiyu’s throbbing temples.

Whenever the north wind rattles the window lattice,
the fur fluffs up into a small screen, blocking the cold outside.

“Next time… I should just drink sweet rice brew…”

She mutters, chin rubbing against a rabbit ear.

“At least when I’m drunk,
I can drag you off to dance the ritual dance…”

A paw pats lightly at her forehead,
the touch as soft as brushing away snow.

Liu Xiyu laughs, catching that paw and pressing it to her cheek.

Morning light stretches their shadows long,
casting them onto the window paper like a piece of fluffy sugar art,
a sweetness that seems to seep straight through the paper.