It rained on the fifth day.
Not the gentle kind that misted the gardens and made the plum blossoms glow. The heavy kind. The kind that turned the training grounds into mud and hammered the rooftops so loudly that conversation became impossible unless you were willing to shout.
Lan Yue was crossing the covered walkway near the herb garden when she saw Zhao Lingxi standing at the edge of the pathway, stopped dead, staring at the curtain of rain between her and the dormitory building thirty feet away.
She had no umbrella.
It was such a small, ordinary problem that it caught Lan Yue off guard. Zhao Lingxi, who could shatter ice formations with a flick of her wrist, who had survived ten years of exile, who carried herself with the composure of a woman twice her age, was standing at the edge of a covered walkway looking at rain like it had personally offended her.
