Chapter 21
Yi Nuo~
A sprawling bedchamber, its vastness illuminated by the cool, celestial glow of a palace crafted from white labradorite. The smooth stone walls shimmered, their surface reflecting the light in a mesmerizing dance. Above, the mother-of-pearl roof pulsed with an iridescent sheen, like captured rainbows shimmering softly. The warm air, heavy with the spicy, unmistakable scent of cypress and cinnamon woods from the exquisitely carved furniture, is too comforting and familiar.
A gentle breeze, whispering secrets through unseen cracks in the warm stone, carried the intoxicating perfume of the Phoenix Realm’s garden. The scent, faint and delicate as a butterfly’s kiss, filled the chamber without disturbing the steady, flickering candlelight–a soft, dancing glow that cast shadows on the pale golden silk veils draped around the grand four-poster bed. The silk cool and smooth against my fingertips; this is the place of my dreams.
Eleven years I’ve spent trying to erase those six weeks in the Phoenix realm. 572 weeks of denial, telling myself it was only a dream. I’ve taken countless steps to escape the past, yet here I am, right back where I started. Back to square one.
All I wanted was what I thought other girls had—an ordinary life, a life where I was never alone. I longed not to be an orphan, something to be pitied, or worse, a charity case to be rescued and managed by others. Was it so much to want a life where I could stand tall and independent, free from everything that defined me before? Perhaps it was my greed, yearning for something that was never meant to be mine. I wondered if an ordinary life eluded me simply because I couldn’t let go of Ruilin.
This wasn’t from lack of trying. How many times did I scold myself for remembering his crooked smile and the playful twinkle in his eyes when he teased me? How often did I hold on to the illusion that our paths wouldn’t cross again after he saw me on my wedding day?
All I truly wanted his last memory of me to be when I was most beautiful, but exactly why? Why, when I was at my lowest, did Ruilin have to reappear, pulling me back? When I needed someone the most, why did he have to be the one, of all times to find me?
His appearance shattered my illusions, my fragile, painstakingly crafted illusions. His threats when he was protecting me, turned everything upside down. If I could break myself down into a million particles, to a dust of where I am, casting the shattered pieces out to drift in the open air like invisible spores, free from this humiliation, free from everything, I would.
I might exchange my very soul to the devil to not be here.
The thoughts silently drowns me as I lie motionless on the bed, unwilling to stir, not even a finger. “Is Lady Yi Nuo going to stay with us permanently this time?” Through my slightly open eyes, I see Lue Lue buzzing around me with excitement. “I really hope so. Lue Lue definitely hopes Lady Yi Nuo will never leave us again. I’ll start concocting the doctor’s prescription now, so it’s ready when my lady awakes.
“We’ll let her rest.” Ruilin says. ‘Don’t forget to sweeten it with honey. Yi Nuo hates drinking herbal tonics.”
Two pairs of footsteps, one a rhythmic thud, the other a lighter tap-tap, fade into silence as they leave the room. The door clicks shut, a soft, final sound. Throwing off the comforter, I scurry out of bed, expecting to trip over my nightdress but why would I when it’s hemmed just right since it was mine. I grasp the door handles and pull gingerly, but they won’t budge I’m locked inside.
A light throat clearing reaches my ears then, “Yi Nuo, where are you going?” Ruilin’s voice pierces through the air from behind. What is he doing here? Why on earth is he here?!
I square my shoulders, lifting my chin defiantly as I whirl around to confront him, my voice a firm, unwavering blade. “I want to go back. You have no right to kidnap me and keep me here against my will.”
His eyes trace over my features before locking onto mine with a tenderness that ignites a furious storm within me. “Alright, Yi Nuo. You can go back after you’ve recovered… in a few days.”
My jaw drops in disbelief. A few days here are a few years in the mortal world. “No, not in a few days, but now. Take me back this very instant.”
“No.” His refusal lands like a thunderclap, leaving me reeling. “I promise to return you in a few days so others won’t see you like this.”
His gaze flicks to my split lip, then my bruised eye, and the sorrow darkening his eyes fuels the fire of my outrage into an inferno.
“Who do you think you are?!” I shouldn’t scream, but I crave his anger for this to escalate from a suffocating exchange into a raging storm. “I’m not your pet human to be picked up and displaced at your impulse. My life is not a pastime for your whims to dictate.”
His hand reaches out to pat my head, a familiar gesture, but I recoil, trembling with rage and humiliation. “Yi Nuo, what would you do in my shoes? If you saw me, your best friend in your state?” His compassion, once comforting, now feels like an insult, as if he’s mocking my life.
“We’re not best friends, and I wouldn’t have done a damn thing because it’s none of my fucking business,” I spit, closing the gap between us with a fury that crackles in the air.
My nails dig into my palms as I glare up at him, my inner turmoil a raging tempest against his infuriating calm. He doesn’t flinch, but his eyes betray a flicker of pity. The last thing I want from him is his condolence, his sympathy before he hastily masks it, failing miserably. The weight of his emotions crashes over me like a tidal wave, suffocating and almost unbearable.
A silent nod, his eyes fluttering, betraying unshed tears, his lips a tight line. “Fine, we aren’t best friends as you say, but Yi Nuo, to me, Lue Lue, and my older sister, you are family. We care about you.”
When he calls me family, a surge of frustration makes me want to rip my hair out. My fingers twitch with restless energy as I snatch a flower vase within my reach. In a swift, unthinking motion, I hurl it across the room. The vase sails through the air, spinning wildly before it crashes against the wall, shattering into countless pieces with a satisfying, harsh clatter that echoes through the room. The broken fragments scatter across the floor like jagged shards of my own pent-up emotions.
“I’m not your family. I have a family. My husband. What did you do with Li Wei? Did you kill him? You, the most idle Phoenix Prince must have relished using your magic on a poor defenseless mortal who couldn’t fight back! You’re a coward!” Silence thuds in the wake of my rude outburst as I snarl all the things I don’t mean.
Finally, a hint of anger flashes in his gentle features. He takes a step forward until he’s looking down his nose at me, brows snapped. “I should have killed him. He deserved nothing less, but I didn’t.”
“Then where is he?!” My anger remains relentless, burning me up making me feel feverish and on fire.
Ruilin’s voice pierces the air. It’s nowhere near a yell, but for him, it’s thunder, rumbling through the space between us. “I don’t know! I don’t know!” He declares.
“I honestly lost my mind last night. I couldn’t think straight or form a rational thought when I saw how he mistreated you. I just got mad and sent him to a forest full of misfit, vengeful lost souls, where a monster or two had been spotted. He could be alive, or he might have been eaten by now.”
His arms make a sudden motion toward me. I flinch out of instinct, a terrible, hateful instinct that has taken root in my mind faster than any reason. I shrink back recoiling into myself, cowering and covering my face from the fear of being hit.
His pain is visible in the tears he had been holding back that cascade down his cheeks like perfect diamonds, each droplet catching the clean light of the mother-of-pearl ceiling and casting tiny rainbows that dance across his skin. The brilliance they add to his face pierces my heart like a spear.
“Why have you been living like this?” he sighs, his voice now a fragile whisper, but to my ears it is a thunderous crash of judgement, accompanied by a terse exhale. He effortlessly lifts me, my body as light as a feather cradled in his powerful arms, and carries me across the room, away from the chaos of scattered debris. With each step, he kicks aside the jagged pieces of shattered ceramic with his sturdy boots, clearing a path through the destruction.
This is not the first time he has carried me this way, almost casually, as if it’s perfectly natural to cradle me like this, but now, it’s more awkward than ever. Back then, whenever I was barefooted in the garden, he would scoop me up into his arms, telling me there were thorns and spiky plants he didn’t want me to get pricked by. His closeness never pricked me. Now, it does, worse than any thorn.
“I’m sure your Princess would be overjoyed to see you carrying another woman in your arms.” I jeer at him and he replies, “Princess Changying has changed her mind. She has formed affections with another.”
His words hit me like a punch to the gut, my heart pounding. He needed a replacement, his princess having dumped him. She doesn’t want him anymore. Ruilin thought I would be thrilled to get back something that was never mine, but despite myself, I’m wavering.
The scorn in my voice is feral, unrecognizable even to me. I didn’t mean to hurt him so deeply, or maybe, in my desperation to strike back, I did. Perhaps I wanted him to feel an ounce of what I’m feeling, to be as consumed by confusion and uncertainty.
“You’re a fool, Ruilin. If you think you can dance back into my life like nothing happened and like nothing’s changed. Did you think I’ll be tripping over myself to kiss your princely feet just because you unceremoniously showed up again? Did you really consider I would want to be some convenient replacement now that your precious princess dumped you?”
The dagger of my tone swings wildly, and I don’t attempt to control it. “I’m not the Yi Nuo you knew.” I pause, taking in the details of his face, the features that used to calm me. Now they are driving me insane. “I don’t even know how I ever fell for an uptight, infantile virgin like you, who couldn’t even endure having a female touch you. Saving your precious body, weren’t you? For your beloved Princess who doesn’t even want you now?”
I want him to scream back, to show outrage, to show fight. Instead, he is still calm, like a stagnant pond. He should be offended, insulted, but he’s Ruilin. The unmovable, reliable Ruilin. He doesn’t deserve this, and yet I can’t stop. I am spurred on by his maddening silence. “Did you think I’ve been waiting for a moment to run back to you?” My voice is hoarse with the fury of words long unsaid. “I have a husband now. A real man. You’ve seen him and he’s done things to me that you would never understand! Things you would never be capable of!”
His tone is ever soft, ever tender, ever vexing. Just like him. “You’re right Yi Nuo. Your husband has done things to you that I can’t wrap my head around and a real man doesn’t hit women. No man has the right to harm a woman’s sacred body that brings life into this world.”
“I’ll return you to your home in a few days and I’m sorry about your husband, but I hope a forest monster is picking his teeth with his bones. I’ve hated no one before, but your husband I loathe with every fiber of my being.” He doesn’t meet my gaze after gently setting me back on the bed. “Get some rest. The sooner you’ve recovered, the sooner I’ll take you back home.”
He solemnly walks to the door leading to the corridor that connects our rooms. He pauses for a moment, then turns around, his eyes reflecting a mix of emotions. A crooked smile forms on his lips, though it is touched with sadness. “Yi Nuo,” he says softly, “I have never considered you as a replacement for Princess Changying. Her breaking up with me isn’t the reason I wanted you back. I simply missed my best friend and if that makes me self-centered, then I’m selfish, but you must forgive selfishness, as there is no cure for it.”
He shuts the door behind him with a solid *thunk*; the sound echoing through the silent room like a final, irrevocable decision. The breath I’ve been holding escapes my lips in a ragged, shaky, and violent sigh, as if all the air in my lungs has been forcibly expelled. A salty wave of sorrow crashes over me, its force like an unrelenting tide, unleashing a torrent of hot, bitter tears that burn my cheeks like scalding rain; tears that seem endless, blurring my vision as they flow uncontrollably.
Life would be much easier, like drawing an obvious line in the sand, if we could just be enemies. This thought, akin to a mismatched key trying to unlock my heart, barely touches the depths of my feelings. I wish I could hate him, to nurse a grudge like a precious ember ready to ignite winter’s first fire; yet it’s me, a fool entangled in silken snare, not him. Deep down, I understand—yes, it’s true—I will always love Ruilin. Returning to the Phoenix realm, the place of magic and immortality, has only reinforced the fact that I never truly left.
Ruilin~
I barely managed to close the door before the sob I’d been valiantly holding back erupted from my chest and mouth, reverberating down the dimly lit corridor.
I had foreseen that Yi Nuo might be angry, but truthfully, I hadn’t known what to expect. Her spite, however, was like a scorching flame against my skin, and her words—those bitter, venomous words I never believed could come from her gentle lips—still lingered in my ears.
Yi Nuo, once flowerlike, had evolved into a rose with thorns, but I craved to grab the stem of her and bleed nevertheless.
I was foolish to think that barging into her home when I felt she needed me would cause her heart to flutter or perhaps even make her acknowledge me once more. Yes, all I yearned for was for her to truly see me again, instead of consigning me to the shadows of her past. This longing was born of my own selfishness.
I should have known she wasn’t unbreakable and that reclaiming her wasn’t something I could demand like princely privilege, but still.. On the night of her wedding, I found myself pacing my room, suffocated by the knowledge that another now held her in his arms. I understood it wasn’t my place, and I knew I had forfeited my chance, but, oh, how it stung. It still stings.
Was it truly such a crime to cling to the remnants of my convictions, now torn apart at the seams? I let my selfish hopes get the better of me. I hoped Li Wei’s violence would push her back to me—to make her hate him so much she’d need my comfort, to want my consolation.
I was like a thief hoping to steal a moment’s hesitation in her heart.
I realized I was hopelessly in love with Yi Nuo even while I was betrothed to Princess Changying. I fought against it, yet it was beyond my control. My heart, defying reason, felt an unending pull towards Yi Nuo, perchance from the very first glimpse of her face through the delicate lattice of the bamboo bird cage.
It was a pull I had only ever experienced with Princess Changying, and with Yi Nuo, it felt as though fate itself was leading me to her. As if the universe, with a surprising twist, changed its mind about who I was meant to be with.
Perhaps she was my love trial?
“Ruilin, you’ll return her when she’s healed and even make an effort to find her husband. Maybe if you scare him enough, he will change his ways,” I murmured into solitude, as if speaking the words aloud might somehow solidify them into a reality I can accept.
My voice bounced off the walls. “You may want to consider drinking amnesia water from Godfather Zhe Yan to forget her, but it might take more than…”
“You might have to drink an ocean’s worth because, I’m afraid, Yi Nuo is unforgettable.”