Chapter 31
Yi Nuo~
When Ruilin returns, the interval is ten days—a mere ten days, not ten weeks, not ten months or ten years. However, seeing him run through the courtyard, his hair flying behind him, a crooked smile on his face, sends a shiver down my spine, blurring time into a continuous ache.
Our separation is measured not in days but in the infinite, echoing seconds of absence; we both sense it in the geometry of our bodies, the angular longing. He has barely set foot inside before we collide, almost bruisingly, as if impact is the only proof he is real and not some fever-dream I conjured to keep myself warm in his absence.
Standing on my tiptoes with my hands at the nape of his neck, and fingers tangled in night-dark hair, I can’t get close enough to him in his arms. His desire to share his news is known to me. He struggles to articulate, but I gently press a finger to his lips. I am not looking for conversation. What I desire is something far more primal and instinctual. Our bodies reuniting is the language I need—raw, urgent, unmediated by thought—and every touch is an answer to the questions neither of us need to voice.
We stumble, panting, exchanging expressions of devotion and love gasping our way down the corridor, mouths and hands everywhere, stopping only when clothes begin to surrender to the floor in a revealing trail: his coat, my dress, his belt, my undergarments, each discarded with the reckless abandon of the newly reprieved.
He lifts me easily, more by force of will than muscle, and carries me through the sun-drenched bedroom. There is no time for candles, or for the quiet click of shutting doors; propriety and decency are forgotten as the late sun paints our nudity in a feverish, honey-colored glow before we collapse onto the soft, yielding bed. The sheets beneath us are refreshingly cool, a stark contrast to Ruilin’s body, which radiates heat like an inferno.
His kisses are imbued with a fervent urgency, lips pressing insistently before softening into a tender caressing of lips, as if each motion seeks to apologize for every moment we spent apart. His hands move with a restless energy, tracing the contours of my face, skimming over the contour of my spine, lingering at the small of my back, and sweeping along the curve of my hip and thigh. It’s as if he’s trying to etch the landscape of my body into his memory, ensuring that when he inevitably leaves again, he carries with him an indelible map seared into his very being.
It’s in this intense moment of connection that I realize the impending truth—he will be leaving me once more, making every touch suddenly more meaningful.
My own hands are equally greedy, tracing the lines of his body, hungry for the side of him that belongs to me alone. We detangle each other in a fever, his tongue leaving a wet trail along my collarbone, my fingers kneading into his shoulder blades. I feel his sex hard and hot against my belly, a pressure that is a promise of pleasure. He presses his mouth to my ear, “My Yi Nuo, my beautiful Yi Nuo.” he whispers each syllable brimming with his longing and the world outside shrinks to the moonstone white walls, the tangle of our limbs.
He slows purposely, punishment to my impatience, savoring every microsecond like a rare vintage wine. His lips trace a languid, burning trail down my body, pausing at the hollow beneath my sternum, where the skin is tender and sensitive, then to my stomach in the first stages of hardening, and the sharp yet softening angle of my hip, the smooth, yielding flesh above my knee. When his mouth finally reaches the intimate crux of my femininity, I instinctively jerk away, only to press myself closer to him with a desperate necessity.
The pleasure is sharp and piercing, like a finely honed dagger reaching my heart, which thuds wildly in response, sending tremors through every nerve in my body. A deep moan cuts through the layers of pleasure enveloping me, causing my desire to unravel like a severed ribbon. With my gaze, I bring him to me. I crave to arch beneath him, not in pain but in a desperate, insatiable hunger, my arms flung wide as if to embrace every part of him at once.
We are two halves of a torn silk ribbon, finally and intricately knotted back together. When he finally enters me, it is a slow, inexorable reunion, a gentle merging that is almost too tender to bear, and I cried out from the pent-up sexual frustration. He tenderly whispers a caution to slow down for the baby’s sake, but I am acutely aware of my body’s limits, even more so than he could ever be.
Parting my legs wider and pulling them higher from his hips to his mid-back, I tilt my pelvis, allowing him complete entry into me. His groan is a deep, raspy sound, reverberating with satisfaction as he encounters no obstacles. The flood of hot moisture between my thighs sets off a wildfire of sensations, spreading ecstasy through my body and raising goosebumps on our slick skin.
The friction sharpens as he withdraws slowly, dragging out of me only to plunge back in with a deliberate rhythm. I feel as though I am dissolving into him, our boundaries blurring like watercolor paints bleeding into one another. His breath merges with mine, creating a warm, heady cocktail that intoxicates us. His sweat gleams on my skin like shimmering droplets of dew, and his heartbeat echoes in my ears, a powerful, primal drumbeat that syncs with the pounding of my heart.
Our eyes lock and see nothing else. Our hips move in unison, a slow and deliberate dance at first, the gentle sway building into a fervent rhythm that eclipses even our breath. “I missed you. I’ve miss touching you terribly,” he whispers into my hair, each word a tender confession trembling on the edge of a moan. His lips traverse every inch of exposed skin, as though he seeks to imprint his love with each kiss. The pace builds—his fingers interlacing with mine over my head, my thighs tensed like a coil.
“Please Ruilin, please harder,” I implore, my voice thick with longing, with need, a desperately wanton plea that makes my cheeks flush with heat. Yet, it affects him like a spark igniting a firework, setting him ablaze, and I feel him swell further inside me.
What has come over me? I cannot hold back, a cascade of lascivious moans and needy pleas falling from my lips, demanding more. Suddenly, he shifts, rolling off me with a fluid motion, positioning himself behind me. He lifts my thigh, draping it over his, and slides into me with a deliberate, tantalizing ease, groaning. My back is pressed firmly against his chest, and as I tilt my face toward his, his shapely lips capture mine in a fervent kiss. Our tongues entwine, a passionate dance reminiscent of mating serpents. His arm snakes beneath me, wrapping around to cup my breasts, slender fingers carefully rolling my nipples while his free hand ventures down to where our bodies unite, seeking out that exquisitely sensitive spot.
I extend my hand backwards, grabbing one side of his taut dimpled buttocks and urging him to come in deeper. The pleasure is overwhelming, an avalanche of sensation that builds as he brings me to the peak of ecstasy. Yet, instead of waning, the climax surges anew, a tempest of pleasure that sweeps us both away. We reach the pinnacle together, voices intertwined in a symphony of gasps, cries, and a quivering descent into blissful collapse. He clings to me, his face nestled in the crook of my neck, breath coming in ragged, uneven bursts. Then he cups my face in his hands, holds my gaze as if there is no force on earth that could make him look away. His mouth is swollen, cheeks flushed, eyes shining-wet, and in that moment I know he has never been more beautiful.
Ruilin~
When at last I held her in my arms, her head pillowed against my chest and her palm pressed flat to my sternum as if to calm the wild fluttering beneath, I cannot remember a time before her—before the careful winding of her fingers in my hair, before her laughter.
It is dusk when I deliver the news. The half-light turns her skin to porcelain, her gaze to quicksilver. “I’ve been asked to stay in Nine Heavens to serve the Skylord,” I say, tracing the length of her spine with my hand, mapping each vertebra as if I could memorize them into permanence. “The Crown Prince made the request himself. It’s the highest honor, Yi Nuo. I’d be something like the Skylord’s assistant, or perhaps his pupil.”
There is a silence, tense and bristling, and I brace for her anger—her sharp tongue, the sting of her rebuke. But she merely breathes, steady and measured, her thumb curling around the hollow at my throat. She has always been the more sensible one, her mind clear where mine is chaos.
“Did you see Princess Changying?” she asks, voice calm as a pond at dawn.
“No, she was absent the entire time,” I told her. “As was her elder sister, Princess Changchang. I can’t explain it, but something is wrong. Everyone is pretending otherwise, but.” I hesitate, the words gathering behind my teeth, then spill them anyway: “There seems to be a dispute within the family and the rumors are flying. Some even say that Princess Changying has left her title behind for a mortal. That she’s with child—his child.”
For a moment, her face twists, scandalized and indignant, but then she softens, shifting so that our noses nearly brush. “That’s an ugly rumor, Ruilin. You shouldn’t believe everything you hear. There must be some explanation that isn’t nearly so sordid.” The hand at my chest lifts, closes around my shoulder with a gentle, grounding force. “But you must do what you can. You have a duty, not just to the Skylord but as the Crown Prince of the Phoenix Realm. People will finally recognize your compassion, wisdom, and ability as a ruler.”
Her words are a balm; they always are. But I cannot let her finish without confessing the deeper, more immediate concern that gnaws at me—the fear that is not diplomatic, or noble, but visceral and selfish. “I wish to serve the Skylord, yes, but that’s not the only reason I want this,” I say, turning fully so that she cannot look away. “You and our child—” I can barely say it without my voice trembling. “He’ll be immortal, like me. But until you drink the elixir, you won’t. You’ll be mortal, vulnerable, and—” I swallow the lump in my throat. “Women die in childbirth if the timing is wrong. That’s why we need the elixir, Yi Nuo. I can’t lose you.”
She is quiet for a long moment; her lashes veiling her gaze, but I sense her mind at work—cataloguing risks and remedies, calculating futures with her usual precision. Then she tilts her chin, levels me with that piercing, impossible look. “You won’t lose me,” she says, low and certain. “I’m not so fragile, Ruilin. And our child—he or she will have us both. But I understand your need to do what you must.”
“How long will you be gone?” She asks, and I dread answering her.
I lean down, resting my forehead against hers. “A month. Maybe a few. But we’ll write every day, won’t we? My wife must promise to tell me everything, so I don’t miss anything and sing the song I taught you to our baby.”
The words “wife” and “our baby” tastes sweet and dizzying on my tongue—still new, still miraculous, still dear. I try to make a joke of it, but my smile falters. “Do I have my wife’s permission?” I whisper.
She nods, her lips pressed in a line that is both loving and exasperated. “You do. We have eternity, you and I. What’s a few months compared to that? And honestly—” she smiles, a flash of teeth and challenge—“I’d rather you be obliging to the Skylord than indebted to Princess Changying to get the elixir. I don’t want her to have anything over you.”
I laugh, and the sound is lighter than I feel. “You don’t trust her?”
“I don’t trust anyone who wields that much power,” she replies, but her eyes are warm. “Except you, I suppose whom I allow to be in charge.”
A soft, mocking chuckle echoes around us. “Ho, ho! Since when have I ever been the one pulling the strings?” I press a loving kiss to her temple. “You rule me body and soul, wife. When I return, we’ll announce our news about us and the baby, just as we planned.”
For a breathtaking instant, the vision is vivid: the three of us, eternal, unyielding, untouched by time or fate. The beauty of it is so overwhelming that it hurts to even conceive it. Perfection—a world crafted solely for us three. A fiercely possessive part of me is against the thought of sharing it with anyone else.
Before I leave, I prepare a pot of her favorite tea, the aroma of steeping leaves filling the room with a calming warmth. On the low wooden table, she adjusts the placement of the delicate porcelain cups with habitual precision. She pours the tea for both of us, the liquid a deep amber as it flows into the cups, steam curling upwards like a gentle whisper. We talk about matters of little consequence, sharing tidbits of normalcy—how Lue Lue has taken to sleeping at Yi Nuo’s feet in my absence, worried that Yi Nuo might feel lonely. We chuckle about her lazy orange feline, whom she believed to be male, now expecting kittens after an encounter with Consort Lie Xi’s flat-faced cat with the folded ears that hisses at everyone.
The arc of the moon that evening hangs like a silver sickle in the velvet sky, casting a gentle glow over our conversation. We pretend this is just an ordinary evening, though we both know it is the last one for some time. When I rise to go, she does not protest. Instead, she helps me gather the few belongings I will need, her movements deliberate and tender. She ties my hair with her ribbon—a silk thread, blue as the frost-kissed morning sky.
At the threshold, she takes my hands in hers, her touch both firm and gentle. “Ruilin,” she says, her voice carrying a weight that makes the hairs on my body stand on end and my heart skip a beat. “Promise you’ll come back.”
“Nothing can keep me away from you and the baby,” I reply, filling the space between us, before I lean in to press my lips to hers.
This kiss is not one of passion or lust. It is a vow.
Bai Qian~
I’m neither dead nor fully alive—suspended in a gray, whispering haze that clings like damp silk to my skin. My body lies inert, wrapped in stillness so absolute it feels like a tomb of air; only my mind drifts, weightless and unmoored, a solitary kite with a broken string adrift in a formless sky.
If the voices faltered, I might slip entirely into oblivion, vanish into this fog without so much as a ripple. Their tones weave around me like slender ropes of sound—some rough-hewn, rasping against my awareness with the urgency of need; others soft and golden. I listen as a castaway strains for the stroke of distant oars or as a child strains for her mother’s lullaby in the dark.
I sense A-li beside me—his presence like a tremor in the air. I imagine the pale planes of his face, the sharp cuts of his cheekbones, the way his slender hands clench into tight fists, knuckles white as moonlight. “Mother, wake up,” he pleads, his voice brittle as frost-cracked glass. “Come back to us. We’re not as grown as we pretend to be. We still need you.”
Then he whispers an apology that shatters something deep inside me. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I can’t make you better.” His words fall like broken porcelain. If I could move, I would reach through this mist, brush my fingers against his warm skin, and squeeze his hand and hold him to me until he knew with every pulse of my touch that I am still here—that his voice is the anchor holding my mind from drifting away.
My father’s voice joins them sometimes—deep, ragged with regret. He speaks as if arguing with himself, each sigh a confession, each word a question hurled into the void. Anger and sorrow war in his tone that has become deeper and gravelly from age.
Then there’s Zhe Yan—his is the strongest presence of all. I recognize the sweet perfume of peach blossoms clinging to his clothes. “Still asleep?” he teases, each syllable crisp as fallen petals. “Xiao Wu, you’ve always been lazy, but this coma—this is your masterpiece and not your first. If you fall into a third one, we will sell you to an opera who appreciates your theatrical shenanigans.”
“Little girl, stay horizontal much longer, your muscles will atrophy without use and your next lover will mistake your womanly parts for two shriveled peaches, and an old dried split fig.” He pauses, playful teasing dancing in his tone. “If you don’t wake soon, I won’t hesitate to pickle your Fox spirit in peach wine and call it art.”
How he manages to provoke me even in this vulnerable state, pinpointing my recent insecurities about my appearance and intimate areas that I’ve always striven to maintain in tiptop excellent shape.
“Stop it, Zhe Yan! Leave Xiao Wu alone!” Ah, thank goodness Fourth Brother’s here.
Yes, heed Bai Zhen and just you wait Zhe Yan. When I finally free these limbs and my feet land on the floor—I will summon the winds with my Jade Purity Fan to purify his cheeky mouth.