Under celestial dreams, Xianxia and Wuxia worlds unfold
Chapter 36 Yi Nuo~ Two months. Sixty-one days. One thousand, four hundred and sixty-four hours. Eighty-seven thousand, eight hundred and forty minutes. It isn’t a clock that keeps the time for me. It’s my hair—strands I coil around my finger until they snap from the root. Each break is a quiet thunder in my fingertips. […]
Chapter 35 Yi Nuo~ The days after Ruilin left stretched into an eternity, each one a frayed silk thread, thin enough to snap with a sigh. Idleness, a silent enemy, threatened to suffocate me. I tried my best to ignore the slow passage of time, keeping myself occupied to avoid the emptiness left in the […]
Chapter 34 Feng Ming~ The air reeked of plums and lotuses in bloom, but all I could taste was the acrid bite of jealousy. They danced like lovers lost in a world of their own creation, careless and bright and maddeningly near. I had stood in the shadows of that east corridor, my palm feeling […]
Chapter 33 Ruilin ~ The guards. What are they doing? Why is he within my walls? Feng Ming stood exactly where he should not be—too close, too familiar to Yi Nuo, like a serpent sunning itself on sacred stone. I landed soundlessly behind the eastern colonnade. The courtyard breathed the perfume of late-spring peach blossoms, […]
Chapter 32 Ruilin~ The moon hangs high above, its pale light seeping through the vast night. I read your letter by candlelight. I won’t ask when you’ll return. Only that you are well. Everything is fine, and we are all healthy. Please don’t neglect yourself. Another letter—another poem, brief as it may be. Yi Nuo […]
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 […]
Chapter 30 Since getting married, Ruilin and I haven’t spent a day apart. We had eaten every meal together, shared the same bath water, slept with our wrists knotted beneath the same pillow. Now, after a glorious year and a half, the honeymoon was ending in a manner neither of us could have prepared for. […]
Chapter 29 Bai Qian~ It’s been 16 months, 20 days, and 6 hours—over a year—since she began her mortal trial. The passage of time has become a cruel and formidable adversary in the ongoing search for Ying’er. Each month, we gather quietly in the ethereal realm of Nine Heavens for Ye Hua’s sake, understanding he […]
Chapter 28 Yi Nuo~ The cloying sweetness of cinnamon and lilies, a heavy, recently sickening perfume in the still air of Liang Yu Palace, made each breath a labored gasp, bringing on another wave of nausea. The cool ivory of my vanity felt smooth beneath my fingertips as I sat, feigning composure, but the dark […]
Chapter 27 Ruilin~ If I’d thought the passion would abate, I was mistaken. Our intimacy is a ritual, where we rediscover each other with fervor. Each morning, still heavy-lidded and wrapped in the remnants of dreams, we would slide into the embrace of the deep soaking tub, its dimensions just right for two if we […]
Chapter 26 Yi Nuo~ With a casual sweep of his slender fingers through my hair, he says, “While you were sleeping, Leyang and I had a conversation. It turns out a guest has taken ill, and there’s a rampant mysterious epidemic at the palace, one that wreaks catastrophe on men’s genitalia. My godfather is there […]
Chapter 25 Yi Nuo~ “From here, you can see everything,” Ruilin murmured, a gentle sentimentality in his voice as he gazed across the horizon as if still in awe of it. “My mother used to come here to escape the burdens of being Empress.” From Eagles Peak, Xiongfeng Terrace, he gestured north to the Chizui […]
Chapter 24 Phoenix Emperor Feng Yi~ “Emperor, Gugu is here.” At first, the Phoenix Emperor appeared as if he hadn’t heard, sitting motionless on the dais, one hand resting on the carved wood of his throne’s arm and in his other a book with his previous chess games with Yi Nuo who was impossible to […]
Chapter 23 Yi Nuo~ When Lue Lue returned with the tonic, I bolted through the open doors with such force that I knocked her against the doorframe. The sharp sound of the tonic bowl shattering echoed in the air behind me. A pang of worry shot through me, fearing I had hurt her, but my […]
Chapter 22 Bai Qian At my age, few can treat me like a child, but Zhe Yan always will—to him, I’ll always be Xiao Wu or little girl. “I’m glad you’re lying down, Xiao Wu. You need to rest. Yingpei told me you haven’t slept in days and have developed a fever,” Zhe Yan said, […]
