Chapter 62: Who entrusted my longing to the wild ginger? (XI)

Having chatted with A Yin, Li Shiyi was just about to head inside; by the side of the stairs, she took out the hand that had been in her pocket, waving it to indicate to Song Shijiu to come over. Li Shiyi reached out a hand, meaning to tug her, but Song Shijiu avoided it seamlessly. Li Shiyi paused her steps, tilting her head to look at her; it wasn’t the first time she’d become aware that, if there were others around, Song Shijiu would put up a sense of propriety; when coming down the stairs, one after the other, when eating, single-minded; it seemed like it was only when it was the two of them that she would relax and retreat into Li Shiyi’s embrace, and she especially didn’t really want A Yin to see their intimacies.

With just a mild look, Song Shijiu knew that Li Shiyi was a bit angry; Song Shijiu blinked her faintly amorous almond eyes and looked at her, her eyes carrying a hesitant explanation in them.

The sound of the chatter of those behind fell away; Song Shijiu could clearly feel Tu Saozi’s probing gaze settled on her back. Tu Saozi looked, Tu Laoyao looked, A Luo looked, and A Yin looked as well. She didn’t fear others saying she was shameless, but she feared that the matters between her and Li Shiyi would be exposed before everyone, which, for Li Shiyi, wasn’t too good. As for why it wasn’t good, she hadn’t had the time to think about carefully.

In the distance between her pursed lips and lowered head, Li Shiyi still raised her hand, grasping her shoulder, not paying attention to the gazes of those behind, merely pulling her into her embrace, eyelids drooping as she held her in her arms and headed back. “It’s not important,” she said.

Song Shijiu hadn’t thought wrong; she truly was someone used to concealing love, but the two characters of “showing favour” were synonymous with “an exception”.

“Shiyi.” Song Shijiu walked very slowly, faintly and feebly calling out to her in her embrace. Li Shiyi lowered her head to look at her; her ears were burning, and only after thinking for a moment did she say in a low voice, “I’m in a bit of pain.”

Li Shiyi stilled, led by her gaze to her underbelly. “Pain?”

It was very rare that Li Shiyi appeared stunned; Song Shijiu couldn’t help but curve the corners of her eyes, and said stealthily, “Quite sore; I can’t really walk.”

Li Shiyi tugged at her and sat down on the sofa slowly, and thought about it, involuntarily touching her fingernails.

As they were speaking, A Luo and Wu Qian came in; Li Shiyi raised her eyelids and tilted her neck at A Luo, then turned her head to speak a few placating words to Song Shijiu, after which she immediately pushed herself up with both hands, extending her long legs and heading up the stairs. Passing her own room, her feet turned and she once more followed the staircase to ascend, heading directly to A Luo’s door.

The door was ajar; A Luo had long since been waiting in the room, the newly-steeped tea giving off steam; A Luo wore a slender cheongsam, searching for a book in front of the bookshelf. “What, you want to borrow two more books?” the sound of the door and A Luo’s careless laugh sounded at once.

Li Shiyi’s pupils were quite cold, and also quite indifferent, as if covering up some sort of rare state of mind; she sat down on the scroll-end chair at the desk, extending a hand to support her forehead, and didn’t speak for a while. A Luo wasn’t anxious; the past few days, Li Shiyi had been like this as well, sitting without being invited for a long while, minding her own business and finishing half a cup of tea, and only then telling her she wanted to borrow a couple books. A Luo hadn’t asked what sort of books, only gazing at Li Shiyi’s tilted head, calm and unruffled, the minute bashfulness suddenly leaking out from the tendons of her neck, giving A Luo enough of a hint. So, she walked to the desk, taking out a couple volumes without any words on their covers without looking through them, and neatly passed them over to her.

Li Shiyi took them, pressing her lips together and gazing at her, saying thanks, and put her hands back into her pockets, unruffled, and left. Her retreating figure was both strange and familiar; what was familiar was that, for anything, she would always want to do it with the best ability; even these sorts of matters, she wanted to study for a few days beforehand, in order to give her beloved the very best experience; what was strange was that when she opened the door, her shoulders would still slightly. A Luo had lived for over two thousand years; regardless of if it was Ling Heng or Li Shiyi, it was still the first time she’d seen such a state of awkwardness appear on her figure, and this time was the second. She felt that it was very interesting, so much so that she unconsciously raised the corners of her lips.

Li Shiyi said in a quiet voice, “She’s in a bit of pain.”

A Luo furrowed her brows. “Pain?”

Li Shiyi didn’t want to repeat it again.

A Luo said in a neutral tone, “What sort of pain?”

“Never mind,” Li Shiyi said, very uneasy, both hands pushing her to stand.

She hadn’t come to the door yet when she heard A Luo’s laugh, as lively as spring waters. “You don’t need to be worried.”

Li Shiyi inclined her face; A Luo nodded sincerely, and Li Shiyi let out a breath, nodding her head, and was about to walk out the door once more when she heard A Luo say, “You want to go look for the Bai Shai’s idol, yes?”

Li Shiyi raised a brow; A Luo explained, “My sense of hearing is a bit keener than others’.”

Li Shiyi nodded in acknowledgement, and A Luo came around the desk, warning her, “The Teng serpent is vindictive, seeking revenge over a dirty look; now that its offering table has been moved twice, if you approach it a third time, I fear that it will be very hard to escape.”

Li Shiyi smiled, and gazed at A Luo. “According to you, ought I to fear it?”

According to her? This phrase of questioning was incredibly strange, and was also asked with significance, yet Li Shiyi understood that A Luo had followed her the entire journey, and it absolutely wasn’t only because of A Yin; so, as a result, the implication within these words were expressed very subtly, as if the subject were Li Shiyi, and as if it were Ling Heng.

A Luo was graceful as an orchid, and answered her, “According to me, there’s no need to be afraid.”

Li Shiyi understood. Ling Heng’s identity, it seemed, wasn’t as simple as she’d thought; A Luo indulged her in putting herself in danger, and also indulged her to retrieve herself from the danger. Li Shiyi turned around, about to open the door, but she’d just touched the knob when she pinched her brows and turned around, narrowing her eyes as she looked at A Luo. “Just now, you said that your sense of hearing is keener than others’?”

A Luo was startled; under Li Shiyi’s gaze, the back of her neck chilled. Li Shiyi’s voice was even colder than her gaze. “That sense of hearing, can it be controlled?”

A Luo said honestly, “It can.”

Li Shiyi took a step without turning her head back. “Tonight, control it.”

Tu Sishun brought along a not undue clamour when the night came; it was lucky that A Luo had appropriately withdrawn her hearing a bit, as only then could she properly enjoy the undisturbed liveliness. But A Yin had something on her mind. Her gasping started and stopped, and her furrowed brows also started and stopped, causing the movements of A Luo’s hands to alternate between light and heavy, reminding her to collect her thoughts without crossing a boundary.

A Yin pressed tightly within her embrace for a long while, and her fingers also explored her features for a long while, her water-serpent figure ebbing down her body, unusually kissing her. She pulled open A Luo’s skirts, her murmuring carrying some perplexion. “This jiejie will serve you.”

But A Luo caught her chin. A Yin was compelled to muzzily raise her head, and in A Luo’s brief exertion of all her strength, met her clear and sober yet angry frown.

Her two words of “serve you” had offended Yanluo-daren.

Her seized chin had whitened a bit, and A Luo’s fingertips shifted, letting her go; A Yin gasped dazedly, pressing her head against her thigh, eyelashes like moist butterflies; no matter how they fluttered, they couldn’t fly.

She hadn’t thought of the embarrassment of the past in a long, long time, but just then, in her absent-mindedness, she’d used this phrase by curious coincidence, as if reminding herself of something. A Luo didn’t like her like this, and she herself didn’t like it either, but she truly was like this; contempt engraved itself on her bones, and even cramped muscles and flayed skin couldn’t scrub it clean.

She sighed, and got up off of A Luo’s body apologetically; her qipao had fallen into half a disarray, loose and titillating; on the outside, she only draped a small outer garment, and it couldn’t obstruct the eroticism in the slightest. She walked to the table with light steps, and sat by the side, reclining her body on the surface, what she was thinking unclear.

After thinking for a while, she straightened her posture a bit; if she were to have a posture of a trembling scrawl in her handwriting in the past, she would be bound to be scolded by Shifu until she couldn’t lift her bones; Shifu had raised her like a flower, always hoping she could grow up to be fair and honest, but she would sit straight for a bit, and then her limbs and bones would ache, making her unable to help but grow limp once more.

A Luo quietly watched her figure from behind, and took in the entire scene of her struggling and exertion; she perceived keenly that A Yin was uncomfortable, and frightened, and was even a bit unhappy.

The wings of her nose flared, and she bowed her head, walking over; the broad nightgown hung on her slender, slim shoulders, only her fair calves and feet bared. A Yin’s back trembled as she heard A Luo walk over soundlessly, her neat skirts touching her back, and immediately after, facing her, she sat onto the table. A Yin’s line of sight was entirely filled by A Luo; her calves like carved jade, her waist and abdomen wrapped in pure silk, and the faint rise and fall of her exposed chest. It ought to be an entirely enticing figure—a pure, faultless figure; she’d never before had the inclination to dip a finger in and touch it; she’d always assumed that, with A Luo, the relationship had always been a doctor-patient one, seeking for medicine, but just then, she felt that there had been a bit of a destabilisation. The destabilisation had come from the weak depths of her heart, something like eagerly wanting to lay a claim, wanting to prove that she was still alive.

A Luo gazed at her firmly, hand reaching out to stroke the jaw that she had pinched to pain, and she moved A Yin’s cheek to lay against the side of her skirts, her fingers passing through the strands of hair at her neck, and she lightly pressed against the back of her head, as if placating an agitated child. A Luo’s hand had the softness of just having been washed, and from the fearful numbness of A Yin’s scalp, she stroked her long hair, as if smoothing the intractable knot of suffering in her life. Afterwards, A Luo watched her attentively, and slowly, solemnly opened up the territory which had never been stepped into by anyone for her.

A Yin, as if enticed, leaned in. A Luo had never been encroached on by anyone before in this illicit of a manner; the back of her head tilted up, a radian as if moonlight, her arm, supporting her behind, trembled faintly, and before long, she couldn’t help but hold A Yin’s face, stroking back and forth on the surface, and finally, urgently yet faintly, she called out to her: “A Yin, A Yin.”

Within A Luo’s shyness, for the first time, A Yin felt her own name was this pleasant to listen to.

The tide struck against the reef as if fixing the tone with a single hammer blow, and procrastinated in retreat; A Luo’s chest rose and fell unhurriedly, and her hand was still on A Yin’s chin. A Yin tilted her face, leaning against her thigh, her expression as if having been pulverised. Just then, she hadn’t used her hands, unwilling, not much daring, and not feeling like she deserved it. When A Luo leaned down towards her, she grew a bit more serene, and she muttered to her, “A Luo, I’m not afraid.” She rarely called her A Luo, and she also rarely didn’t put on airs and call herself “I”. In the daylight, she’d agreed to Li Shiyi’s proposal to search for the Bai Shai’s idol without difficulty, but only she herself knew that she’d long since abandoned hope, not hoping not entirely because of the uncertainty, but rather because she’d been in the quagmire for so long that she no longer thought of returning to the shore. Waiting for the Teng serpent’s primal essence’s efficacy to abate, how could she face the complete disorder of herself? Could she utterly strip away the memories of “serving” others, and act as if none of it had ever happened?

She feared that that dignified and arrogant A Yin would return, and say to her—you really make me want to vomit.

Then, what was she to do?

A Luo’s hand paused, and she tucked A Yin’s scattered hair behind her ear; she understood why A Yin had just then wanted her; she feared that after tomorrow, there wouldn’t be another opportunity to indulge her desires. She also understood A Yin’s sudden show of weakness gave rise to some hard to conceal sentiments. She had started to depend on her, to draw closer to her, and also started to open her inner heart to her.

A Luo’s heart was both warm and swelling; both pained and touched; she gently caressed A Yin’s back, taking her terror and shivering into her palm.

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