Chapter 76: Dreaming nine times of the lord for ten nights in the pavilion (I)

A Luo had said she didn't have any other magic, but A Yin felt that she did. For example, the art of entering dreams, she had to have studied to the point of perfection.

A Yin opened her eyes; waking in the dark night, as silent as a coffin, the tip of her nose was filled with the antique wooden scent of the bed, carved with decorated patterns; the receptacles at all sides were this familiar, and it trapped her beautiful dream within, sealing it with long nails, and then buried it underground, turning it into a secret lost to death.

Longing was something which, once it started, there was no stopping, and it was the most shameless, wanting a chi once a cun was won; as long as you gave it a crack in the door to seep through, it would come live along with its family, as if it were the owner. At the start, A Yin had even put on an act and chased it away; now the days had grown old, she no longer resisted, so as a result, A Luo often appeared in her dreams.

She rose from the bed, opening the door, stiff with boredom, and gazed into the empty corridor somewhat absent-mindedly; she remembered that there was a woman who, in the past, would delicately stand in the midst of the suspended moonlight, raising her head to say to her: the window is closed tightly, and the quilt is also tucked a bit more firmly. Her hair was incredibly fine, and when it was spread on the pillow, it was as smooth as satin thread.

A Yin rubbed her own fingers a few times, and then suddenly sighed. A Yin understood perfectly that many people and matters, by nature, didn't have a head or tail, but people usually wouldn't haggle over every cent and debate over wordings; if you believed that a story needed to be secured with a conclusion, then that meant that it was incredibly important. But the conclusion wasn't necessarily for one to reconcile one's self to loss, but to weigh the quantity of the sense of not being reconciled.

A Luo's leaving was precisely that weighing balance; the balance lowered A Yin's misgivings and evadings down, and raised her love upwards; the scale was the days since she'd disappeared; the longer the time was, the deeper the notch.

She closed the door and exited, and rapped on Wu Qian's door.

Wu Qian was drowsy-eyed, his brows furrowed like earthworms that had just crawled out of the dirt, yet his words didn't have any temper. "Is something the matter?"

A Yin pouted enchatingly. "Will you play mahjong?" She didn't have a way to go disturb Li Shiyi and Song Shijiu; only the ghostly messenger was as solitary as she was.

Wu Qian turned his head and looked at the Western clock on the wall, then turned his head back. "It's yinshi." Three in the early morning; Wu Qian was accustomed to to translating it into the twelve shichen.

A Yin rubbed her neck, the motion bringing out faint red traces, and said, "Nevermind," turning her head and about to leave.

Yet Wu Qian thought on it for a moment, and said, "Since you've come, take the letters."

"Letters?" A Yin raisied a brow, leaning against the wall.

Wu Qian retreated, and from the desk's drawers took out a few bits of fragmentary paper, holding them in his hand as he walked over; A Yin narrowed her eyes; when she saw them clearly, in a brief second her heart was engulfed in a gale. Her snow-white chest heaved, and her heel retreated, as if wanting to flee in defeat. But she only licked her dry lips, her gaze moving upwards from the familiar papers, rising to Wu Qian's face, and in a hoarse voice she asked him, "What are you giving them to me for?"

They were torn by her; what are you giving them to me for?

Wu Qian extended his arm, holding them out to her. "Daren has left, yet didn't take them along. Your things naturally need to be returned to their rightful owner."

Her heart constricted, as if being kicked by a rabbit; A Yin didn't extend her hand, only looking at him with an easy expression. "My things?"

Wu Qian cleared his throat. "The heavens won't age, making love…"

"Stop," A Yin extended a hand to halt him, and remembered A Luo's dim, dispirited appearance, and couldn't help but thrust out a phrase. "I've already heard it, it's absurdly pretentious."

Wu Qian inclined his head, furrowing his brows and cast a look askance at her. "You even write pretentiously?"

"Me?" A Yin blinked a couple times, the suspicions in her heart causing her opposition to not be very confident, and she raised a hand to cover up her chin.

Wu Qian stuffed the letters into her other hand, leaning against the door frame, tiredly thinnking about returning to bed to sleep promptly. "They're what you wrote to daren in the past; love letters." His last two characters were bitten off with stress, his fingers, crooked against the wooden door, tapping lightly.

A Yin opened her mouth, the two characters of "show-off" circling about, stopping at her jaw; she was neither angry nor not angry. She drew a harsh breath, and after a few moments, understood. "Fu, Fu Wuyin…"

The disaster she'd caused?

Wu Qian looked at her with an expression for a traitor to one's love.

A chill ran down A Yin's spine, spiking at the lips covered up by the five fingers on her jaw. Wu Qian said, expressionlessly, "There's also a contract."

A Yin's eyelashes fluttered like an electric fan in the summertime, and only with great effort was she able to control it, and let loose her jaw, which had been biting her lower lip, and then massaged her face and stroked her ear. Wu Qian looked at her, and then closed the door and returned to the room.

Sweat had arisen on her palms, wicking onto the somewhat aged paper; A Yin took the letters in her other hand, her thumb rubbing the edges, which had been ripped uneven, as if it were her chest which had been torn open, the letters' pain also having vitality. She lowered her head and looked for a while, and only then did she raise her neck, the back of her head striking softly against the icy-cold wall, and then she walked to the head of the flight of stairs and sat down, and, using the moonlight, began to piece together the letters.

The disordered fragments and her chaotic emotions, she spread on her skirts and flicked through, no longer piecing them together, her hand on her chin, dazed. She had never before wanted to cry like this.

When shifu had passed away, she'd said to herself that she wouldn't cry, and so not even a single bead had fallen; when questioning Li Shiyi, she had said it ought to be the time to cry, and her tears had welled up uncontrollably. But now wasn't the same; whether or not she had the desire to weep, it swelled greater than the sky, and only opening her stinging eyes, she gazed muddily at the inky-black staircase.

She tucked away the letters A Luo had ripped apart, and thought of the punishment of longevity that Shijiu had spoken of. Perhaps she'd thought mistakenly at first; her and A Luo didn't have any difference in station, nor was it single-sided charity; maybe, like A Luo had redeemed her, A Luo also needed her greatly. Needed her to act as the novel memory in her endless yet meaningless life, needed her to come explain the significance of time and waiting.

This bit of being needed appearing caused A Yin's heart to thunder as if she were approaching her coffin, the pattering filling the lonely night entirely

Rainwater and sunlight loved most to rival their affections in the mountain city; the black clouds tore away the splendid sun, and the drizzle fell down, not yielding an inch. Burrowing away in the house on rainy, overcast days was the most comfortable, yet the incense furnace lit in the study, while not as warm as the wood stove, still dispersed some of the darkness.

The silhouettes of two entwined women were cast on the lattice window, the slightly taller one sitting behind the desk in the scroll-end chair, raising her gaze from the fine xuanzhi paper, and asking softly, "The last phrase of the puppet trick, is it written like this?" Her features were as if having gone through the rain, cool and fine, clever and neat.

Song Shijiu faced her, her hands supported on the table, and she tilted her head, looking carefully, then raised it and looked at her. "Isn't it?"

Li Shiyi cast a look at her, and, raising her brush, altered two characters.

Song Shijiu's line of sight followed the roving motion of her writing, and at the end, she let out a soft, "o". Li Shiyi set the brush down, eyes lowered, looking at her calves, which swung, suspended, in midair, her toes only rising halfway, her scallion-pale heels lazily emerging, idly tapping against the table legs.

Li Shiyi extended her right hand and grasped the heel of her shoe, using a bit of effort to raise it, putting the shoe on her properly, her fingers laying against her angle; she raised her clear eyes, and said, "Who taught you to wear shoes like this?"

Song Shijiu said guilelessly, "A Yin."

Li Shiyi drew her gaze aaway from her face after only two moments, and when she withdrew her hand, her fingers improperly hooked the hollow behind Song Shijiu's knee, and then, as if nothing had happened, she flipped open a book. Song Shijiu bit her lower lip, and stroked her numb knee, then, wishing to continue, massaged it.

As the proverb went, don't speak of right and wrong leisurely without reason; having just mentioned A Yin, the venerable, delicate flower-like woman pushed the door open. A Yin, seeing that Song Shijiu and Li Shiyi were sitting facing each other, was slightly startled, but she didn't take it to heart at all, and only directly walked over to the desk, propping her hands up on it, and without even exchanging pleasantries, leaned over and began to speak to Li Shiyi. "Shiyi, tell me, what is the greatest merit of my person?"

Li Shiyi furrowed her brows, and exchanged a glance with Song Shijiu.

"Beauty," A Yin concluded her question.

Song Shijiu blinked a couple times.

"Now, say," A Yin narrowed her peach-blossom eyes, "what's my greatest shortcoming?"

Li Shiyi didn't even part her lips, tilting her head and waiting for her to speak.

"It's hypocrisy."

Song Shijiu supported her jaw.

A Yin laughed softly, and, separated by the wide table, gazed at Li Shiyi. "Now, say, what's my greatest inferior characteristic?" This time she didn't even pause, and like a wisp of smoke, spoke it. "It's selfishness. If I were to see something good, even if my mouth says I don't want, I don't want, my heart would still long to grab it firmly."

She paused, staring fixedly at Li Shiyi; her curved, long, scowling brows above her peach-blossom eyes at this moment were docily lowered, as if having been struck by a gale, dispirited and delicately cowardly.

Li Shiyi's shoulders fell, and her spine leaned against the back of the chair; she pressed her lips together for a few moments, and then immediately shook her head, laughing lightly. She said, "I understand."

When she finished speaking, she raised a single right brow to Song Shijiu, and then rose and left.

In the hall downstairs, Wu Qian was still flipping through a book on war strategy, when he heard clear footsteps, neither hurried nor slow, descend the stairs, and walk before him, the fragrance hitting his face, the tall shadow falling by his side. A single, jade-pale hand paused on the right side of the page, index finger crooked, tapping against the tabletop. He raised his head, and saw Li Shiyi say indifferently, "Call her back."

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