Chapter 80: Dreaming nine times of the lord for ten nights in the pavilion (V)

A Yin parted her lips, her eyelashes, as if having been pinched, flickering; in the end, she didn't say anything. Her mind involuntarily passed over the past half lifetime, from the helplessness of her chin being pinched by an old female servant in the firewood shack, to trembling with fear the first time she'd descended into a tomb, to the long desolation and emptiness after the first time she'd spent time with a man; these things which tormented her were now easily separated. A high mountain rose in her life, which had been full of potholes, A Luo here, and the suffering there. She really wished she could be a bit more pure, and steadily and steadfastly receive this fondness of A Luo's.

She lowered her head, her sharp face not arrogant, nor brash, only pressing her lips together and drawing in a couple breaths, her hand twisting strands of hair that she didn't know when she'd grasped. She was somewhat unwell; she felt that she herself had grown a not very healthy heart; when A Luo was about to leave, it advanced bravely, and when A Luo had returned, it affected shyness.

A Yin marshalled her bravery and looked at A Luo; she didn't know whether it needed much longer to be restored to health, but she was willing to make an effort this time.

A Luo raised her hand and tugged at her fingertips, entwining her fingers like A Yin had twined the strands of hair, and asked her, "Weren't you about to acknowledge your mistake?"

Some peoples' lives were wind, and, brushing off their icy aloofness, in a few moments, they'd transform. So, A Yin raised her head, and nodded.

A Luo smiled, tilting her head, and asked once more, "What sort of mistake will you acknowledge, then?" As she spoke, the back of one of her hands stroked the front of her skirt, her posture as if truly wanting to hear her apologise.

A Yin gazed at her, and said, "I should have treated you more frankly, not say anymore that I didn't want what I wanted, and not say anymore that what I felt was good wasn't good." Her final syllable didn't have the enchanting affectation, having been made low and choked by the cold; A Luo unconsciously grasped her fingers tightly, her thumb pressed against the protruding joints, gazing at her earnestly and with intent.

A Yin lowered her gaze and her voice at the same time, and finally said, "If I were to meet someone I wasn't willing to part from, then I shouldn't let her feel unhappy anymore."

The words hadn't finished when A Luo rose and leaned forward, tilting her face and enclosing her lips.

She oughtn't have kissed her at this time, but she felt that there should this sort of sense of ceremony, which should be able to swallow down A Yin's sincere promise, and quietly place it within her body. She kissed more touchingly than any of the previous times; that sound of "someone I wasn't willing to part from" had a touch of hesitation, entirely striking her; it caused the rims of her eyes to burn, having a hard to maintain warmth.

A Luo closed her eyes, the entirety of what was within the sea of her mind this messy-haired woman, the tip of her nose rosy red, the skin of her lip bitten ragged, her eyelashes rubbed into a disarray, cutting a sorry figure as they touched the corners of her eyes. She thought of the appearance of Fu Wuyin the first time she'd met her: she had also been sobbing and sniffling, gazing at her with teardrops suspended on the eyes she'd been rubbing. At that time, she'd only seen her by chance, and it had only been a glance.

A Luo extended her hand, gently supporting A Yin's delicate, stubborn neck.

The afternoon sunlight broke in; by the time it came to the bed, it had some mellow shyness. The two had completed a long, wonderful kiss; laying opposite her, she listened to A Luo read the letter that Tu Laoyao had sent. The letter had been written by a xiansheng at the roadside, and the start had a cultured wellwish;^[1] the back half, come to think of it, was that xiansheng, due to struggling with Tu Laoyao's boorish, coarse speech, following his speech to copy down each character without missing one.

A coarse person's words coming from the voice of an incredibly gentle woman's voice was incredibly pleasant to listen to, yet A Yin didn't have the inclination to listen to Tu Laoyao's longwindedness; just then, after kissing A Luo, she had actually become distant without reason, at a loss for words, and had said, "I just drank the medicine, is it bitter?".

Within A Luo's startled quiet, she'd become panicked with bashfulness, and, touching her earrings, turned around, pulling out the letter on the bedside, making A Luo read it for her. A Luo understood tacitly, pressing her faint smile into the edge of the letter paper.

The letter had just about come to a close; A Luo was about to raise her eyes, yet the letter in her hand was tugged by A Yin, laying crosswise between the two; in the clear letter paper, A Luo saw A Yin curving her neck, separated by the scent of ink, facing her as she said, "Let's just call this good."

Her charming and gentle outline was incredibly amorous within the frank words, such that even her breath caused one's heart to itch; A Luo's hand, pinching the paper, paused, and then she softly agreed. "Alright."

A Yin extended her hand, pulling up a lock of A Luo's hair which had fallen onto the pillow, playing with it in the hollow of her palm, and said once more, "If you haven't thought it through, then just tell me."

A Luo put down the letter, setting it to the side, and stretched her palm out to place on A Yin's cheek, pressing gently; she'd initially wanted to say she wouldn't, but after considering it, she parted her lips and agreed with an, "Alright."

Only then did A Yin's heart settle, and, as easily as driving a lightweight chariot on a familiar road as before, laid in her embrace, laying in the distinctive cool scent, the corners of her lips faintly rising. A Luo encircled her, and asked in a low voice, "You still haven't told me, how did you understand it?"

A Yin drew her spirit back, her index finger drawing up the hair at A Luo's neck, and she replied easily, "In the past, I assumed that we weren't of the same kind, but these few days, I realised, I also have a peculiar ability."

A Luo knew that she'd once more started blurting out nonsense, but didn't lay her bare, only asking, "What sort of ability?"

A Yin's glance swept across her, delicate and graceful. "Inviting immortals to write with a planchette, and divining prophecies."

A Luo furrowed her brows, and heard A Yin laugh lowly. "In the past, I taught Xiao Shijiu the trick of 'being lovely as a flower', and she stopped growing a year in a day, and after, I taught her the magic of the imperial times, and the heavens honoured me, and it was effective." She raised her brows, and said to A Luo, "Tell me, isn't this an ability?"

A Luo hadn't yet replied; the tenderness of a silk flower blossomed at the sides of her lips, and she said to her, "Then, you can divine another, today's."

"Today," A Yin bit her lower lip, enclosing A Luo's tender smile within the light and shadow of the corners of her eyes, and she blinked, then said softly, "there ought to be two women, who can live to a ripe old age in conjugal bliss."

A Luo stilled, lowering her gaze, and quietly observed her. A Yin's breaths rose and fell, and in A Luo's gaze, she felt an unprecedented insignificance; originally, she'd only been a person who couldn't be even more common, without any steel body, nor remarkable abilities; she'd used much, much time to stagger along in a mundane life, and only later had found something she could call eternal. She'd already been indignant due to lingering fear towards Wu Qian, and pondered whether or not the torments of her life had been because she'd cried for three days at Mount Tai's seat. Now, she thought that those three days at the Taishan seat had been exchanged for the instability of the first half of her life, yet had also exchanged for the woman in her heart; if it were to be calculated like this, then she didn't really feel too unlucky.

A Luo drew back her spirit, wanting to speak but hesitating. A Yin spoke before she could. "I know your hair can't go white, but in huaben literature, gods and ghosts can all put up a smokescreen; if I were to grow old, you could change your appearance, and deceive me, alright?"

A Luo smiled calmly, and nodded. "I'll go learn it."

Listening to her meaning, she didn't know how to build a ghost wall, and didn't even know how to put up a smokescreen; she didn't know what exactly she'd been studying these past one-thousand eight-hundred years. A Yin pouted, cursing silently in her heart a couple times, but her doubts didn't pass her lips, and were dispelled entirely within A Luo's motions. Her soft, slightly cool fingertips brushed A Yin's hair behind her ear, and she rubbed her earlobe, as soft as glutinous rice, and then meandered downwards, skating down her neck as if encircling a city, pausing beneath her collarbone.

Within A Luo's starting and stopping motions, she felt a lingering longing, not too heavy, yet as if having been constrained, rebellious thoughts rising. So, A Yin extended her hand, guiding A Luo's hand back to the soft palce it ought to be, attentively watching the soft shifting of her shoulders, the soft yet solid armour, and scratched at A Luo's palm. Longing, having changed into a pike, drew circles on the soft shield made by the lifeline, causing A Luo to unconsciously part her pursed lips, as if the rope that tied her to reservation had been cut.

What was more implicating than A Yin's motions were her words; she lowered her eyes, and said, "My illness is only a bluff, it isn't truly severe. If I were able to sweat it out, then it'll be all good."

Her hint was clear enough; A Luo closed her attractive phoenix eyes, and withdrew her hand, not waiting for A Yin's expression of loss to fill her cheeks, her index pressing against her lower lip with a faint pressure, pushing out the tender and plump colour, and then she raised her chin, stretching her fingers into her fragrantly scented lips. In a split second, they were enclosed by a warm heat, a tongue like a winding fish brushing over them.

A distinctive pinkness permeated A Luo's face, and her breathing was no longer as steady as before; A Yin was just about to move when she saw her draw out her hand, her fingertips pressing as she coughed lightly, and said softly, "Today won't do."

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Translator's notes:

[1]: Specifically 展信佳 (zhan xin jia), wishing the reader well.