Chapter 88: Dreaming nine times of the lord for ten nights in the pavilion (XIII)

Waiting for the night to become endless also caused the blue heavens to flourish with many possibilities.

Li Shiyi draped a crow-black outer garment over her shoulders, not having gone upstairs, only sitting in the drawing room, using the lamp to engrave a small item. The wood within her hand was fine and slender, the elaborate knifework carving out neat scales; her fingers covered up the horn at the head, like that of a deer, and swept away the wood shavings on the surface.

When she'd only carved it halfway, she stopped. What a dragon looked like, she'd never before seen with her own eyes. In paintings, in books, dragons' eyes were fierce and protruding, with the incredible might of a copper bell, but the wooden surface which she pressed against with the tip of the night felt that there ought to be lovable, soft eyelids, rising eyes, and slender, thick lashes, as well as bright, lustrous eyes. If there were to be a smile, they would narrow like the crescent moon, and have plump lower lids, as if heaped honey.

She set the carving knife down, and started to remember Song Shijiu with longing.

Speaking of it, this name of Song Shijiu's had also been chosen by her; at the time, it hadn't crossed her mind, and she'd called it out carelessly and perfunctorily. In the end, she didn't know whether she liked hearing her indifferently say "Shijiu", or others deferentially say "Jiu-daren". Her old friends, Zhu Yan and Yushiqie, what did they usually call her? Was it A Zhu, or A Jiu?

A Jiu, A Jiu; Li Shiyi felt that it was somewhat pleasant to listen to. Unexpectedly, she hadn't ever cared anymore about which of "Jiu" or "Shiyi" was larger.

She tightened her grasp on the upper garment, and stood up to go into the kitchen and pour a cup of boiling water; as she blew on it, she leaned against the table, sipping small mouthfuls, and raised her head to look a couple times at the swaying weight of the Western-style clock; then she straightened up, opening the door, about to go out into the courtyard to walk about.

The old-fashioned wooden door cried out loudly enough to shake the heavens as it moved, as if opening and closing it once were cutting off a piece of flesh. Li Shiyi furrowed her brows, yet when she raised her head, she saw Song Shijiu standing in the courtyard.

In the word, there were many things which would cause one's heart to, in a flash, move, all within "just happen to" and "fortunately"; it could be said that the person one was just thinking of appearing before them, but Song Shijiu's appearance, that also could be counted as a fortune.

Li Shiyi earnestly gazed at her; she was still wearing the moon-pale qipao of before, and her coat's racoon dog fur was dotted with a couple fragmentary leaves; the skirt of her clothes had a couple not too distinct, dried dirt marks. Her curly hair had been mussed into chaos, carelessly crowding around her pretty face unexpectedly even a bit more moving than neat tidiness.

What was even more moving was her expression; her eyes were clever and lively, yet her eyelids were lazily lowered, and her mouth was faintly curved, whether she was smiling or not unclear.

Li Shiyi carefully looked at the night dew at her temples once more; it seemed as if she'd been standing for a while. She was somewhat vexed; thinking of it, just then, she'd been carving with too much concentration, and hadn't heard her footsteps. "Where did you go?" Li Shiyi asked, her voice as if submerged in the breeze of a dream.

Yet Song Shijiu's answer disturbed the sweet dream even further. "You know." Her expression was calm and composed yet tacitly understanding; where she was, the person across from her had always known.

Li Shiyi's expression flickered, and she thought of when she herself had reclined in the bathing tub, hearing the sound of breathing on the roof. Song Shijiu, on the roof, had laid on her side by the high spine of the tiles, her cheek pillowed on the back of her hand, the undulating line of her body as beautiful as a mountain range drawn out by a skilled artist. As when she'd been on Mount Zhongshan, she breathed out and breathed in, opening and closing her eyes, thinking deeply in extreme quiet, and also in extreme quiet, sensing the warmth of bodies in this courtyard. A jackdaw alighted on her back, and leaves fell into her hair; she'd come from nature, and she'd returned to nature once more.

But what wasn't the same was that the orioles' songs and birds' cries didn't have the crisp sound of A Yin tossing tiles; the sun and moon and stars couldn't surpass the faint breath when Li Shiyi laughed lightly.

She closed her eyes, and within her eyes was entirely Li Shiyi. She still liked her like this; that liking hadn't been suppressed at all by the expansion of her memories, and actually, in the cracks, unwilling branches had grown, softly scraping against the inside of her heart.

Once Li Shiyi's spirit returned, having finished listening to her rising and falling breaths, she realised that a slight chill from the water in the tub had entered her bones; she stood up, and walked downstairs to the sound of dominoes, yet the entertainment which Song Shijiu usually loved the most didn't raise her interest. Her favourite foods didn't raise her interest either.

When night fell, she would still hear Song Shijiu's breaths; Li Shiyi laid on the bed, waiting; waiting for her breaths to become continuous and rhythmic, waiting for her to fall into a fragrant, sweet, beautiful dream.

She often restrained her worry about whether or not she would catch a could, and often wanted to lay an outer garment over her deeply-sleeping figure. Even if she were born with divine bones, and the temperature of the mortal world couldn't affected her, Li Shiyi could only uselessly worry.

However, the softest part of the human part was precisely called useless action.

Song Shijiu gazed at her, and said "You ask a question you already know the answer to."

Li Shiyi asked a question she'd already known the answer to once more, yet Song Shijiu didn't add on a phrase about whether or not she liked it. Li Shiyi's heart became strained in retrospect, her five viscera and six bowels eroding like wood eaten at by termites; she truly hadn't had the intention to play with Song Shijiu, but the complete opposite; her confidence was gone.

Song Shijiu had grown up in a comfortable honey pot, having been born happy and sweet-tempered; this was the first time she'd become hostile towards her; however, in the end, Song Shijiu would one day realise that love wasn't like a honey pot; if she by chance tasted a bit of tartness and bitterness, would regret and instability arise?

Li Shiyi's ring finger, held against her bosom, twitched, and only then did she realise that the the water within her embrace was actually boiling.

Song Shijiu took in the whole scene of her small motion, the corners of her lips rising minutely, and she walked towards Li Shiyi, opening her mouth to speak. The tip of her tongue pressed against her lips and teeth, and smilingly, she held back half a character, not knowing whether it was "Ling" or "Li"; in the end, she said, "Li Shiyi, you also have today."

These words she ought to have said a long time before; when imagining Ling Heng being desperately in a love as deep as the sea, she would scornfully, disdainfully scoff it out.

In the end, she'd said this phrase, but had only said it this gently, this sweetly, with this unwillingness to part. She gazed at Li Shiyi, and suddenly had a sense of predestination, having come to the same destination by a different route. "These few days, I've thought a lot, and I'm somewhat indignant. Indignant that, at that time, I lowered myself to say I like you, yet you locked your door and refused to see me."

The confident, careless Jiu-daren had been raised into this sort of mild-tempered state; that person had even availed themselves of the fire to steal, stealing away her own heart, even having an attitude of making excuses, and in the end, she'd reluctantly accepted it.

She saw Li Shiyi's expression carry a bit of pride which Song Shijiu had never before seen; this pride caused her expression to bright and radiant, yet not as sharp as before, having been wrapped in layer of soft outer clothing. What was even softer than her expression were her words; she said, "But in the end, you finally let me inside."

A woman whose age was just right, standing in the courtyard, permeated with moonlight, yet also seeming to stand within the heart, which Li Shiyi had, previously, closed the door and declined guests to.

"Just now, I was on the ground, gazing at your window; I thought, if you opened the window and looked at me, I wouldn't argue with you anymore. You didn't open the window, but you appeared before me. How am I doing, then? I had never expected it, yet it seems to be even better than what I had expected. I want to blame this trajectory, which doesn't adhere to common sense, but I don't know where it deviated from."

Her words were sincere yet gentle, and they caused Li Shiyi's chest to rise boundlessly; she'd never been this emotionally moved before; she no longer had perception of the boiling hot water in her hand, and it seemed as if her sense of hearing had expanded; she only wanted to sink into Song Shijiu's eyes, sink into her parting and closing lips.

She saw Song Shijiu tilting her head, and she said, "But you oughtn't have protected me; this was your mistake."

Li Shiyi pressed her lips together, saying hoarsely, "Yes."

Yet Song Shijiu smiled, putting her hands bind her back, and said, "Yet you protected me; this was only because I'd been hurt enough, isn't that right?"

Li Shiyi's smiling expression overflowed the boundary of her lips, and she nodded. "Yes."

Hurt to death. Walking, sitting, laying down; in words and expressions, all of those things which caused Li Shiyi to be unwilling to give up; she was the most powerful supernatural being who Li Shiyi had ever faced, and the most complex tomb into which she had ever pried into.

Song Shijiu became cheerful, her heels rising up, and she extended a hand to pull at Li Shiyi. Gripping her hand, she suddenly sighed. She had no way to explain to anyone the sense of her memories awakening; it was as if she herself had been a patient paralysed for a long time, and her body had started to have sensation from her toes, cun after cun of numbness, and then cun after cun of a beginning to move, numb enough to cause her to feel in pain, wishing but being unable to once more return to the sickbed, yet she also needed these two legs this much, and could only then, in good condition, walk to Li Shiyi's side.

A Jiu was good, Shijiu was also fine; she'd finally become this complete woman, having had a heavy dream of golden millet, and by her side, a true love who would truly be by her side.

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