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 neither 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 ...

A Yin grew more lively. Although her complexion was still waxy, her eyes swollen like walnuts, and her hair coarse and rough, having forgotten to use infused water, her waist was bent, and when she trod with her high heels, her knees were held straight, not bent in the slightest, and she walked delicately and gracefully to Song Shijiu and Li Shiyi's side, saying she was hungry, and invited Song Shijiu out to eat. She though of having evaluated her own selfishness; it was absolutely right. The rose myrtle girl's words had been "Daren's sick", and the point she stayed on wasn't the "sick", but rather the "daren" of before. A Tao had called out the distant "Daren", and in her heart, she'd followed with an "A Luo", and the more she repeated it, the more comfortable it became, so comfortable that the strands of her hair stretched out. Perhaps in her unconscious mind, she still felt that Yanluo-daren possessed remarkable a...

A Yin gazed after A Luo's retreating figure, her heart thundering, truly stoppered up. She truly didn't understand how this Yanluo-daren, whose second nature was romance and seeking happiness elsewhere, had the pitiful, hard to look at appearance of having been ravaged a good number of times, as if it was she herself who had taken advantage of her. Some peoples' weakness was a weapon, their weakness causing them to have courage in their convictions. A Luo had been back for a few days; A Yin had moaned and groaned in pain for a few days, like a fighting cock whose comb had been cut, propping up her head, baffled, occasionally shooting a glance at the passing A Luo, plaintive and aggrieved, but if A Luo were to turn her head, that plaintiveness would suddenly be covered up with a hard shell, the cock's comb built up once more, parading ostentatiously about the town with a high head and a thrust-out chest. In the dead of the night, she was once more vexed, as if what was b...

The day that A Luo returned, the sunlight was cool and bright, gentle as moonlight. Wu Qian retrieved the clothes that the neighbouring auntie had washed and dried, spreading it on the wooden chair, having everyone else clear up their own. A Yin had just picked up a shawl with tassels, having a bit of a hard time remembering if was her own or Shijiu's, spreading it open to look at it carefully, and then, in the small openings made by the openwork patterns, saw A Luo stepping through the door. So, her and A Luo's reunion carried along with it a faint scent of honey locust. In a split second, the bustling hall fell into silence. One of Li Shiyi's legs straddled the the sofa's armrest, and Song Shijiu sat on a somewhat lower cushion, leaning against her, the motion of her hands folding a coat slowing. Wu Qian straightened, and A Yin set the shawl down, placing it on her knees and twisting it for a moment, instinctively moving her gaze away, staring at the pile of clothes f...

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 master. At the start, A Yin had even put on an act and chased it away; now it had been a long while, she no longer resisted, so as a result, A Luo often appeared in her dreams. She rose from the bed, ope...

A Yin carried her high heels, and returned to the alley, hobbling on bare feet. Wu Qian was startled when she called out for him; this lady who had been bright and neat on leaving now had hair in complete chaos, her sleeves wrinkled and creased in circles, the makeup on her face smudged frightfully, a small amount of her brilliant red rouge smeared by the side of her mouth, and she panted as she gazed at him. It was only the loss of love, yet she'd been tormented into this devastating state. Wu Qian put the book aside without batting an eyelid, and didn't say anything. A Yin smoothed her hair out, yet her first sentence was in a violently critical tone. "I say, your Taishan prefecture, is it poorly equipped or what?" Where had these words come from? Wu Qian didn't understand. A Yin fell onto the stool, her tone still uncharitable. "In the past, you said that the registry in the archive regulates the date of birth and the cause of death; so, if this many ghost...

This matter of A Luo leaving, A Yin discovered on opening her eyes. Some people, when leaving one's life, had a sense of ceremony; the rustling sound of sand would sweep across the bottom of the heart, like a rough cleaning rag erasing the traces. What was irritating was that, when she'd appeared, there wasn't necessarily an equal reminder, such that even her existence was quiet and noiseless, like some sort of indifferent person. As usual, A Yin shuffled about in her shoes as she got up, the knotted buttons from bottom to top gathering up her figure; seeing that the hour was still early, she washed her hair, and then, towelling her dripping hair, she sat before the mirror and applied her makeup. Ah, these brows, and ah, these eyes, they were truly, truly exquisite; the brows were like the curve of laugh lines when one smiled, and the lips were like the cinnabar between one's fingers as they read, and the fluid glance was like the ripples that spread when one made tea, ...

The fragrance drifted; A Yin sat at the scroll-end chair by the desk, her body still askew, the strands of hair in her bun meticulous and without a single strand loose, not even her brows ruffled, only her cheeks flushed a rosy pink, the amorous atmosphere brought out by the winter's day. She was twisting her handkerchief in her fingers, and she gazed at A Luo's profile tiredly. If one were to have the spirit of a character attached to them, A Luo ought to be the clerical script character "placid"; the flowing river of time had bestowed her with unhurried, even-tempered features, and gentle, affectionate eyes; the flutter of her nose and the inhalation and exhalation of her lips, they were all soft and dry, especially her love of wearing a black cheongsam, her slender figure becoming an upright, regular cross, her wan, pale face and wrists the empty stretches of fine xuanzhi paper. It was just a pity that A Yin's temperament was hectic and impatient, and from chil...