Chapter 23
Afresh breeze carried peach blossom petals through her windows and unto her study table, but Yun-si barely noticed. Her fingers trembled as she broke the seal on Moonlit Brush’s reply.
She read it once. Twice. A third time, her lips curling into a smile she couldn’t suppress.
Yun-si pressed the letter to her chest, her heart pounding against her ribs. He replied. He actually replied. The words were elegant, teasing, exactly like the voice in his stories—the one that made her stay up late, ruining her eyes page by page in candlelight.
—which of my works has left the deepest impression upon you?
Moonlit Brush was asking for her opinions!
This was going to be a true exchange between writers!
This deserved a proper reply. Yun-si pulled down the collection of Moonlit Brush huabens gifted to her by Ting-zhi and flipped through them.
The margins were already jotted with notes, her favorite scenes marked.
She reached for her brush, inking her reply with careful strokes.
In Dreams of the Otherworld, I find it hard to believe that a man will fall in love with a fox spirit. Yet their love touches me...
That evening, Yun-si found Ting-zhi in the garden, idly leaning against the carved wood post of the pavilion and blowing on his xun.
Now that they are officially betrothed, Ting-zhi could spend time with her in the family gardens, where propriety was preserved by open pavilions and watchful servants.
The melody was slow and thoughtful, unlike his usual playful tunes.
The notes drifted across the still water of the pond like fallen petals.
“Ting-zhi,” she said, unable to hide her smile.
He glanced at her, one eyebrow lifting at her uncharacteristic brightness. “Mmm?”
She skipped to the pavilion in three quick steps, pulling the letter from her sleeve. “Look!”
Ting-zhi took it, his expression carefully neutral as he scanned the words. His words. His own handwriting, disguised by writing with his left hand instead
“Moonlit Brush replied,” Yun-si gushed, settling onto the bench beside him. The wood was still warm from the afternoon sun. “Isn’t it wonderful? He actually wrote back!”
Ting-zhi’s fingers tightened around the paper, crinkling the edge. He hadn’t expected her to be this affected. She looked just as she had when they were children and he had brought her a new huaben from the market.
“You sound... pleased,” he said slowly.
“Of course I’m pleased!” She took the letter back, tracing the characters with her fingertip as if they might disappear. “His words are just as beautiful in person. I—I didn’t think he’d actually respond.”
Ting-zhi studied her, something unfamiliar twisting in his chest. The sensation was sharp and uncomfortable. Jealousy? No, that was ridiculous. He was Moonlit Brush.
But she didn’t know that.
And the way she looked at the letter made his stomach clench.
“Don’t get too excited,” he said lightly, forcing his usual smirk. “He may just have been polite”
Yun-si shot him a sidelong glare. “I’m not excited. It’s just... nice. To talk to a fellow author.”
Ting-zhi hummed, noncommittal.
Yun-si folded her arms on the table and pillowed her head on them.
The light spring breeze stirred the soft silks of her dress, tangling them with Ting-zhi’s own dark blue sleeve.
Ting-zhi looked at their tangled robes for a moment, then lifted a hand and gently patted the head of the girl who was curled up like a contented cat beside him.
Outside the pavilion, the garden lanterns flickered to life, casting their reflections in the still pond below, where the water rippled just enough to blur the edges of reality.
His mouth found the xun again, and a wistful melody floated across the garden.
That night, as he lay in bed staring up at the canopy, her delighted face burned into his mind like a brand.
DAYS PASSED. THEN A week.
“Nothing again?” Yun-si asked in disappointment, as Chun-xi returned empty-handed from Golden House Books again.
Chun-xi shook her head. “The clerk said no letters have come for Mistress Shen.”
Yun-si pressed her lips together. Moonlit Brush had replied to her first letter with such promptness... had she offended him somehow? Had he thought her reply frivolous or silly, not worth another reply? She’d tried so hard to be clever and charming.
She abandoned her writing desk and wrapped herself in a light spring cloak, the tart spring air biting at her cheeks as she hurried through the streets to Autumn Leaf Literary Treasures. The door creaked mournfully when she pushed it open.
Old Wang looked up from polishing a set of stone seals. “Back so soon? Don’t tell me you’ve finished another manuscript already.”
Yun-si slumped onto a stool by the brazier she’d insisted Old Wang kept warm. “He hasn’t written back.”
“Bah!” Old Wang snorted, rubbing the stones with unnecessary vigor. “What did I tell you? These romance writers are all charm and no substance. Probably too busy seducing courtesans for research.”
She plucked at the embroidery on her sleeve. “But his last letter was so thoughtful. He asked about my favorite scenes from his stories—”
“And you fell for it.” Old Wang set the stone down with a clack. “Tsk. Honeyed words to keep you dangling. Classic tactic.”
Yun-si slumped further into her seat by the brazier, its warmth doing little to ease the tightness in her chest. She forced herself to take a steadying breath.
Perhaps there was some reasonable explanation for Moonlit Brush’s silence, but optimism felt as flimsy as rice paper against the creeping doubt.
She couldn’t force Moonlit Brush to reply, she thought grimly. But there were other things she needed to do if she wanted to revive Autumn Leaf.
“My mother’s steward,” she said, gathering her scattered thoughts, “has already filed the necessary documents with the magistrate’s office for the shop transfer.”
She paused, then straightened slightly, as though folding her uncertainties away. “We should discuss the renovation plans while we wait. The walls between the two shops will need to come down to combine the spaces, and I thought we could add a reading nook near the window...”
TING-ZHI FOUND YUN-si in the clan library that afternoon, chin propped on her hand as she stared blankly past an open book. Her brush lying abandoned beside her.
“Mmm.” He leaned against the desk, deliberately nudging her elbow. “If you’re going to mope, at least do it somewhere warmer.”
She blinked up at him, slow as if surfacing from deep water. “I’m not moping.”
“Of course not.” He plucked the book from her limp fingers and read the title aloud. “Agricultural Treatises of the Western Provinces. Truly gripping material.”
She snatched it back. “I was researching.”
“Researching how to bore your readers into an early grave?” His smirk faded when she didn’t rise to the bait. The shadows under her eyes were darker than yesterday.
He exhaled through his nose. This was ridiculous. He’d only meant to write that one letter and then let the correspondence lapse naturally. But watching her wilt like an unwatered peony...
“Ting-zhi, Moonlit Brush didn’t write back again. I—I was hoping to ask him something important.” Her expression was more than disappointed, it was forlorn.
Something inside Ting-zhi cracked. He had never been able to abide Yun-si’s sad face; had never understood why, exactly, except that she was like a flower he tended with care. When she bloomed, something in him lighted up; when she wilted, something in him did too.
Is this what love feels like, or only mine? Does she feel the same... or is it only me?
He leaned in slowly, gaze fixed on her lips, close enough to feel the warmth of her breath, close enough to see the pulse jumping at her throat. He watched her gulped and stared at him like a startled doe, trying to decide whether to close her eyes or shove him away.
At the last moment before he reached her lips, he turned his face slightly and murmured against her ear instead.
“If we are going to do research,” he said, “we should do interesting research.”
He brushed his lips against the shell of her ear deliberately, watching with satisfaction the shiver she couldn’t quite suppress. “Chapter seven of The Scholar’s Wicked Proposal, perhaps?
Before she could process the words, his hands slid beneath her arms.
In one smooth motion, he lifted her from the chair. Yun-si gasped, fingers scrambling for purchase against his shoulders.
“Put me down!” Her whisper was more air than sound as she kicked her legs in the air.
“My pleasure.”
But instead of setting her on her feet, he carried her toward the shadowed alcove behind the history scrolls, where the scent of aged paper and ink wrapped around them like a secret.
Her back met the cool wood of the shelf, and he braced one hand beside her head. In the dim light, his expression had shifted from teasing to something far more serious.
“Don’t look so sad for another man,” he said quietly. “I can’t bear it.”
The confession hung between them, raw and unexpected.
“Ting-zhi...”
Then his mouth was on hers, taking his time to taste the soft warmth of her lips.
He felt her hesitation and tenderly coaxed her with featherlight kisses and soft nuzzles, until he felt her relax against him, almost imperceptibly.
Her fingers curled into his robes and he lifted his lashes to watch her.
When her own eyes fluttered open in confusion at his pause, the hazy longing in them stole his breath.
He deepened the kiss, and she answered him, in her achingly gentle way.
The distant creak of floorboards shattered the moment.
Yun-si jerked back, shoving at his chest with both hands. “The library!” Her whisper was high-pitched in panic.
He stepped away immediately, hands raised in surrender.
“My apologies,” he said, though his grinning face looked anything but sorry. “I was merely... conducting research.”
She smoothed her rumpled dress with shaking hands, unable to meet his eyes. “That was not research, that was—that was—”
“Educational?”
“Scandalous.”
“Mmm. I’m glad you liked it.”
That night, he wrote another letter, hoping his flower would not be sad anymore.
But as he dipped his brush in ink, his hand trembled.