Chapter 36
Ting-zhi had never taken off his robes quite as fast as today.
In some half-formed corner of his mind, he was afraid that if he moved too slowly, Yun-si might change her mind.
When he turned around, he saw Yun-si had already let down her hair and was struggling with the intricate fastenings of her wedding attire.
“Let me help.” His voice came out rougher than he intended.
Yun-si stilled, her dark eyes flicking up to meet his. For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. Then, slowly—so slowly he could track each increment of movement—she released her grip on the stubborn knots at the front of her robes and let her arms fall to her sides, staring at him.
The silk cords were tight, tangled from the day’s ceremonies.
His fingers brushed the nape of her neck as he worked at them, her skin impossibly soft beneath his fingertips.
The scent of peach blossoms wrapped around him, sweet and intoxicating, and he had to swallow before he could speak again. “You’re trembling.”
“I’m not.” the lie was obvious in the way her breath hitched when his knuckles brushed her neck. He could see the way her fingers twitched at her sides, as if she was deciding whether to reach for him or to push him away.
The last knot gave way with a whisper of fabric.
The outer robe parted and slipped from her shoulders in a slow, inevitable descent.
It pooled at her feet in a circle of crimson, leaving her standing before him in nothing but the thin inner robes of sheer pink silk.
The candlelight turned the fabric translucent, tracing the shadow of her collarbone, the delicate curve of her breasts.
Ting-zhi’s breath stalled.
This was different from the dreams. This was real.
He forced himself to still, to meet her gaze instead of letting his eyes wander where they ache to go. “Si-er,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I want to kiss you. Can I kiss you now?”
Her eyelashes fluttered, and she lowered her gaze as if considering. Then she lifted her chin and closed her eyes. “Yes.”
Her lips were warm, parting under his with a trust that made his chest ache. He angled his head, deepening the kiss, his thumb brushing the delicate shell of her ear.
His palm slid down her back, fingers spreading over the dip of her spine, tracing the curve of her lower back, then lower down, caressing the knob at the bottom of her spine with his fingers over and over again.
Yun-si jerked back, her eyes narrowing to slits. “What are you doing?”
Ting-zhi’s face burned. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. How does one explain groping for a fox tail that doesn’t exist?
Her expression darkened. “You were checking for something.”
“I—”
“Zhi-zhi.” His name was a warning.
He exhaled, one hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. “It’s... complicated.”
“Were you just checking,” she asked, almost sweetly, “for a tail?”
The silence stretched.
“...Yes,” he finally admitted, because he had just sworn never to deceive her again.
She stared at him. He met her gaze with the expression of a man who knew there was a cliff somewhere in the fog and he was walking toward it.
“How,” she asked carefully, “did you know about the tail?”
She watched his face first go blank with confusion, then his eyes widening as understanding dawned.
“... I had a dream.” he said.
They stared at each other in horror as the full weight of revelation came crashing down around them.
“How much,” Yun-si asked, her voice trembling at the edges, “do you remember of the dreams?”
“Everything?”
Every dream. Every moment. Everything done under the absolute certainty that there were no consequences because it was just a dream.
She felt faint thinking about the second dream—what she’d allowed, what she’d wanted, the way she’d pressed against him when the dream had made everything feel safe and secret. Her face burned scarlet.
“You,” she said. “This whole time—”
“I didn’t know you were having the same dreams,” he said quickly, the words tumbling over each other in his haste to explain. “I thought it was only me. That you weren’t—that they were my dreams—”
Yun-si opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
He wasn’t lying. Not exactly.
Neither of them had known. Both of them had been so certain the other was oblivious, that the dreams were theirs alone, private and untouchable.
Both of them had been entirely wrong.
“So you were there,” she said slowly. “For all of mine.”
“Yes.”
A pause that felt like contemplating life on the edge of a precipice.
“And I,” she said, with terrible, precise clarity, “was there. For all of yours.”
Something shifted in his expression. A different kind of stillness.
“...Yes,” he said, considerably more carefully.
“I cut you down with a sword.” she said finally.
He considered this with the gravity it deserved.
“It was very well choreographed,” he said at last. “The footwork especially.”
Despite everything, Yun-si found herself fighting back a smile. “I’ve been practicing.”
After another excruciating silence, during which Ting-zhi suspected Yun-si might want to cut him down again, she whispered, “Does it really feel like that?”
“Like what?” Ting-zhi blinked, confused by the sudden change in topic.
Yun-si bit her lips and hesitated a little before answering. “Like... the second dream, with the tail.”
“Do you...” Ting-zhi’s throat was so constricted it was hard to get the words out. “Do you want to find out?”
Yun-si’s breath came faster as she remembered the second dream, her chest rising and falling beneath the sheer silk.
His gaze followed the movement, then lifted to meet hers again.
She could see the desire in his eyes, this wasn’t the dream’s exaggerated fantasy—it was real, raw, and entirely for her.
She swallowed. And then, before she could change her mind, she took his hand and led him to the bed.
Ting-zhi set her down on the bed gently and braced himself over her.
Her hair spread over the bed, mesmerizing him.
He buried his face in the strands, inhaling the warm fragrance of her, and pressed a soft kiss to the side of her head.
Then, his touch feather-light, he slid his palm down her arm and brought her wrist to his lips, kissing the place where her pulse jumped.
“Tell me what you want,” he coaxed softly.
The words sent a shiver through her. This was the difference between dreams and reality—this hesitant, heart-pounding negotiation. She wet her lips and whispered up to him. “I read some books... the illustrated ones.”
He hiccupped.
Yun-si twisted around and pulled a small book from under the pillow. She had hidden it there while waiting for Ting-zhi. Ting-zhi sat back up and took it gingerly. Only his wife would take out a book in the middle of a kiss on the bed on her wedding night.
The Seventy-Two Postures. The title read innocently.
Ting-zhi flipped open the book and the first thing he saw was The Sitting Lotus Position. He choked.
Yun-si studied his reaction. “Are these really doable?”
“Maybe?” he offered.
Yun-si took the book back from his hands and flipped through several pages with scholarly determination. “This one looks manageable,” she announced, pointing to an illustration that made Ting-zhi’s eyebrows climb toward his hairline.
“Si-er,” he said carefully, “perhaps we should start with something... simpler?”
“Simpler than what? It’s just sitting.” She tilted her head, studying the page with focused attention. “Have you ever tried any of these before?” she asked casually, too casually.
Ting-zhi’s survival instincts kicked in, and he said firmly, “No.”
“But you are Moonlit Brush.” Yun-si raised her eyes. “You wrote all those...”She gestured vaguely with one hand, eyeing him dubiously.
“My imagination makes up for what I lack in experience.” Ting-zhi made a sound somewhere between laughter and panic. “And in my imagination and dreams, it has always been you.”
Ting-zhi lifted the book from Yun-si’s fingers and tossed it on the bed, where it landed with a soft thud. He cupped her face and leaned in until his breath ghosted over her lips.
“Yun-si,” he murmured, already moving closer, “can we just start with kissing, like in the dreams, but real?”
Without waiting for an answer, Ting-zhi kissed her. His mouth explored hers with a slow sweetness, determined to savor every brush of lips, every shared breath.
This, he thought, his mind hazy with want, this was what he’d been dreaming of.
This was what he’d been writing about in the dead of night, hunched over his desk scribbling scenes of stolen touches and whispered confessions.
Her softness, her scent, the way she melted into him as if she, too, had been waiting for this for years—waiting for the moment when the lines between fiction and reality blurred into something real, something theirs.
His fingers traced the line of her jaw, then lower, loosening the ties of her inner robes and sliding them off her shoulders until finally she was bare before him, save for the embroidered silk square—her dudou—tied with trembling ribbon bows at her neck and waist. The candlelight caught on the delicate flush spreading from her cheeks down to her collarbone, painting her skin in molten gold.
“Zhi-shi,” she breathed uncertainly, crossing her arms in a belated attempt at modesty that made Ting-zhi’s grin turn wolfish. Her nipples pebbled visibly beneath the thin silk despite the warm summer night.
“Don’t,” he rasped, capturing her wrists with surprising gentleness despite the possessiveness in his grip. “I want to see you.”
When she turned an even deeper shade of pink—if such a thing were possible—he couldn’t resist ducking his head to press an open-mouthed kiss to the pounding pulse on her neck.