Chapter Text
There is a stranger looking back at her when Xiao Lanhua opens her eyes.
Opens may be a stretch. Squinting may be more accurate. Her eyelids feel as though they’ve been glued shut; the way she can barely see is probably why she can’t recognize who she’s with and where she is. She rubs at her eyes with her fists, attempting to clear her vision, when the stranger speaks.
“Who are you?”
Their voice is on the rougher, deeper side, but it’s not said unkindly. They sound genuinely curious and confused, and… a little scared. Just like she is. They must have woken up here not long before she did.
She blinks. Her vision readjusts, and finally she can see.
The stranger turns out to be a plainly dressed man, in only two layers of fabric; his innermost layer being black, and the layer on top being red with gold embroidery at the collar. The outfit is incomplete, like the rest had been stolen from him. His hair is let loose around his shoulders, looking as though a professional comb job was ruined, and his headpiece had fallen off.
Xiao Lanhua glances down at her own clothes. She’s also in plain robes, though her innermost layer is a pale shade of mint, with her top layer being a deep green stitched with intricate patterning. Her hair is down as well, though the usual weight of her hair accessories is gone.
…Maybe they had attended the same event somehow?
She looks back up at the man and makes a polite bow with her hands in greeting. “Hello! My name is Xiao Lanhua! I’m sorry, but I don’t seem to know your name either. In any case, it’s nice to meet you!”
The man tilts his head, as if considering something, then bows to her as well. “Benzuo’s name is Dongfang Qingcang.”
Huh. The name doesn’t ring a bell. Should it, if she’s been stuck in this unknown place with him? And why is he talking so formally? She’s never heard anyone speak of themselves in third person like that… she doesn’t even think Yunzhong-jun does, and his status is the highest in Shuiyuntian!
Well, she supposes it doesn’t matter much now. Whether she knows him or not, she’ll work with him to figure things out together!
“Dongfang Qingcang,” she repeats, testing it out on her tongue. It’s a little clunky, but it’s a pretty name, and she can get used to it. “Um, do you know where we are?”
Slowly, he nods yes. He grimaces slightly before he speaks, as if he’s bracing for something.
“This is Haotian Tower,” he explains, gesturing at the lit-up matrix above them. “That is the matrix that keeps us trapped here. It makes sense that you don’t know what it looks like on the inside. You’ve likely never done any harm in your life.”
Xiao Lanhua gasps, her hands flying up to her mouth. “Haotian Tower?! You mean where they— where the Shuiyuntian officials throw the worst immortal criminals and people of the Yuezu?!”
Dongfang Qingcang nods in confirmation, looking pained as he does so. Xiao Lanhua can’t tell why— as far as she’s concerned, this is all a big mistake. If she’s not a part of the Yuezu or an immortal criminal, then there’s no explanation for her being here! Which means they caught Dongfang Qingcang by accident too, probably because they were at the same party!
She stands up abruptly, determination fueling her. “I’m going to find a way out of the matrix and ask Yunzhong-jun for an audience! I’m not a criminal, and I don’t think you are either! We’ve been wrongly imprisoned!”
Dongfang Qingcang turns to her, standing as well. “Actually, Benzuo is—”
“I just can’t believe they put me in here!” she barrels on, right over him. “I’ve done nothing wrong! I’m just a nameless orchid plant spirit that fixes Destiny Books all day long! And I was so close to retiring too, I only had a few more books left… Then I…”
She can’t seem to remember an after, but she knows there is one. She must have hit her head hard. Oh well. “Anyway, my point is, I’m not a bad person or a traitor! You were just in the same place as me… you shouldn’t have gotten dragged into this, I’m so sorry, I’ll make it up to you! I’ll set the story straight!”
Dongfang Qingcang’s lips part, speechless. Xiao Lanhua walks over and pats his shoulder in consolation. Poor guy! He must have been having a regular day before he’d ended up here!
Feeling a bit guilty, she wonders if he has his family searching everywhere for him now. She’ll have to apologize to them when they leave this place… maybe she’ll send them some flowers and pastries too. Sorry for trapping your son in jail with me, I didn’t mean to!
Hmm. She’ll brainstorm better apology gifts later. For now, Xiao Lanhua places her hands on her hips, staring up at the matrix. It looks overly complicated, with intersecting runes and formations, truly created to keep the good out and the bad in.
How bad can someone be to deserve this kind of prison? she thinks, then balks.
This matrix wasn’t built specifically for her, was it? What in the three realms did she do to warrant this kind of punishment?! And why can’t she remember?!
Did Jieli report her for not paying back her debts or something? It was only a few hundred spirit stones… okay, maybe in the thousands… but surely atonement for that crime doesn’t require this level of security!
“Uh,” she says nervously, turning back to Dongfang Qingcang. She points up at the matrix, gesturing at the runes holding it together. “Do you know how to crack that?”
He shakes his head. “Benzuo has already looked at it from all angles. It is impenetrable and only able to be entered from the outside by those that created it. To leave, we must teleport.”
“Teleport,” she echoes, eyebrows furrowing. “But that’s easy! Even a barely 2000 year old fairy like me knows how to do that! How can it restrain the powerful criminals here?”
Dongfang Qingcang gives her a pointed look. “You can try it and see.”
Xiao Lanhua frowns at his tone. He’s not saying it like he wants to trap her, just that he wants her to believe him, and she does want to see if she can…
She closes her eyes and channels some of her spiritual energy, thinking of her destination. Simingdian’s wooden walkways, her beloved greenhouse, her flower friends… and snap!
Her eyes flutter open, and for a second she thinks she’s made it. “Ha! I told you it was—”
Someone clears their throat. Her eyes refocus. There Dongfang Qingcang stands, his arms crossed and an eyebrow raised: “What were you saying just now?”
“What,” she gapes. She whirls around, and they are in fact still in Haotian Tower. She hasn’t left. She’s not back in Simingdian. How?! “Why didn’t it work?”
Dongfang Qingcang shrugs. He flexes his hand experimentally, and a small blue light flickers before extinguishing. He sighs. “Our powers are limited here. That includes the basic skill of teleportation and transportation.”
“Noooo,” she whines, unable to help herself. Let her be upset, okay? This is a difficult situation! “If we can’t break the matrix or teleport, then what do we do?”
Dongfang Qingcang hums. “Have you heard of dual cultivation?”
Xiao Lanhua chokes. Has she heard of—
“Yes,” she replies quickly, her face burning. “I’ve… heard of it. Definitely haven’t… seen anything. Or read anything. Or—”
“Xiao Huayao,” Dongfang Qingcang says, amused. The nickname feels like a tease, but one that isn’t meant to be cruel. It settles over her nicely, like a fleece blanket in the cold of winter, and she has no idea why. “That version of it is not what Benzuo is referring to. What Benzuo means is the combination of spiritual power from two or more people, to strengthen each other and improve their cultivation. They must have placed spiritual seals on us to restrain our powers. They must be breakable after a certain point of power is reached.”
“I don’t understand,” Xiao Lanhua says, understanding perfectly. “You want me to… you want…”
“The process of dual cultivation varies depending on what the goals of those involved are,” Dongfang Qingcang continues. “Our goal is to break the seals, so that is what we will do.”
“We will?—”
Dongfang Qingcang doesn’t give her another moment to comprehend what’s going on. He crosses over to her in a few steps, then takes her by the wrist and presses two fingers to it. Immediately, she feels a steady flow of qi entering her system, flooding her with warmth. It feels familiar and soothing, but they’ve just met, haven’t they?
So why does he feel so safe?
“Hey,” she blurts, grabbing his wrist as well. His entire body tenses at the action; his fingers press harder on her wrist, and his eyes widen a fraction, flickering from her grasp to her face. “We have to do this together, right? You can’t do all of the work and make me look bad. It’s called dual cultivation for a reason.”
“Right,” he says, sounding strangled. “Yes, of course. Carry on.”
With that, she concentrates her own qi and lets it stream into his wrist, her green intermingling with his blue. Their two spirits seem to dance around each other, in perfect balance, like they’re old friends. She can feel her own soul getting stronger, brimming with potential, and she knows he must feel the same when he locks eyes with her.
“It’s working,” he murmurs. “Keep going, we’re almost there.”
She shuts her eyes and takes his other hand, linking their fingers together. She can feel his pulse like this— lifelines on his palm creased against her own, lined up just barely, never and yet always meant to be crossed. She can’t understand it. Shifu used to tell her that the lines on someone’s palm was like a different type of Destiny Book, and so she’d practiced reading her own, reading her flower friends’... but she’d never read one quite like this, apart from…
His fate was definite: impossible and untouchable but oh-so-fragile. His fate was… almost exactly like hers.
Who was Dongfang Qingcang, really? And just what was their relationship to one another?
When the seal breaks, she hardly senses it. It’s a gentle release of power, like rubbing at your eyes in the morning and slowly finding your vision clear, or stepping into the winter-recovered sun on the first days of spring. She’s warm all over, skin tingling with spiritual energy, and she opens her eyes, needing to see if he’s getting this warmth too.
Dongfang Qingcang looks… unmoored, a spool of thread unspun. His grip on her is tight but not unyielding, and his gaze at her seems untethered, in a way, like she’s the only thing anchoring him to this realm.
Xiao Lanhua coughs and lowers her gaze, her face hot. No one’s ever looked at her like this before. Like she’s worth staying for.
“Dongfang Qingcang,” she prompts, her voice soft, his name still wrong-right-wrong in her mouth. She’ll need to think of a nickname for him. “I think the… I think it’s done. The seals are broken. You don’t need to… Um…”
Breaking out of his trance, he drops her hand, taking a step backward. He coughs too, glancing at the palm she’d held with a quiet and disbelieving reverence.
Xiao Lanhua shifts her feet awkwardly, swinging her hands back and forth. “Well, since the seals are broken, we can both get out of here now… right?”
Dongfang Qingcang’s eyes snap up to hers. “It is now possible to teleport, yes.”
“Where will you be going?” she asks.
He ponders the question, then replies: “Benzuo must return to Cangyanhai.”
She startles at this, though she doesn’t mean to. “You’re from Cangyanhai?”
Dongfang Qingcang’s face darkens. “Yes. Is that a problem, xianzi?”
“No!” she says hurriedly, lest he gets the wrong idea. Truthfully, she doesn’t hold any intense hatred for Cangyanhai unlike the other fairies she’s met, and she surely doesn’t hold any hatred for Dongfang Qingcang just because he’s from there.
“I mean, well,” she stammers, “I’ve just always been told… the Yuezu people are… but you’re not bad, though… Never mind! It’s not my business! You should go back home! Your family is probably worried sick about you!”
He snorts at that. Xiao Lanhua can’t tell which part of those sentences was funny, but if he wants to laugh, she won’t stop him.
“Hmm,” he hums. “And where are you headed, Xiao Huayao? Back to Shuiyuntian, whose people captured you and threw you in here? Do you still want that audience with Yunzhong, where he will likely refuse to listen to a word you say and trap you in this place again?”
“I—” Is he antagonizing her, or genuinely asking? “I didn’t really think that far yet, but I can go and explain to them—”
Dongfang Qingcang scoffs. “They’ve already labeled you as a traitor. It’s too late to explain anything, even if it’s the truth. The fairy immortals are always so unreasonable when it comes to things like this.”
She should feel more upset at him basically insulting her home, shouldn’t she? She should be furious! And yet the anger passes her in a fleeting wave before dissolving into… acceptance? How much damage had she caused to her head?
Xiao Lanhua flounders, fidgeting with her skirt anxiously. “I— I don’t—” I just don’t want to be alone. You make me feel safe. “Can I come with you, then?” she blurts.
Dongfang Qingcang stares at her like she’s grown three heads. “You… you’re a fairy, and you wish to come to Cangyanhai?”
She nods in response, sealing her decision before she can change her mind. “We— We’ll have to go back to my home first, Simingdian, and switch out of these clothes in case they recognize us, but then we can go wherever you want! And once I get my memories back, I’ll return and explain everything properly! They’ll have to understand and pardon me! They’ll pardon you too!”
“Your precious Shuiyuntian has never pardoned anyone for any crime,” he drawls. “I don’t believe they’ll start with me.”
Xiao Lanhua has no idea what possesses her to do so, but she stomps over to him and smacks his arm. The weirder thing is that Dongfang Qingcang doesn’t even react much to it— she could be imagining it, but it almost looks like he’s smiling.
“You!” she cries, landing another smack on him since he doesn’t seem to mind. “You’re so stubborn! A big stubborn blockhead— Da Mutou, that’s what you are! You were put here by mistake, just like me! What can’t they forgive you for?”
Da Mutou, she realizes she’s said. It suits him. Dongfang Qingcang seems to think so too, looking pleased and not offended by the strange nickname.
“You’d be surprised,” he deadpans, not elaborating. “You may come along to Cangyanhai with Benzuo, if that is what you truly desire. We will depart for Wangchuan after the stop at this… Simingdian of yours.”
Xiao Lanhua brightens, pausing her hits on his arm. “You’re going to love it, Da Mutou!” she promises. “It’s a very nice place to live, even if gets lonely! I’d introduce you to my flower friends if we had the time, but we’ll have to save that for another day…”
“Alright, then,” he agrees. “Are you ready to leave?”
“Oh, well, um, I’m not actually very good at teleporting such long distances—”
Hold on, why is she saying that?! She can teleport long distances just fine! She is a little clumsy and falls flat on her face when she lands half of the time, but it’s not like she can’t do it!
Dongfang Qingcang sighs and steps towards her, gesturing for her to get between his arms.
“Benzuo can carry you, Xiao Huayao,” he says, “Benzuo will be able to teleport us both out.”
Xiao Lanhua audibly squeaks. “That’s— You don’t have to— I’ll figure it out!—”
He doesn’t let her figure it out. Dongfang Qingcang grabs her wrist and yanks her so her body presses right against his, her face squished against the fabric of his robes. He wraps his arms around her securely, resting his chin on top of her head, and she has no choice but to let him.
She also decidedly ignores how the feeling of safety floods her once more— like she belongs here, in these arms and in his embrace.
“Hold on tight,” he murmurs, and then they’re flying.
***
“AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH! You can put me down now!”
Xiao Lanhua screams like Simingdian is on fire as they burst into Shuyu Forest, a tangle of limbs and clothes and narrowly missing a tree as they land in a heap on the ground. Dongfang Qingcang doesn’t move, even as Xiao Lanhua nudges him to, and she’s about to huff at him to let go when—
“Xiao Huayao, you are down,” he states simply. His arms have gone stiff, so he jerks with his chin at her to point out what he means. “Benzuo is not holding you, see? You are the one who hasn’t put Benzuo down.”
Flushing pink in embarrassment, Xiao Lanhua immediately tugs her arms back from where they’re tightly wrapped around his upper body. She scrambles backwards, mumbling apologies under her breath. He looks amused at her antics, but she swears his face has gone a shade redder than it was before.
“We made it out!” she blurts, looking away from him and pointing aimlessly at the trees, entirely flustered. “Look! It’s Shuyu Forest! And, um, the flowers! And grass!”
A snort comes from Dongfang Qingcang, but he plays along. “Don’t forget the waterfalls too. The fruit on the trees, the dew on the leaves…”
“Don’t make fun of me!” she pouts, hiking up her skirt and taking off in the other direction. She’s grinning as soon as he can’t see her face, though, shouting over her shoulder. “If you keep teasing me like this, I won’t go with you to Cangyanhai, and you can’t enter Simingdian to change your clothes!”
“Benzuo could just fight a way in,” he says, keeping up with her long strides easily. “Would you dare to stop me?”
“Do you know any other solution that isn’t fighting?”
He pauses, pretending to think, then bluntly says: “No.”
“Da Mutou!” she exclaims. He smirks back at her, and she reaches for his arm to drag him along, digging her fingers into the fabric extra hard on purpose.
“You’re so annoying,” she grumps. “I think they imprisoned you just so you would stop talking.”
His eyes twinkle with mirth, hardly affected. “Benzuo has committed far worse crimes than just talking, Xiao Huayao. They have plenty of other reasons to choose from when imprisoning me.”
Xiao Lanhua elects to ignore him and his smart perfect mouth. Wait, perfect? What was she—
“Shut it,” she huffs, chasing that thought away before it can get anywhere. “Let’s go before the guards find us from the big ruckus you’re making.”
And true to her words, Dongfang Qingcang does, indeed, shut up.
***
It doesn’t take long to reach Simingdian once the two of them stop bickering and actually focus on walking. On any other day, they probably would have teleported, but now it’s better to save both of their newly regained energy in the case of a fight.
Not that Xiao Lanhua wants to start a fight or anything! She’d rather everything be peaceful and for the two of them to get to Cangyanhai without any further mishaps, thank you very much!
She leads the way to the main entrance, dropping Dongfang Qingcang’s arm and breaking into a sprint once she sees it in view. The winding staircases, the sloping roofs, her small but beautiful greenhouse… oh, Xiao Lanhua has never been so happy to see the long, stretching walkway in her life.
“Welcome to Simingdian!” she beams, twirling around on the path. Dongfang Qingcang follows her inside cautiously, eyebrows knitted together as he takes in the hall.
“Has Benzuo ever been here?” he asks, gazing up at the wooden fixtures. “This seems… familiar. Benzuo does not recognize the architecture, but there is… it is as if Benzuo is attached to this place.”
Xiao Lanhua pauses, pondering his question. Then she shakes her head. “I don’t think so!”
“Are you sure?” he presses, a touch of urgency in his tone.
Xiao Lanhua thinks it over again, combing through her fractured memory. Everything’s hazy in her mind right now, but she certainly does not recall anyone that looks like Dongfang Qingcang from her past. She would’ve remembered him, wouldn’t she?
“I’m sure,” she replies, and Dongfang Qingcang’s expression gets more indecipherable. “From the short time I’ve known you, you’re clearly not an easy person to forget, Da Mutou. And besides, I’ve been guarding Simingdian alone for so long, so I remember all of my visitors when they arrive! You weren’t one of them!”
Dongfang Qingcang looks troubled by this, and she places a hand on his arm to comfort him.
“Aiyo, it’s okay, Da Mutou. I won’t forget you now after I’ve met you!”
“Alright,” he says, his expression smoothing out slightly. “If you say so. Where are these clothes of yours located? In your room? In a separate area acting as a closet?”
She blinks. “Of course they’re in my room! Why would they be in a separate area acting as a closet? Who has enough room in their home for that?!”
Dongfang Qingcang opens his mouth, then closes it. Xiao Lanhua decides not to ask further and tugs at his sleeve, urging him to follow her.
Her room looks the same as she remembers it when they enter, candle-lit and full of knick knacks and trinkets she’s picked up over the centuries. They’re short on time, though, so she doesn’t have time to explain the story of each of them to him.
She is briefly concerned at how messy it’s gotten in here, almost like it’s been ransacked, but that would be impossible, surely. She has nothing to hide here! So she casts those worries aside and beelines for the drawers where she keeps her clothes, throwing them open and digging through them.
“Um, I don’t have any robes in the Yuezu style, since I’m from Shuiyuntian…” Xiao Lanhua speaks up, biting her lip as she hands over some robes, “But if you don’t mind wearing these for now until we get to Cangyanhai, you can try these ones! They’re spare sets from one of my flower friends, he probably won’t mind.”
Dongfang Qingcang glances at the heap of fabric thrust in his arms with careful examination, then replies: “These are… sufficient. Thank you.”
He goes behind the privacy screen to change, excusing himself, and Xiao Lanhua blushes and turns away from him. She teleports into her shifu’s room to change out of her own robes, switching to a simple pastel set with gauzy sleeves.
Normally, this would be when she ties and clips together two low-hanging buns in her hair, right above her ears, but she doesn’t… feel like doing it. Even the robes she’s wearing— a set she’d saved up for herself, one of the first she’d bought when she formed her fairy body— aren’t… right. Like she hasn’t worn them for a long time.
Which is ridiculous! She wears these robes every day!
She doesn’t have a single clue what’s happening to her and her memories, but she needs to figure it out as soon as she and Dongfang Qingcang get somewhere safe. This is going to drive her mad.
Sighing, she puts a hand over her eyes and teleports back inside her room to check on Dongfang Qingcang. Blindly, she squeaks out, “Are you all done?”
“Benzuo is dressed, Xiao Huayao,” his voice says… right beside her. She drops her hand and whirls around to look at him, her eyes going wide at the sight.
He’s… beautiful. The robes hang in misshapen layers off of him, not quite fit for his height, and the blue and white of the fabric is a stark contrast against the previous dark colours he wore, but he’s beautiful. His hair has been pinned up, held together with a hairpin, and the rest is black silk running down his back.
He looks like a prince. A god. If he had a crown, Xiao Lanhua thinks, he’d look like a king.
“...Xiao Huayao?” he says, snapping his fingers at her. “Xiao Lanhua?”
Oh, gods. She’s staring and he knows it! She needs to say something!
“Pretty,” she blurts out, then panics, her face going red. “That’s not what I meant to say! I mean! You look good! Great! Just—” she groans, burying her head in her hands. “Please forget everything I just said.”
“You look good as well,” he replies, amused, making her face flush hotter. “In Benzuo’s opinion, though, you looked the best in the robes you were wearing before.”
“Da Mutou,” she whines, “Stop flattering me! Get out of here! Come on, we need to go!”
“Whatever you wish,” he says back, heading to the doors with a smile.
Suddenly, he stops in his tracks, his eyes hardening. Xiao Lanhua lets out an oof as she bumps into his back, nearly knocking them both over.
“Why did you—”
He claps a palm over her mouth, hissing. “Shh!”
She’s about to bite him for doing so when she hears it too: the thundering footsteps, the rhythmic marching in the distance. Someone’s shouting to go along with it, and she strains her ears to make out what they’re saying.
“To the traitor Xiao Lanhua of Simingdian and the criminal Dongfang Qingcang of Cangyanhai, surrender yourselves now! Yunzhong-jun may still be merciful if you cooperate with us!”
She gasps, the sound muffled against his palm. Dongfang Qingcang presses his hand against her mouth harder, stifling it as much as he can.
“What are they doing here so soon?!” she whisper-yells, frantic. “It’s barely been a shichen!”
“We have escaped Haotian Tower, Xiao Huayao,” he whispers back, “It’s a heavily guarded area, and they likely checked on us and saw we were gone. They were bound to catch up to us eventually.”
“I still don’t know what we did,” she wails silently. “This is so unfair.”
“Nothing’s ever fair in politics,” he says, which is not reassuring. “Is there another way out of here apart from the front entrance?”
Xiao Lanhua shakes her head. “Simingdian is built like that, with only one way in and one way out. We keep important Destiny Books here, after all. These are the fates of everyone that’s ever lived, and we can’t have any thieves coming to steal them.”
“We can’t stay here,” he grimaces. He’s right— the shouting is getting louder now, and she can hear the rooms a floor down getting searched. The Shuiyuntian officials will be getting a heavily worded letter from her on property damage if they get out of this! “Think, Xiao Huayao. Is there nowhere else we can go?”
Xiao Lanhua squeezes her eyes shut, scrambling for a solution. Where else… where else…
“The roof!” she exclaims quietly, her eyes flying open as she points outside to the sprawling area. “It’s the last place they’ll look in their search! We can delay them discovering us, and come up with a better plan while we’re there!”
Dongfang Qingcang nods and slides open the door, wasting no time. “Lead the way.”
They get to the roof in moments, seeing as how her room is connected to the walkway that leads directly to it. It’s more stressful being out in the open like this, with nothing to cover them, but it’s the best bet they have.
Xiao Lanhua runs to the very edge of the roof, glancing around for some exit route they can take. But from up here, there isn’t anywhere to go but down.
“Da Mutou,” she prompts, a strange wave of déjà-vu washing over her, “I have an idea.”
Dongfang Qingcang stands next to her, an eyebrow raised in question. Xiao Lanhua inhales deeply, holds her breath, and tackles him into the sky.
***
Xiao Lanhua is drowning when she remembers that she had never really learned how to swim.
Her shifu had tried to teach her once, on a rare trip outside of Simingdian. The lesson took place by the shores of Wangchuan, and she’d been shivering like a leaf then, huddled in a blanket she’d brought along from her room. Orchid plant spirits aren’t meant for the cold, she’d said, sneezing, and Siming had snorted and bopped her on the head, replying with The cold won’t matter if you’re faced with death, little disciple.
Siming had jumped into the water with no hesitation, showing her how to float and do simple strokes. Xiao Lanhua, stubborn, had just sat there and watched, burrowing herself deeper into her blanket cocoon. There was no way she was getting in there. Who knows what dangers those waters held?
They’d both headed back to Simingdian that day, the lesson remaining unlearned. Now, with the iciness of water churning around her and swallowing her whole, she regrets not paying more attention and braving the cold.
Her arms are still wrapped around Dongfang Qingcang, clinging onto him like a sea urchin. She looks up at him, her cheeks puffed as an attempt to save her breath, and he looks down at her, noiseless words escaping his lips.
Is he trying to say something?
When he gets no response, he makes a pained grunt and pushes her back, sinking lower to her level. He comes face to face with her, and Xiao Lanhua startles, a bubble of a shriek coming from her mouth. Why’d you let me go?!
Water spills onto her tongue, and she gurgles on it, choking. Dongfang Qingcang’s eyes flash, and he hooks an arm around her waist, drawing her close. Gritting his teeth, he uses his free hand to summon up some spiritual power, trying to propel them back up with the force of it.
It works, marginally. Slowly but surely, they inch upwards in the water, but it’s not enough. Xiao Lanhua can’t breathe, her lungs overtaken by the sea, and she needs to—
Breathe.
On instinct, her hands reach up to cup Dongfang Qingcang’s face, shaking. The energy in his palm fades as he directs his focus back at her, wondering what she’s doing. She wishes she could tell him, but she doesn’t know either.
Eyelids fluttering shut, she tilts her chin upward, pulling his jaw down to meet her own. She can’t see what he’s thinking, but for the first time in this hectic disaster of a day, this moment feels right. It’s the most settled she’s felt in her skin since she’d woken next to him.
Xiao Lanhua presses her mouth to his, a beggar asking for change, a prayer hoping for a dream, and the universe explodes into colour.