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These days, Shen Qingqiu always seemed to be having qi deviations. Half her weeks were spent waking up in a bed in Qian Cao, with Yue Qingyuan’s concerned face hovering above her. It did not matter how much she told that woman to go! No matter the time, or the date, Yue Qingyuan was always there. How powerful was this woman’s guilt, that she would even postpone Peak Lord meetings to be at Shen Qingqiu’s side? It had grown to be so frustrating that she’d taken to chastising her for it with her cruelest words. Reminding Yue Qingyuan that this guilt that shackled her to Shen Qingqiu need not rule her so much.
Somehow, this just made Yue Qingyuan coddle her further. As though Shen Qingqiu was going anywhere at all! Through every damn, unbearable meeting, and conference, and unavoidable mission, Yue Qingyuan was there, inquiring after her health like a dog at her heels.
In retrospect, she should not have let it get the better of her. But even in the midst of a mission, when they ought to have been focusing on snuffing out a dangerous, demonic plant, she was still finding ways to coddle her. Shen Qingqiu barely even had to lift Xiu Ya before Yue Qingyuan would smash past her, crushing the plant’s quick-whipping vines to pulp with Xuan Su’s sheathe.
And naturally, caught up in the brewing cauldron within that had caused qi deviation after qi deviation, Shen Qingqiu had coated her tongue with her anger, and pushed and pushed and pushed.
Shen Qingqiu was still cowering, licking her wounds from the fight a few days later when Mu Qingfang herself knocked on the door of the bamboo house and slid it open without waiting for a response. Perhaps this was to be expected: if Shen Qingqiu was in a state where she would arguing with the Sect Leader in the midst of an intense mission, distracting them both just enough for them to be seriously injured, then perhaps she had lost the right to refuse medical visits.
Shen Qingqiu was expecting Mu Qingfang to be there to change her bandages, or to give her another lecture on not avoiding necessary care. It was a lecture she had heard secondhand already, given to Yue Qingyuan, who had in fact drawn Xuan Su during the fight and practically dissolved half their demonic threat with a single swing (why hadn’t she done this before they were injured?), before dropping to her knees and coughing blood. Before continuing the argument.
“Just let me take care of you!” Yue Qingyuan had cried, then coughed up a second, even more concerning wad of blood and viscera.
“I don’t need your concern,” Shen Qingqiu had hissed, hiding behind her fan. “I can care for myself without your pity.”
Yue Qingyuan’s eyes had widened a little. “Pity?” Her lips turned down.
“I know that’s the only thing keeping you around me,” Shen Qingqiu had admitted. “Pity.” Yue Qingyuan had long since made it clear how she really felt. The thought had sent her spiraling into a qi deviation, collapsing into the grass below while Yue Qingyuan finished the battle. She knew nothing else until she awoke to the sound of Mu Qingfang ranting, lying in a bed on Qian Cao Peak.
Something about the weight of the world, and being more careful, and strategic retreats. Something else about overwork, and arguments, and ‘emotional needs.’
Shen Qingqiu had snorted, looking over.
Something about Yue Qingyuan’s expression struck her then. Eyebrows furrowed, usually calm eyes watery and strange. The pleasant veneer of the Sect Leader had cracked, a little bit, and there was blood dripping from her nose.
She forced down the urge to offer a cloth and instead slipped from the bed, unnoticed, to recover at home.
Where Mu Qingfang had now found her.
“Shen Qingqiu,” she said, and there was something expectant in her voice.
“Yes?” Shen Qingqiu said. “Can I offer you some tea?” If she was going to receive a lecture, she may as well do what she could to mitigate it.
“Not now. There is work to be done, I’m afraid.”
Shen Qingqiu stiffened. “Get to the point.”
“Yue Qingyuan is indisposed. In her absence, you are acting sect leader.”
Shen Qingqiu took a sip of tea from the cup she had lain out on the table. “So I am.” Her fingers pressed hard, and the porcelain creaked. “And do you care to explain... how, Yue Qingyuan is indisposed?”
Mu Qingfang sighed. “It’s better if I show you.”
The walk to Qian Cao passed in a tense silence. Shen Qingqiu was determined not to deviate again so soon, but she could not keep her mind from returning to that small moment, before she had slipped away. Yue Qingyuan had not seemed too off then; what possibly could have happened in the time between to harm her so? Or had she already been far too harmed, and Shen Qingqiu, in her rage, had not noticed it?
They came into one of the sickrooms, and Shen Qingqiu was told to stand at the door. Mu Qingfang disappeared into it and reemerged a moment later. There was still a blank expression on her face, but something had softened it, a little. She stepped aside and nudged something forward. Whatever it was, it refused to move past her, and she had to lead down and push at it further. Shen Qingqiu caught a hint of black skirts, a tiny Qiong Ding uniform that was still slightly too big for its wearer, and then the thick-eyebrowed little girl, hanging onto Mu Qingfang for dear life, her tiny fists clenched so hard that the knuckles had turned white.
She was, unmistakeably, Yue Qi.
Shen Qingqiu took a step forward, and Yue Qi shuddered back behind Mu Qingfang.
“How old is she?”
Mu Qingfang sighed. “She won’t say. She’s barely spoken more than a word. But we suspect she’s about ten.”
Before the Qius, then. Before anything. This was a Yue Qi whose biggest concern, not long ago, had been keeping her Xiao Jiu from crushing in skulls with bricks, attempting to cry, and finding their next meal. This was a Yue Qi who had never known Cang Qiong mountain, or wealth, or power. This was a Yue Qi entirely loyal to her Xiao Jiu.
Shen Qingqiu sighed, and, abandoning all the grandeur of a Peak Lord, knelt before the little Yue Qi.
“Hello, little one. Do you know who I am?” She could feel Mu Qingfang’s eyebrows rising. So what? Any moment with this child who loved her indifferently was one that she would take.
Yue Qi covered her mouth with her fist and shook her head.
Shen Qingqiu sighed. “And if I called you Qi-jie, would you remember me then?”
Yue Qi blinked. Then she cocked her head a little, as though she were puzzling something out. Then, finally: “Xiao Jiu?”
“Hello, Qi-jie,” Shen Qingqiu said. “You’ve missed quite a bit.”
Yue Qi’s face lit up. “Xiao Jiu!”
Shen Qingqiu had to drop her fan in the next moment, to grab the small child who had just jumped into her arms. “Ah, you’re so small now, Qi-jie. You’re supposed to be bigger than me. Come. You’ll stay with me until we figure this out.” She stood up and looked at Mu Qingfang. “And I expect that this will be figured out.”
Mu Qingfang gave a long-suffering sigh. Too bad for her. “We’re working on it. For now, just make sure she’s well fed and comfortable.”
“I can do that.” Shen Qingqiu snipped. “It’s your competency, I’m worried about. I trust none of you with the Sect Leader.”
Mu Qingfang sighed. “Just, remember that she isn’t allowed to unsheath Xuan Su. But she does need it nearby.”
Curious. Shen Qingqiu frowned, but strung the sword that Mu Qingfang was presenting over her shoulder. And with her arms laden with Yue Qingyuan’s leftovers, she made the trek back to Qing Jing.
Yue Qi was quiet for the walk, staring out, wide-eyed, at the rainbow bridge and the twelve peaks and the boundless, ethereal nature that climbed up them. Shen Qingqiu pushed down the childish urge to show off and instead took the time to truly examine her Qi-jie. She had seemed so much older when the two of them had been small, but now Shen Qingqiu could see just how small she truly was. How starved her frame was, how uncertain her gaze.
“X- Xiao Jiu?” Yue Qi said. Then she paused, and said. “Jiu-jie?”
“Yes?” Shen Qingqiu asked, feeling incredibly strange.
“We really became powerful cultivators, like we planned?”
Shen Qingqiu’s grip on the small child in her arms tightened. “Yes. We did indeed.”
Her uncertainty dissolved into a small smile. “Then we protected each other.”
“Yes,” Shen Qingqiu lied. So we did.”
And so, for the first week, the Sect Leader was a small child.
Taking care of her was admittedly, quite amusing. Shen Qingqiu set her up in the side room of the bamboo house, with a little bed and a little blanket. Xuan Su was settled high on a shelf, where Yue Qi could not reach.
When all this was taken care of, Shen Qingqiu called for Ming Fan.
While Ning Yingying was kind and good-hearted, her cheery disciple had neither the discretion nor the calm necessary to handle the situation. Surely she would grow too excited and startle little Yue Qi, who was slowly exploring the house the way an uncertain cat might: stepping softly, room by room.
She never went too far from Shen Qingqiu, glancing over her shoulder each moment to check if she was still there.
There was a knock on the door. Shen Qingqiu opened it, and then barely resisted groaning. “Ming Fan.” She said. Then, sharply. “And Ning Yinging.”
Ning Yingying shuffled sheepishly out from where she had been trying to hide in the corner, and slid behind Ming Fan. A pink flush came up on her head disciple’s cheeks.
“Yes, shizun?”
“Bring me broth and a bowl of rice, and stir-fry, and a pot of tea, and several disciple’s uniforms, child sized, and...” she thought a moment, about what desserts might amaze Yue Qi the most, “...a bowl of freshly-cut, sweet fruit. And some little cakes. And...”
Ming Fan’s face changed from the soft red of a first crush to the flustered red of someone suddenly confronted with much more work than she expected.
“And... an introductory guide to reading.”
With that, Shen Qingqiu shut the door in her face.
Yue Qi was standing behind her. “Who was that, Xiao Jiu-jie?”
Shen Qingqiu smiled, despite herself. “That was my head disciple, Ming Fan. You may call her shijie, for now.”
Yue Qi glanced around. “You really are a fancy Peak Lord?”
“I’m very rich,” Shen Qingqiu boasted, and was unable to keep herself from preening at the stars in Yue Qi’s eyes.
“And I’m one too? I’m a powerful Peak Lord?” Yue Qi asked.
Shen Qingqiu sighed at the reminder. “You are very powerful, yes. Or, you were.” And despite the image in her head of powerful, distant, guilty Yue Qingyuan, she could not stop herself from patting the head of Yue Qi. What a stupid, trusting child. Even when thrown into the middle of a strange place, she had followed none of the skills that Shen Jiu had taught her, had trusted the first familiar adult she saw, and was now about to accept food and shelter from her. “Now, you’re just small.”
Yue Qi smiled at the contact. “Xiao Jiu is so amazing now.”
“So are you,” Shen Qingqiu said. And the soft smile that spread upon her face was entirely involuntary.
Ming Fan returned a moment later, barely holding up a heavy tray in her trembling arms. Ning Yingying shuffled in sheepishly behind her, holding a pile of small uniforms and the book. Ah, it was over now. But this was no disaster, yet. Despite the sensitivity of Yue Qi’s position, there was not any indication that this little child had anything to do with the indisposed Sect Leader. So long as Shen Qingqiu was so very careful not to call her full name.
At the sight of her two disciples, Yue Qi squeaked and hid behind Shen Qingqiu.
Ah. Perhaps Shen Qingqiu had taught her better than she had realized.
She instructed them in placing the food upon the table, laying each and every item just so. Rice closest to Yue Qi, and all the things that would be good for her little stomach. The sweets as a special treat, for when she had finished all of her vegetables. Tea to wash it all down.
Shen Qingqiu settled Yue Qi at the table.
“Well, Qi-jie, why don’t you eat?”
Yue Qi frowned. “But you’re bigger than me! Shouldn’t you have food?”
Shen Qingqiu tapped her little, pink nose. “Are you really going to say no to such a feast? Did I not teach you anything?”
Technically, she had taught Yue Qi not to accept food from older strangers, but Shen Qingqiu had been overcome with the desire to show off.
“But--”
“But what?”
“That’s what you always said, when you gave me your share.” Yue Qi looked, for some reason, exceedingly sad.
“And you always said that you didn’t like any of the food, and gave it back. Well, I don’t like any of this food, so Qi-jie will simply have to eat it for me.”
Yue Qi stared at the spread, glanced down at her chopsticks, and picked them up in shaky fingers. Cautiously, she plucked a single shred of cabbage and dropped it into her bowl. Shen Qingqiu sighed, plucked the chopsticks from Yue Qi, and went about filling it instead, dropping the choicest bits inside.
“Um,” said Ning Yingying, setting down the uniforms and book on a side table. “Should we leave, shizun?”
Shen Qingqiu raised an eyebrow at the cheek, but couldn’t bring herself to be angry. “Qi-jie, meet your shijies. Ming Fan, and Ning Yingying.”
Ning Yingying’s eyes lit up. “I’ve always wanted a shidi or a shimei!” She cooed, drawing close to the table. Yue Qi leaned back a little, warily. Shen Qingqiu took the opportunity to sneak more food into her bowl.
“N-nice to meet you, shijie. And shijie.” Yue Qi nodded a stilted bow, looking up at the two of them through her bangs. Perhaps the sunshine cheer of Ning Yingying was a little much for her.
“And yes. It’s time for you two to leave. Be discreet about this.”
Ning Yingying nodded, as though she had any filter at all. With the snap of the door against the wall, they were alone once more.
And Shen Qingqiu got to watch Yue Qi try every good bit of food. Glistening vegetables and chicken, fresh, fluffy rice, and finally the sweets. Her eyes lit up at the taste of them.
“Is Xiao Jiu sure she doesn’t want any?” Yue Qi asked.
“They’re all for Qi-jie,” Shen Qingqiu replied. “If you can’t eat them all, then we’ll save them for later.”
Yue Qi looked up at her. “Where is Xiao Jiu’s food stash?”
Ah. This child.
“There isn’t a need for such things anymore,” Shen Qingqiu announced. And with that, she stuck a preservation talisman on the whole plate. “Nobody is going to take our food.”
Yue Qi blinked, brows furrowed. After a moment, a smile spread onto her face. “Then we really are safe!” She wrapped her arms around Shen Qingqiu’s middle, catching them both in a hug. Despite herself, Shen Qingqiu could not help but enjoy it. Could not help but lap up every ounce of affection from her Qi-jie while she was still a loving child, before she realized just how little Shen Qingqiu was worth. Perhaps it was pathetic, but she loved having it.
The attention and care of a Qi-jie that actually loved her.
Despite the wondrousness of Yue Qi’s gentle presence, the next week passed quickly after. Shen Qingqiu eat morning would set out breakfast for her tiny Qi-jie, and complete the paperwork for Qing Jing, and then Qiong Ding, and then Cang Qiong, and by then it would be lunch. She might have skipped it, much in the way she was certain Yue Qingyuan always did, except that Yue Qi had a body like she was still a starving street rat. So there would be rice, and eggs, or congee, and a little dessert, after which she would teach more and more characters.
A thought, strange and covetous, occurred to her one evening, as she was teaching Yue Qi characters from a storybook. Wouldn’t it be nice, to let Ning Yingying’s wish for a shimei come true? To simply stop whatever cure they found, and to keep the Sect Leader here, where she would grow into someone who had never had the chance to abandon Shen Qingqiu.
She found this thought a horrible, blackened one, rotted entirely through.
And all the while Yue Qi smiled up at her, none the wiser to Shen Qingqiu’s burnt core, or too the fact that she was soon to disappear back into her empty, adult self. She was going to leave Shen Qingqiu alone.
Perhaps if she found a way to turn herself to a child, Yue Qingyuan might take care of her. Or she and Yue Qi could grow old together once more, and there would be no indication that Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu had ever existed. They could simply be Qi-jie and Xiao Jiu. And it would be better that way.
The softness that had arrived with sweet little Qi-jie began to atrophy and turn bitter. Shen Qingqiu could not help the veins of self loathing that were beginning to pull through its soft innards, like dense roots into sweet earth.
What had happened to this child, to make her grow so selfish, later on? When would she realize that Shen Qingqiu was from the gutter and leave her once more? Even if she raised her forever, the powerful cultivator that Yue Qi became was just going to leave her again. And wasn’t it selfish of her, to want to keep Yue Qi in the first place?
That evening, as she pondered this. Yue Qi walked up to her, and tugged on her skirts. “Xiao Jiu?” She asked. “Will you read me another story?”
The name tightened something in her heart. “Don’t call me that, Yue Qi. Don’t you know, you’re smaller than I am? You should call me something more appropriate. And read by yourself. I’ve got important things to do right now.”
(She didn’t).
But Yue Qi stepped back, clutching her picture book to her chest with a broken expression, tears welling up in her eyes, and rushed off to the side room. It was not anything she remembered ever seeing before. The Yue Qi who had held Shen Jiu on her hip had never once cried.
Shen Qingqiu worked late into the night by candlelight and by guilt, until the sniffling softly ended.
The next day, she set out Yue Qi’s breakfast, as usual. But the Yue Qi who stepped from the side room, a panicked expression on her face, wrapped oddly in her blanket, as though trying to cover herself entirely, was far too tall and gangly. Her face was slightly gaunter, her eyes wilder. There was something strange in her expression as she looked upon Shen Qingqiu.
“Xiao Jiu!” Cried the teenage Yue Qi.
Shen Qingqiu raised her eyebrows. “Qi-jie. What is it?”
“Did I really... did I really save you?”
“Right to the point, are you? Do you want to eat?”
Yue Qi stepped forwards on wobbling legs. “You’re here, and you’re in front of me.”
“Do you remember the previous week at all?”
Pausing a moment, Yue Qi nodded. “You took care of me. You said we were powerful. So I must have done it then, right? I must have been powerful enough and claimed Xuan Su! And then I must have gone and--”
Shen Qingqiu settled at the breakfast table and stared forlornly at the specially calculated feast. There had been more sweets than usual: the closest thing she could muster to an apology. The teenager who settled at the table, and who would not stop looking at her like she was a damn miracle, was not the Yue Qi who Shen Qingqiu wanted to see, right now.
“Do you remember any of the previous week?” Shen Qingqiu asked.
Yue Qi seemed to think back, and nodded. “I was small. But now I’m bigger.” She settled down across from Shen Qingqiu. Whereas before she had picked slightly at the bowls, this Yue Qi began to load hers heavily, a determined spark in her eye. “This Qi-jie can protect Xiao Jiu now, so there’s no need to worry.” Without missing a heartbeat, she began to fill Shen Qingqiu’s bowl.
Shen Qingqiu blinked. This was what Yue Qingyuan had been like? “How could you possibly protect me? You’re just a girl.”
Yue Qi blinked. “What? Well, I saved you, didn’t I? So I must have claimed Xuan Su, and gone to get you, just like I planned. Right? That’s what happened, right?”
Shen Qingqiu scowled. Pushing herself to her feet, she pulled Xuan Su from where it had been packed away, and set it on the table. The bowls all clattered at the force of it.
“There’s your Xuan Su. You definitely claimed it.”
Yue Qi looked at it, and a smile spread over her face. “Then I saved you, right? I rescued you!”
She began to reach over the table.
“You didn’t.”
Yue Qi froze. The smile shrank and became a horrified frown.
“I- I didn’t?”
“You didn’t,” Shen Qingqiu said, ignoring the tug in her heart at Yue Qi’s broken expression. “I escaped on my own.”
Shen Qingqiu stood, and stalked to her own room. She spent the next few hours plucking strings on the qin, her fingers tensed into claws. And try as she might, she could not get two layers of Yue Qi’s broken expressions from her mind.
On the next morning, Yue Qi was strangely quiet. Shen Qingqiu came into the side room, half-angered and half-concerned, and the disciple seated on the bed was motionless, staring down at her hands. She had changed into one of Shen Qingqiu’s old garments: a slightly taller version of herself, just barely smaller than the Yue Qingyuan who Shen Qingqiu had reunited with once, long ago. Her hair was undone, spilling over her hunched, willowy shoulders. Xuan Su sat, heavy, on her lap.
“I failed,” said Yue Qi, in a cracked and broken voice. There was a strange stiffness to her shoulders, one achingly reminiscent of the adult Yue Qingyuan. It looked so odd on her young body, where it should not at all be.
Shen Qingqiu stood before her, half in anger and half in confusion. “What do you mean, Qi-jie?”
Yue Qingyuan stiffened. “Don’t call me that.”
“And why not? Can’t I call you anything I like?”
“I suppose you can. But I... I remember now. I didn’t make it to you in time. I failed.”
“You did,” Shen Qingqiu told her, matter-of-factly. This was the Yue Qi who had chosen not to come, after all. “You left me behind, and I had to escape on my own. But that isn't news.”
“But I... I tried so hard to make it to you.” Yue Qi sniffed. Shen Qingqiu stiffened. “I tried so hard, and then I was-- and-- and you were gone. I was too slow. I was too slow to make it!”
On that note, Yue Qi curled in on herself, and burst into tears. They were not particularly loud. Just tiny little sniffles, barely audible to anyone who wasn’t a cultivator.
But it was the greatest expression of sorrow from any version of Yue Qingyuan that Shen Qingqiu had ever seen. Tears dripped down her cheeks like dewey gems, gathering together on her chin even as she covered her face with her hands.
Shen Qingqiu sat beside her, feeling rather awkward. And yet, at the same time, she was desperate to know more.
“What do you mean, you were too slow?”
“I wanted to get to you so desperately, but I was so, so stupid. So I rushed my cultivation, and took Xuan Su before I was ready. My shizun--” and here she froze a moment, before pushing onwards-- “my shizun broke every bone in my body, and shoved me in the Lingxi Caves to recover. And I was there for-- I was there for so long, and when I finally got out, you were gone.”
Shen Qingqiu listened in silence. After a moment, she reached over to Yue Qi, and pulled her close with trembling hands. The young girl rattled in her arms with tears.
“So you came for me,” Shen Qingqiu said. “All this time, you had come for me, and you never said.”
“I barely know how I’m telling you now,” Yue Qi said. “I don’t know how you’re not disappointed. I don’t know how you don’t h-hate me...”
“I don’t,” said Shen Qingqiu. “I never could. Even when I thought you’d abandoned me like trash, I never hated you.”
All this time. All this time, it hadn’t been guilt, behind Yue Qingyuan’s actions. She was the very same girl she’d always been, just older and sadder, and so, so alone.
If the two of them were always alone, then maybe they could be alone together?
Shen Qingqiu carded her hands through Yue Qi’s dark hair, and then pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead.
And with that, the girl in her lap turned back into a woman. Yue Qi, returned to Yue Qingyuan. Still crying, like she was a little child. Now her grip was tighter.
Shen Qingqiu enjoyed, despite herself, the chance to be gentle.
“Come now, Qi-jie.” She whispered. “You can’t spend all your time crying. Didn’t you want to take care of me?”
Yue Qingyuan looked up at her with shining, wet eyes. She pulled herself up taller. “X-Xiao Jiu?”
“Yes, Qi-jie? Is there something you want?”
Yue Qingyuan’s tear-stained cheeks were quite pink.
“Xiao Jiu.” She repeated.
“Qi-jie?”
“Xiao Jiu?”
“Say what you mean, Qi-jie.”
“Thank you. For taking care of me, when I was small.”
Shen Qingqiu looked at her, and wiped a tear from the corner of Yue Qingyuan’s eye.
She missed the smaller versions, but now Shen Qingqiu could see her Qi-jie as she was supposed to be. Gentle and tall and kind, and with a fragile heart of her own. She would not reject her help again. So long, of course, as Shen Qingqiu could coddle Yue Qingyuan right back. They would never be parted again, not if she had anything to say about it.
“I think, Qi-jie,” said Shen Qingqiu, climbing into Yue Qingyuan’s lap, where she belonged, “that I should like to be reborn in a different life, after this one.”
“What do you mean, Xiao Jiu?” Yue Qingyuan’s voice reverberated through her. They were so close, that she couldn’t help but wonder if they would become one being, if she just held her Qi-jie hard enough.
“I can’t help but imagine it. In some distant future, without the Qius, and without Xuan Su, how happy we might have been.”
Yue Qi pressed her forehead into Shen Qingqiu’s shoulder. “It would have been easier.”
“It would have.”
“We would never have parted.”
“We would not have.”
“And if we weren’t slaves?”
“Then we would meet in some other, gentler way. And I would be able see every part of you as you grew up, not nearly all at once, but in stages. And you would see me in turn.” Shen Qingqiu shut her eyes. “I am... happy, I got to see all of the time that I missed, when we were separated.”
“And when would this be?”
Shen Qingqiu smiled. “I don’t care. Perhaps a thousand years from now. Perhaps less. Perhaps even more. It would be unrecognizable to us. But I think even in that future, when Cang Qiong is some old and forgotten thing, we would still find each other again. As though there was a tied string between us.”
“I like that,” said Yue Qingyuan, pressing a kiss to Shen Qingqiu’s cheek. And then, as Shen Qingqiu turned her face, to her lips. They were silken, delicate, pressing ever so gently. Ignoring the strange urge to bite them, Shen Qingqiu privately thought, that though she would miss those small and sweet and earnest versions of Yue Qi, she liked this one the best.
Yue Qingyuan was warm, and soft beneath her hands, and she looked at Shen Qingqiu with such earnest affection in her eyes that she had no idea how to handle it.
So instead she leaned down and kissed her again, simply because she could. She could kiss her, or hold her, or listen to her husky voice, or even coddle her. She could keep her close forever.
“Xiao Jiu,” Yue Qingyuan whispered, “I love you.”
“I... also love you,” Shen Qingqiu said, “You’re tied to me forever, through every age and lifetime, Qi-jie.”