Work Text:
Qi Qingqi’s student was beautiful. This was not a surprise—when Liu Mingyan’s beauty had first blossomed as a girl, it had been Qi Qingqi to suggest that she hide her face lest her loveliness become the only thing she was known for in lieu of being renowned for her talent in cultivation and excellent calligraphy.
And even with the veil that masked what Qi Qingqi knew must be incomparably beauteous features, Liu Mingyan’s name was never without an attached description of her peerless appearance. How much worse would it have been, had Qi Qingqi not advised so preemptively?
Even when Liu Mingyan was grown, when their relationship shifted—still that of shizun and disciple but also a little to the left, something inappropriate and sensual, Qi Qingqi refused to take Liu Mingyan’s veil off even when they were alone. In the dark of night, when their bodies slid together, Liu Mingyan’s veil would trace against her skin, a tease compared to everything else they did.
When they kissed, Qi Qingqi closed her eyes before lifting her disciple’s veil only high enough to feel out her lower face. She pressed their lips together, and then when Liu Mingyan remained cool and impassive as was her strength, Qi Qingqi would begin her tender roughness, biting and nipping at Liu Mingyan’s perfectly plush lips which felt perfect, the smoothness of orchids and the coolness of river water on a late spring’s morning on Xian Shu Peak. In her forcefulness, she would bite until she tasted the slight iron tang of blood in her own teeth, and only then would she relent, retreat, and allow Liu Mingyan’s veil to fall back into place before opening her eyes and evaluating.
Liu Mingyan was even more peerlessly beautiful when she cried, and Qi Qingqi had a deep-seated urge to visit mild torments upon her student only to watch her eyes become rimmed with crimson, big rounded tears pearling at the corners of her eyes as she tried to resist the fruit of her minor aches and pains. Sometimes Liu Mingyan succeeded in maintaining her pride, blinking the tears away and thanking her shizun for her condescension with a cool placidity. Other times, she could not resist the pull of expressing her emotions, and those tears would make beautiful tracks down to her veil, soaking into the fabric.
Qi Qingqi… simply adored that about Liu Mingyan.