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Qi Yan still forgets.
There are smaller lapses—taking a second too long to recall a student’s name, failing to remember where she’s left a particular sheet of parchment, and the like.
What she seems to forget quite often is just how beautiful Nangong Jingnu is.
Her gut tells her she does not know this woman, no matter what past they have shared. Stay guarded.
But there’s a certain fondness, an absolute trust in Jingnu’s dark eyes when she looks at Qi Yan. Not quite a childlike innocence, but rather the conscious choice to rely on someone. Ding You refuses to elaborate on their past—there is something bitter in his voice whenever Qi Yan asks, saying that she can find out on her own now that her wife is here—but she knows she has wounded this woman beyond belief. The goodwill in Nangong Jingnu’s eyes isn’t a second chance. It is a myriad of second chances, third, fourth, tenth, hundredth, on and on in such a high quantity that Qi Yan finds it dizzying.
In the beginning, visits from Jingnu were rare. Their village is secluded (an intentional selection on Ding You’s part, which Qi Yan has understood since their arrival), and travel takes weeks. One day, Qi Yan returns from teaching to see Jingnu sitting in the sole chair in her home.
“You need a better residence,” she declares, examining her nails. If she were truly a stranger, the gesture would read as self-centered, but something in Qi Yan’s mind says that she’s simply worried. The distance that’s grown between them makes her nervous, unsure of how to behave, so she’s trying to act unaffected. Qi Yan has the feeling that she used to be a spoiled young girl who found the lives of the common people fascinating—perhaps a thatched roof hut is too humble for the trace of that child that resides in today’s Nangong Jingnu.
“Do I?”
“Of course. How can I be expected to live with you in these conditions?”
“To, to live with-” Qi Yan sputters, wide-eyed.
Nangong Jingnu merely smiles. It’s not the sunlike, affectionate expression Qi Yan first remembers seeing on her. This is something else: a joy found in teasing. “Are you opposed to that?”
“It’s not that I’m opposed, but rather… What would others say?”
“Qi Yan. I am your wife.” She’s not frustrated. If anything, she’s more than glad to remind her.
Your wife. It’s dizzying to hear her say it. Jingnu continues as if it’s nothing.
“Really, though. Don’t you find it rude that everyone else has a proper home besides you two? You ought to have more of a backbone. I thought that of you the night we married.”
Qi Yan blinks.
“You had no courtesy name. My father declared I’d give you one. I found the idea bizarre, that a wife would grant one to her husband in the absence of a proper mentor. I expected you to object, and I wouldn’t have been offended. But you simply went along with it. The following morning, I learned you were quite strong-willed; however, at that moment, I considered you spineless.”
Overwhelmed, she tries to wrap her head around the new information.
“Of course, few people would dare to question the Emperor, especially an alleged nobody like you.”
Alleged. Her spine straightens, more so than it was before, as if that single word is a reminder that she should have a more dignified bearing.
“…What happened the following morning?”
“As neither of us had quite wanted to marry, we agreed on keeping our distance from each other. Thus, without consummating, we had been left with a blank piece of cloth. You cut open your arm so there would be blood. It was a simple gesture to you, but I was baffled that you’d go to such lengths for me.”
“I see.”
“I spoke to Ding You about it as well—your residency, that is. He gave me quite the attitude, saying he wouldn’t be able to make a palace appear out of nowhere, but I made it very clear that such a thing was nowhere near what I wanted. Just for you to have a home that looks like everyone else’s here, and a bed with space for two people; which sent him on another fit about how I couldn’t possibly be sure you wanted the latter. To which I said, are you accusing me of not knowing my own wife? To which he said yes, and that our whole relationship was founded on lies to begin with.” Despite the heaviness of the claim she just recited, she seems quite pleased with herself. “I won the argument in the end, though. So it’s safe to say you’ll have some construction happening around here soon.”
Qi Yan just stares. Even if she had retained her memories, she thinks she wouldn’t know how to respond to that.
“If you truly don’t want me to sleep in the same bed with you, I don’t mind at all. You might as well have more space anyway with how often you fall ill; that’s what got him to acquiesce.”
“No, I-” She feels foolish, fumbling for words she doesn’t have. Her mind isn’t as sharp as it used to be—she lacks a frame of reference to compare against, but she feels how her condition fluctuates, how she trips over basic thinking from time to time. “I would like to.”
Jingnu’s eyes widen. Her surprise softens into a smile, serene and warm.
Qi Yan isn’t quite sure why she agrees to it. Call it instinct, or grasping at the threadbare remnants of a deep connection. Nonetheless, she does, and she doesn’t find it necessary to back out.
A handful of days later, when construction is set to begin (Jingnu is nothing if not efficient, she’s learned), they gather what little Qi Yan owns. She’s not sure how she’s going to make a properly sized house feel lived in, even with how meager it’s going to be. The task won’t be handled on her own, she reminds herself.
Jingnu retrieves the parchment on the wall. “Do you still want to hang this?”
Qi Yan studies it. The joy in her expression, the light in her eyes. “Well, it’s a nice portrait, isn’t it?”
Her brow furrows, pride wounded. “Isn’t the real thing better?”
“Of course.” She closes the book on her lap and smiles. “Would you find it selfish of me to want both?”
Jingnu’s face goes stiff, then scrunches, eyes filling up with tears. She places the portrait gently on the small table and collapses into Qi Yan’s lap, embracing her as if it’s her last chance to do so. It’s not uncommon for her to suddenly start crying during their conversations, but this is more intense—she’s already shaking in Qi Yan’s arms.
“My mother, all I had to remember her was-” She hiccups. “When I first saw that you remembered me the same way, I could hardly…”
The story rings faintly familiar to Qi Yan. She assumes the portrait of Jingnu’s mother no longer exists. Guilt sinks in her stomach—why she feels that way, Qi Yan is unsure. She holds Jingnu close as she trembles, hand running down her back in soft, slow motions.
Their married life resumes in earnest when construction is finished. It’s unfamiliar having someone to wake up in the arms of, to spend her days with. Someone waiting for her when she arrives home from teaching, to insist on helping her with menial tasks. Jingnu isn’t exceptionally strong, but it’s not difficult to be any stronger than Qi Yan is.
She wasn’t quite alone before—Ding You frequently aided her in her day to day activities. But there’s a care to Jingnu’s touch, an affection that feels as if it bursts from her fingertips, warm and enveloping. When she helps Qi Yan change, when she gently unwraps her bindings and applies salve to the tender, bruised flesh there, every brush of her hands cries out: I love you, I love you, I love you. Initially it was overwhelming. Qi Yan had felt the instinct to flinch away, to cower and hide, but she chose to trust Jingnu. The weight of that decision was harrowing, relying on a supposed outsider. It’s exactly what Ding You wanted her not to do.
But Qi Yan knows her body is too weak to bring her into old age. It may be foolish, but she doesn’t wish to live the rest of her life in fear. Jingnu expects no reciprocation—she is simply content to live with Qi Yan peacefully like this. Whatever form that may take, she will embrace it with everything in her.
Even if she does not remember her history with Jingnu, she feels comfort in their contact. Jingnu’s hands are always warm, thawing the ice deep in Qi Yan’s bones and soothing her aches. Qi Yan lets herself be melted, reforming under Jingnu’s care.
She finds physical touch easier in the dark. Her eyes can’t betray her deep aching for companionship—here, it can be excused as exhaustion lowering her boundaries.
Familiar yet unfamiliar, she maps the contours of Jingnu’s body. There’s a soft perfection to her, carved from marble, warm and alive. Qi Yan’s hand rests on her waist. The curve of it feels like home.
“Yuanjun,” Jingnu whispers, like it’s a prayer. A prayer for Qi Yan to recover what she’s lost. Something bittersweet twists in her chest. There is a weight to this name that she can’t put her finger on. Her mind trips over itself—not quite as sharp as it used to be, this little she knows—and she isn't sure what to say.
“…Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?”
She flushes, looking up at Qi Yan with dark, glittering eyes. “Yuanjun…” Again, as if it’s honey on her tongue, overwhelming in the sheer affection it carries.
Qi Yan slips a hand underneath the hem of her dudou. Nangong Jingnu shivers, a seemingly eternal starvation finally satiated. She’s been deprived of loving touch. The vulnerability in her reaction makes Qi Yan’s chest ache, overwhelmed with the urge to provide what she so desperately desires. But uncertainty paralyzes her hands, keeps them locked near her waist and the soft space of her stomach. Still, just to be touched like this is enough for Jingnu—there’s nothing more she needs at this moment.
“I love you.” Jingnu says it like holding the words back would cause her physical pain. “You don’t have to say it to me, I just…”
“No, I…” Qi Yan nestles into her neck. “Even if I can’t quite say it, there is still-” She trails off. She finds herself speechless much more these days, always around Jingnu. “Still, my world is centered around you. Your image is the only thing I took with me. That was all I had for very, very long. I didn’t think I would ever see you, let alone hold you like this. When you said you were my wife, I—” She chuckles silently. “I thought to myself, I must have been blessed to end up with you.”
Jingnu hiccups, and Qi Yan draws back. Even when she’s crying, she’s picturesque, as if her very tears are hand-blown glass, her sorrowful face sculpted perfectly.
“Everything I say makes you cry.” Qi Yan wipes her tears, touching their foreheads together. Her voice drops to a whisper. “What in the world did I do to you?”
“You have no idea how much I missed you,” she sobs. “Every day, every day, I prayed you would come back somehow. The nights were so lonely without you, oh, Yuanjun, I-!”
“I’m here now. We have the rest of our lives together.” Her thumb brushes over Jingnu’s cheekbone, hand tracing down her jaw.
“The rest of our lives aren't enough! I should have never been so cruel to you, I shouldn’t have left you in the cold… it’s not enough. I want to have a family with you, in this life! I want to be with you in the next one too!” She holds Qi Yan’s face in both hands, as if fearing she’ll disappear. “Promise me you’ll find me again. I understand if you can’t love me anymore as we are, but if you can’t even after we reincarnate, I don’t think I can bear it.”
“I promise.” She can’t say it with as much earnestness as she hoped, but she wants it to be true. “I’ll find you. We can start over.” Maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll be able to have a child.
Qi Yan knows she cannot be a parent, even if they had the means—she can hardly keep track of her students. Her failing memory would read in a young mind as neglect. But on the rare occasion a baby is born in the village, everyone crowds around the parents’ home, cooing at the impossibly small bundle. When she finds herself standing solitary in this tight-knit community, all of them admiring how wondrous it is to bring life into the world, she feels like crying. Sometimes Qi Yan thinks she would give anything for the chance to have a flesh and blood child of her own, but there’s nothing left of herself to give.
Ding You doesn’t tell her much, but that wasn’t hard for her to piece together. Even at present it’s true. She has days where she’s far too lightheaded, hardly able to leave the house. If she tries to get up and change, he insists she stays in bed, as binding would put further pressure on her lungs when she’s already short of breath.
As if Jingnu knows what she’s thinking about, she drifts a hand down to the bottom of Qi Yan’s rib. Underneath her inner clothes lie perpetual yellow-purple bruises from the constant bandaging. There isn’t even that much to bandage, really, so she finds her body’s protest quite ridiculous.
Maybe Jingnu would have been happier with a man. Someone she could raise a child with.
“I have always wanted you.”
Qi Yan stares at her, wide-eyed. Jingnu smiles warmly. “I can see the doubt in your expression. We’ve had this discussion in the past.”
“We have?”
“I had a myriad of chances to leave you. But even years after you left, I crossed the Luo River to find your resting place. I dug into the earth with my bare hands. I pried open that empty coffin, and I still was determined to find you.”
“I can’t begin to fathom how much pain I must have put you through,” Qi Yan whispers.
Jingnu pulls her close, laughing bitterly. “So much.”
They fall silent, Jingnu’s fingers combing through Qi Yan’s hair. She didn’t realize how soothing such a gesture could be. In her wife’s arms, underneath her loving touch, Qi Yan’s ironclad defenses weaken, buckling under their own weight.
“My absence of memories never caused me any distress. Day to day life may have felt hollow, but that was all I had known, so it seemed natural. Then you came along, and…”
“And?”
“And I suddenly felt this gaping vacancy. This space flooded with speculation and curiosity, hanging off of your every word. I drowned in the uncertainty of it all. I wanted to know you, to know myself. It was as if I couldn’t quite see before. Everything is new and unfamiliar now, which is exhilarating, but it is… overwhelming.”
Jingnu’s breath catches. Her hand stills, searching for something to say. “…Do you ever look at the stars?”
“The stars? No, I suppose not. Why do you ask?”
“When we met, you said your vision was poor in the dark. One night I had asked you if you could see the stars, and you had said no. Of course, the eyesight claim had been a lie, so I suppose I just… I wondered if maybe you held any fondness for them.”
Qi Yan hums. “Do you?”
“I wouldn’t say I held any special attachment to them. But after that, I felt I had taken them for granted. During times we were apart, if I found myself unable to sleep, I’d admire the night sky. It wasn’t the sort of sentiment that we might have been seeing the same stars, as I was still of the mindset that you couldn’t see them at all—but,” She pauses, failing to articulate the enormity of her fondness, how Qi Yan was (and is) woven into every aspect of her life. “It was something that made me think of you.”
Qi Yan stares at her. There’s a bone-deep urge she’s had lately that’s been suppressed for the sake of rationality and politeness. But in the quiet dark, it bubbles up within her anew. She holds Jingnu’s face in her hands, thumb brushing over her cheekbone. Jingnu simply lets herself be touched, almost trembling from the sheer relief that Qi Yan still even wants to hold her in this way.
She eases closer. Their noses brush. A feverish heat swelters everywhere their bodies meet, their arms, their chests—and then, their lips.
Qi Yan relearns anew how kissing Nangong Jingnu makes her feel.