Xiang Wan let out a sigh as light as a feather, her gaze directed downward.
However, the elevator didn’t descend; it was halted by someone outside, and the doors slid open.
Chao Xin extended her hand to hold the button and asked, “Can you stay tonight?”
Xiang Wan looked up at her, remaining motionless.
“I have something to ask you, something very important.” Chao Xin continued to hold the elevator doors open, despite the low hum signaling they had been open for too long.
Xiang Wan stepped out, and Chao Xin released the button before taking her hand. They proceeded down the hallway, opened the door, and went straight into the master bedroom.
Carefully closing the door, Chao Xin gestured for her to sit on the bed, and then kicked off her own slippers to sit across from her.
Chao Xin’s oversized nightgown fell open at the collar, her long hair pinned behind her ears. The floor lamp wasn’t very bright, but certainly better than the dim lighting of a karaoke bar. It provided just enough illumination for them to see each other.
“What is it?” Xiang Wan’s voice was thin, carrying a hint of restraint.
“You said you came from a long time ago. I didn’t disbelieve you then, because my thought was, no matter where you came from, no matter what kind of person you are, I want to have intimacy with you.”
“But I am a bit sorry, because I indeed didn’t take it as seriously as you would have liked, so afterwards, for such a long time, I didn’t think about it deeply.”
“I’m sorry.”
It was the first time Chao Xin had said I’m sorry. Her voice carried a touch of hoarseness, a hint of yearning, but it held a rare transparency.
Also, a touch of nervousness, her eyebrows slightly furrowed, as if she were unaccustomed to such things.
Xiang Wan didn’t want to admit that she had forgiven her quickly, even before the word ‘sorry’ had fully left Chao Xin’s lips.
Because she had seen too much evasion, too much insincerity. Given Chao Xin’s earnest start, Xiang Wan wanted to forgive her already.
Xiang Wan bit her lip, looking at Chao Xin, as if scooping water out of her heart, bit by bit extracting her grievances. But the moment she touched them, it stirred the most ripples. So, her face no longer appeared as composed as it once did.
“What I want to ask is, where did you come from?” Chao Xin looked at her seriously.
She glanced at Xiang Wan’s face, shoulders, arms, and fingertips resting on the bed.
“The Li Dynasty,” Xiang Wan said.
The Li Dynasty… Chao Xin’s history was poor. It seemed she had heard of it, a minor dynasty in a chaotic era, something like a transition between major periods.
“It’s over a thousand years from now,” Xiang Wan didn’t care whether Chao Xin knew it or not, she just said, “I am many, many years older than you.”
When she explained her origins, she didn’t forget to reproach Chao Xin for her previous chaotic thoughts. Although her proud words hid it well, Chao Xin discovered it, and again, was charmed by her.
“So, are you… a demon?”
“A cultivator?”
“Or… did you consume the elixir of eternal life?”
Chao Xin stared into Xiang Wan’s watery almond-shaped eyes, brimming with curiosity. The eyes of the person in front of her were like a young deer, with a hint of a peach blossom spirit hidden within.
Xiang Wan’s breath hitched, she couldn’t help but laugh, but then quickly suppressed it. Keeping a serious face, she asked Chao Xin, “Do I look like a demon to you?”
“Will I eat you?” Xiang Wan tilted her head, her slender neck swaying, softly questioning her.
Chao Xin moved her lips, implying something profound, “You have eaten, haven’t you?”
Xiang Wan couldn’t resist anymore, she bit her lip and laughed. But she turned her face, not wanting to be seen by Chao Xin, however, forgetting to hide her blushing earlobe, inadvertently revealing a bit of herself.
“I am a human, just like you, aging one year at a time, subject to birth, aging, sickness, and death.” Xiang Wan looked at the clean bedsheet as she spoke softly.
“Then, how did you get here?”
“One day, during a thunderstorm, I don’t know how, but I ended up at Yu Zhou’s place, and she took me in.”
“So…” Chao Xin thought of something important, “You have never been a wanderer.”
“No.”
“Back then, when I had to register, I had no other reason to explain my origin, so I wrote ‘wanderer’ as my background to establish my household registration.”
“You landed in…” Chao Xin blinked, her heart stirred.
“Yu Zhou’s home.”
As she finished speaking, her lips had not yet closed, and there was a fleeting upward curve. Chao Xin watched her, slowly and restrainedly closing her lips. Only three words were in her heart — so that’s it.
So the emergency contact was for that reason.
The gloom seemed to dissipate by seven or eight points instantly, taking along with it all the concerns about age and social background. Chao Xin felt herself a bit childish, a type of childishness she had never experienced before.
The kind of childishness where one feels gloomy because of a person’s small actions, and then feels the clouds lift because of her few explanatory words.
“What were you like before?”
“I,” Xiang Wan raised her eyebrows and her chin, her lips curved in a half-smile, “I am the daughter of a prime minister, my name is Xiang A-Xi.”
“A bit proud,” Chao Xin said, laughing.
But in her heart, she was saying, no wonder, no wonder Xiang Wan’s upbringing is so good, her temperament is also so good, she has the air of a scholar and a refined aura.
She blinked slowly, as if looking at a kaleidoscope. Every blink, she would turn the kaleidoscope once, piecing together an image of Xiang Wan from the Li Dynasty in her mind. A beauty in splendid clothes, so radiant that it was indescribable.
So it turned out that at that awards ceremony, Chao Xin thought that the Hanfu suited Xiang Wan perfectly, making her outshine the starry night sky, and it was not Chao Xin’s illusion.
The willfulness and control deep in Xiang Wan’s character were not illusions either.
On the contrary, Chao Xin was truly getting to know Xiang Wan.
This discovery made Chao Xin’s heart feel as though it was being armed by warm water, very warm and comfortable.
“I was born in the twenty-fourth year of the XinYuan period, eighteen when I arrived here. My father is Xiang Yu, the prime minister of the court. My mother, Lady Xiang Hua, is the legitimate daughter of the Princess Zhaohua of Emperor Gaozong. My elder brother, Xiang Pi, was serving as the Salt Inspector and Grand Historian at the time. My second brother is called Xiang Qin, and when I left, he was still in the military.”
“My second brother and I have the closest relationship. But he always scares me. That’s why I told you earlier that I wanted to take foreign language classes together with Paipai. It’s because my second brother told me that barbarians are cannibals.”
“I also have a younger sister, only eight years old, born to a concubine. But she is as lovely as jade and very clever. You’d definitely like her if you met her.”
Xiang Wan slowly and meticulously spoke as she reminisced.
Her eyes flickered, as if trying to connect Chao Xin with her past using a faint force.
Chao Xin was in a daze because this girl in front of her was seriously introducing some figures buried in the dust of history to her. In her words, they were very much alive, as if they were in some not too distant hometown. If Chao Xin wanted to visit one day, she could be led by Xiang Wan into their home for a meal.
But the more vividly Xiang Wan painted them, the sadder Chao Xin felt. The richness of her past mercilessly revealed Xiang Wan’s current state of having nothing.
It was hard for her to imagine how Xiang Wan had lost everything overnight and came to this world in confusion and loneliness.
She must have been very scared at the time.
Without even a transition.
Chao Xin reached out and held Xiang Wan’s fingertips, which were unconsciously scratching the sheet. Then Xiang Wan looked up and asked Chao Xin, “Do you really believe me?”
It was weak, even pleading.
“I remember, your father, mother, elder brother, second brother, and a very cute younger sister. This time I really remember.” Chao Xin didn’t answer whether she believed or not, but she said this.
“You believe,” Xiang Wan said softly, “I can see that you feel sorry for me.”
There was a faint shimmer in her eyes. This was the second time she wanted to cry. But she didn’t understand why. The last time she wanted to cry, it was heart-wrenching. This time, nothing happened. They just had a calm conversation.
Chao Xin leaned over and gently kissed Xiang Wan, first on her cheek, then the corners of her eyes.
So Chao Xin understood. Xiang Wan had a promising future, but it was also a future that could not be truly peaceful.
Her random utterance, that Xiang Wan had no past, turned out to be true.
Often, each of us stands on a high platform built by our experiences. The ‘past’ supports us as we face the future. Some are the warmth of their original families, some are the kindness encountered during their growth. Some people’s past is a splendid palace, capable of sending them straight to the heavens, soaring into the azure sky.
Chao Xin’s past was a dilapidated house on the verge of collapse. She could sometimes smell the rotten vegetable leaves and the nauseating stench of stale water.
But Xiang Wan, she didn’t even have a crumbling house. She was walking on a single-plank bridge in a perilous valley, or even… tightrope.
Perhaps there would be friends at the same height, reaching out to steady her swaying figure from time to time, but she had not met anyone who truly wanted to take her to a slightly safer platform.
“So,” Chao Xin’s thoughts were interrupted, because she was suddenly poked by a rather important question, “Will you go back?”
“I don’t know.”
Three words that made Chao Xin’s heart contract.
“But Yu Zhou tried with me, in the same thunderstorm, and I didn’t manage to go back. She also had her friend at the museum check some internal information. There were more detailed records about my family. It said I had… passed away.”
Seeing Chao Xin’s frown, Xiang Wan corrected herself, “It was Xiang A-Xi from the Li Dynasty who passed away.”
Chao Xin let out a breath, but she didn’t feel much relief. She couldn’t stand to hear the words ‘passed away’ associated with Xiang Wan.
“So I want to study archaeology, I want to study for a master’s degree, and then go to the museum. I also want to see the records about myself with my own eyes, plus those about my elder brother and second brother. I don’t know if there are any about my younger sister, and my good friend, Sister Li. I don’t even know… whom she married.”
Xiang Wan tilted her head, gently and softly expressing her tiny personal desires.
Chao Xin listened attentively, nodding to show that she understood.
“Talking so much to you, my ears are a bit hot. When I wake up tomorrow, will I regret it?” Xiang Wan touched her ears, uncertain.
“It’s too late for regrets, I’ve already heard it all.”
“So you know.”
“Know what?” Chao Xin unconsciously picked up her phrase.
“You’re so unreasonable.”
“I…”
“You think you’re different from me in the future, so you push me away. But I’m hundred times, thousand times more uncertain than you, and yet I never hesitate like you do, always pondering and wavering.”
Xiang Wan glanced at her, “I know my path ahead is unclear, that’s why I agreed to indulge with you. But you pretend to be carefree when you’re not necessarily so.”
“So we…” Chao Xin was a bit hesitant.
Xiang Wan sat up straight, interrupting her seriously.
“I kind of like you, and you probably feel the same. But if one of us feels the timing isn’t right, we can’t force it. If you want to be with me, promise me that in the future, if I want to be close to you, I’ll be close, and if you want to be close to me, you can be close too, without worrying too much.”
“If one day, one of us tires of this relationship, one should raise it as soon as possible, and we’ll have no more entanglements.”
This was the best solution Xiang Wan could think of. It wouldn’t put any pressure about life and the future on their relationship, but they wouldn’t have to suppress their desire to be close and their desire to take either.
Chao Xin had nothing to say, silently admitting that she indeed was not the older one. Xiang Wan had her completely under control, moving forward and backward, as if she had precisely targeted Chao Xin’s emotions.
Actually, Xiang Wan’s attitude was what Chao Xin initially wanted to pursue – ‘as long as it feels good,’ but then something else came up and disrupted their relationship.
That something else was called ‘not enough’, called ‘greed’.
But at present, neither of them had the capital to be ‘greedy’.
“Did you think of these things just now, or did you plan to tell me before you came?” Chao Xin asked her.
“I thought about it during dinner.”
Dinner? Chao Xin probed: “So they all…”
“Know.”
“All of it?” Chao Xin’s heart skipped a beat.
“Yes.”
Chao Xin fell silent.
Xiang Wan lowered her head slightly, “Your face is red.”
Chao Xin nonchalantly brushed her hair aside, checked her phone before she said casually, “It’s late, let’s sleep. I’ll take you to school tomorrow.”
But Xiang Wan shook her head, and Chao Xin looked up at her.
Xiang Wan leaned over, “You asked me to stay, what’s more, you made me upset before.”
Smelling the increasingly close warm scent, Chao Xin’s heart was being pulled, like being tugged on a string, it kept jolting.
“I still have a bit of anger left.”
Xiang Wan covered Chao Xin’s lips with one hand, and pushed up her sleep dress with the other.
“So I… don’t care about Paipai anymore.”
CNYuriTranslation 