Chapter 19 Part 1

Shen Jianqing stood there blankly. It took four or five seconds for her vision to adjust before it finally focused on Qin Yue, white as jade and slender as a willow. Her fine skin, long steamed by hot water, wore a faint blush that should have framed her beauty in all its breathtaking completeness, but while washing she had paid little attention to the wounds on her neck. Soaked in water, the wounds bled more freely; one had nearly trickled down to her collarbone, marring her perfection. Like white jade flecked with blood.

That flaw created a far more violent visual impact, crashing into Shen Jianqing’s ink-dark pupils with the force of an explosion.

Shen Jianqing drew a soft, unbidden breath. She had a sudden urge for a cigarette.

Across from her, Qin Yue suddenly frowned, pressing her lips together and lightly biting the inside of her cheek before releasing. She couldn’t hold back the discomfort in her chest.

Cough, cough.

The water droplets clinging to her clear skin tumbled down with the stifled coughs from her throat. Shen Jianqing felt the ground drop out from under her and snapped back to her senses.

“You’re not feeling well?”

Shen Jianqing’s voice rose when she worried, but it couldn’t hide the concern underneath.

Qin Yue gripped the door, coughing lightly as she explained. “I inhaled a bit of lime tonight and couldn’t quite cough it up. I felt something just now and tried again, and it only made things worse. Cough, cough. I’m fine.”

Talking too much set off another cough. The blood on her neck took the chance to crawl toward her collarbone, stabbing at Shen Jianqing’s eyes.

Shen Jianqing clenched the pajamas tight. “I’ll get the first-aid kit!”

“Teacher Shen.” Qin Yue caught Shen Jianqing’s wrist to stop her. “I’m… cough… I’m fine.”

Shen Jianqing’s face darkened. “Your neck is bleeding and you call that fine?!”

Qin Yue blinked, as if only now realizing, and let go to feel her own neck. Temper flaring, Shen Jianqing seized her hand and pulled her right out of the bathroom. Qin Yue stumbled, leaving a trail of wet footprints on the pale wooden floor.

By the bed, Qin Yue sat wrapped in an oversized towel and watched Shen Jianqing’s flurry of activity for a full ten-plus minutes: drying her off, dressing her, smoothing on oil, blow-drying her hair, and then rushing off to fetch a first-aid kit and kneeling beside her to carefully clean the wounds.

Each time the antiseptic-soaked swab passed over a wound, Shen Jianqing tilted her head and blew gently on the spot. At first it felt cool and pleasant. But when Shen Jianqing moved on and blew on the next spot, the one before would suddenly itch. Qin Yue’s upright body shifted.

Shen Jianqing saw it and thought she was in pain. She stopped at once, braced the leg she’d been kneeling on behind Qin Yue, and nudged her with her foot. “If it hurts, pinch my ankle.”

The thinnest parts of her whole body were her wrists and ankles, thin enough for Qin Yue to get a grip on. Both her hands were busy, so all she could offer Qin Yue was her foot.

Qin Yue’s eyes were pale and clear. She pressed her lips together and turned the hand resting on the bed behind her. Her body faced forward, and Shen Jianqing leaning in to treat the wound at her neck blocked her peripheral vision entirely. She couldn’t see behind her at all and had to go entirely by touch. Qin Yue groped along where Shen Jianqing had nudged her earlier. Her middle finger seemed to brush something, then slipped off. Unsure, she lifted the finger to probe again and unexpectedly met a patch of fine, warm skin.

The person beside her drew a sharp breath through her teeth and looked up. “I told you to pinch my ankle. Why are you rubbing the sole of my foot?”

Qin Yue understood. She had touched the inner arch of Shen Jianqing’s foot. It was a lovely curve, but Shen Jianqing never let anyone touch it; she was ticklish. Qin Yue paused a beat, lowered her raised finger, shifted direction, and continued upward.

The moment her fingers closed around Shen Jianqing’s ankle, Shen Jianqing’s whole body went stiff. She shot a glance downward, pulled her gaze back, and calmly continued tending the wound.

Lamplight draped gently over the two of them, soft and hazy.

At the most inopportune moment, Shen Jianqing thought: Qin Yue’s hands had warmed back up. With that familiar temperature, the warmth began at her ankle and crept upward, silently. It spread to her chest and bloomed into a small eruption. Her hands stilled for a few seconds; she rested her raised arm on her knee before continuing.

“Your dean says your hands and feet are cold all year round. Is that true?” Shen Jianqing asked beside Qin Yue’s cheek.

Qin Yue had been staring up at the ceiling to make things easier for Shen Jianqing. Hearing this, she nodded, bumped the swab, and instinctively turned away from the pain.

Shen Jianqing’s hand with the swab stayed still as she looked up. “Don’t move around.”

The light at the corner of Qin Yue’s eyes met Shen Jianqing’s, and she settled back. “It’s true.”

“How come I never noticed before?” Shen Jianqing half-lidded her eyes and blew on the wound again. The breath rose slowly as she lifted her head to see Qin Yue’s expression, drifting up to land by Qin Yue’s ear. “Qin Yue, every time you come to my place, what do you do before you touch me?”

Warm air eddied in Qin Yue’s ear canal. The hand on Shen Jianqing’s ankle tightened slightly. “Every time I come, you make me shower first.”

“Hm?” Shen Jianqing was puzzled. She didn’t like condoms and Qin Yue didn’t like having her passion blocked by a thin layer of rubber, so what was the problem with showering?

Qin Yue said, “Your shower at home is thermostatic, and you have it set very high.”

“…So you just scald yourself?”

“Scald them for a while and the hands warm up.”

Shen Jianqing froze. Qin Yue worked with electronics; there was no way she couldn’t operate something that simple. She never adjusted it, only so Shen Jianqing would be more comfortable. Just like the shoes and bags at the entrance, tidied once a week without fail. Qin Yue attended to every detail and never said a word about it in over two years.

And she had been too busy. If she hadn’t been worried about Qin Yue and gone back to the entrance, if she hadn’t seen with her own eyes the sight of her crouching on the floor straightening her shoes, she probably would never have discovered what Qin Yue had been doing behind the scenes, not even by the time they parted. Especially since Qin Yue wasn’t in a good way tonight.

Shen Jianqing frowned slightly, dropped the swab, and began tidying the kit. “From now on, put yourself first. I barely catch a cold all year; you can’t compare yourself to me. Also,” glancing at the wound on Qin Yue’s neck, she added, “the wound isn’t serious, but try not to get it wet over the next few days. It inflames easily in summer.”

Qin Yue lowered her tilted head. “Got it. Thank you.”

Shen Jianqing packed up and stood to go, only to find that Qin Yue still held her ankle. Barely any force; the touch was more like a resting hand. Shen Jianqing pulled away quickly, the skin sliding fast across Qin Yue’s palm with a softness that sent a shiver through her.

Her hand on the kit tightened as she looked up at Qin Yue. The blush from her bath had long since faded. Warm light now poured down over her head, quietly wrapping her cool, pale skin.

Shen Jianqing faltered. The shock of that “white jade flecked with blood” at the bathroom door came rushing back, but before it could arrive she crushed it, silently scolding herself for losing her sense of occasion. She reached back to sweep her curls behind her and asked with a smile, “I’m all done with the wound. Still pinching?”

“There’s one more thing I want to ask you.” Qin Yue looked into her eyes. “I wanted to ask the moment I opened the bathroom door.”

“What is it?”

Shen Jianqing still sat turned to the side, her legs on either side of Qin Yue and very close. All Qin Yue had to do was lean slightly and her lips reached Shen Jianqing’s jaw, brushing it lightly. Then she leaned to her ear and murmured, “Teacher Shen, do the words from the bus still hold?”

Shen Jianqing shivered, her breath scattering. “They do.”

“Mm,” Qin Yue hummed, brushing her nose against the ear stud Shen Jianqing hadn’t yet removed. Then she drew back and, from a breath’s distance, raised her hand and pressed a fingertip to her lower lip. “Then I choose twenty-four minutes of kissing you.”

And with that, Qin Yue pressed her lips open and, with a brief graze, tilted her head and kissed her.

Unprepared, Shen Jianqing instinctively grabbed Qin Yue’s arm and let out a soft sound, like a spring wind sweeping across dry grass, in an instant igniting the dormant sparks in Qin Yue’s body. The hand still on Shen Jianqing’s ankle slid quickly along the leg propped beside her and eased her down to lie back, then set the kit on the floor.

Shen Jianqing heard the noise and tried to turn her head, only to be turned back, her lips pressed sealed. She was forced to open her mouth, and in under thirty seconds tasted the breathless, deep-kiss suffocation she loved so much. Time rushed the breath between them.

Shen Jianqing lost count of how many minutes they kissed. She only vaguely remembered reaching, again and again, to loop her arms around Qin Yue’s neck and claw back a little control, only to be caught and pinned above her head, then beside the pillow, and finally at the first button of her pajama top. The meaning was plain enough.

Half a night of lovemaking nearly drained them both.

Qin Yue lay over Shen Jianqing, whose gaze had gone unfocused, held her for a while, then rose with a light pant and got out of bed.

Shen Jianqing blinked languidly. “Where are you going?”

“Back to my place.”

Color still burned rich on Qin Yue’s face, but her voice had gone weak from the spent energy. Shen Jianqing’s gaze drifted for a moment at the sight, and once the meaning of those words registered, her eyes narrowed and snapped into sharp focus.

“It’ll be light in a few hours. Don’t wear yourself out.” Shen Jianqing shifted sideways toward the other side of the bed. “Just sleep here tonight.”

Qin Yue sat motionless. One breath had chased too hard on the heels of the last and wouldn’t straighten out; she turned her head in discomfort. Cough, cough… Several in a row.

Shen Jianqing shot up to rub her back. Once she had barely caught her breath, Qin Yue braced both hands on the bed, sniffed, and said, “We agreed: when it’s over, I leave. No overnights.”

Shen Jianqing choked. Those were her own words, spoken after the second time they slept together.