◎Like green bamboo in wind and rain—about to snap◎
“Will Young Sect Master Yan betray me?”
Even as she asked, You Fusang was still smiling.
Yan Rushi was held fast beneath her, lying flat on the bed with her head forced back, wrists pinned, her posture unbearable. “Venerable Lord…” she yielded, faintly guilty. “How would I dare?…”
You Fusang gave a cold laugh.
The pigeon in the room was gone without trace, but that heart-clenching smell of blood lingered on and on.
Yan Rushi raced through excuses in her head—but to her surprise, You Fusang did not press. She only drew a little closer, her voice skimming the tip of Yan Rushi’s ear, breath sultry and ambiguous. “Good Junior Sister. Say only this—that you will never betray me—and I will believe you.”
Yan Rushi answered at once: “N-naturally! I would never betray the Venerable Lord!”
You Fusang cradled her face and laughed softly. “Good Junior Sister.”
While Yan Rushi was still caught in the lure of that smile, she felt a searing heat brand itself into the skin of her neck, the pain of fine thunder-fire crawling over her.
Yan Rushi’s heart cried out in alarm—
A Blood Pact!
The commonest covenant among Devil Cultivators: words as the medium, Devil Qi as the channels, binding the other to obedience upon pain of violation—a thousandfold corrosion, agony past bearing.
When the strong seal the weak, it is to test loyalty. When the weak seal the strong, it is to shackle and counterbalance.
And You Fusang was strong—stronger than anyone. Under absolute suppression of power, such a pact was all but useless.
And yet this was the first time she had ever used this bloodstained covenant.
You Fusang let go, leaving a fleck of apricot red on Yan Rushi’s earlobe, vivid as a flower’s heart.
Then she withdrew in the best of humors, enjoying at leisure the sight of Yan Rushi’s stunned face.
“Why does Young Sect Master Yan look at me so? So long as you don’t betray me, all will of course be well. Unless… hiding among us and betraying me was Young Sect Master’s intention all along?”
“Never!” Yan Rushi shook her head fast.
You Fusang held her gaze a few breaths longer—then, at last, put out the candles.
“It’s late. Sleep.”
That much, at least, was gentle.
Beyond the window, the third-watch moon; early-spring pear blossoms falling like snow. Within, silk curtains light, quilts thin; the two lay on opposite sides, speaking no more, what lay between them like a river of stars.
Lying so stiffly together on one bed, You Fusang found herself remembering a time long, long ago—when she was still a scruffy child of the Yan Sect’s Inner Sect, newly learning Sword Flight, the day she fell and broke her leg.
She spent two full months lying in the sect’s infirmary.
There was one other person there at the time—Yan Rushi. She, however, had not fallen from sword flight. This Young Sect Master of the Yan Sect had a bad habit: the last few steps of any staircase, she liked to jump.
“Rushi, fool around like that and you’ll break something one day!”
And so, on one fair, sun-drenched noon, the Young Sect Master of the Yan Sect lived up to expectations and broke her leg.
When You Fusang learned what had landed Yan Rushi in the sickbed, a laugh burst out of her before she could stop it.
Yan Rushi bristled. “I—I was afraid you’d be lonely! That’s why I came to the infirmary to keep you company!”
You Fusang didn’t believe a word of it.
But she saw through it and said nothing.
“All right, all right. If Junior Sister Yan wishes to keep me company, I could not be more pleased.”
The infirmary bed was eight feet across, enormous. It had been You Fusang’s alone, but once Yan Rushi arrived she insisted, whatever it took, on claiming a share.
Her knack for coaxing You Fusang grew more practiced by the day; her form of address had already climbed from “Senior Sister You” to “Big Sister Fusang,” and it never failed to make You Fusang’s mind go blank.
The Little Peacock was lively by nature, kind-faced to everyone, but at root she was proud. Apart from You Fusang, apart from Mother, she would never cling to anyone like this.
Why was You Fusang the exception?
Yan Rushi herself couldn’t quite work it out. Only once, entirely by chance, did she recall her first meeting with You Fusang—not the ravine of the Yan Sect trials, but some ordinary, rain-dark dusk.
Raindrops struck the clearing evening sky. You Fusang stood holding a broom beneath the eaves, quietly watching that rain-soaked sunset.
Yan Rushi looked at her and thought her like a stalk of green bamboo standing in the dusk—one blow of wind, one wash of rain, and it would snap.
For no reason she could name, Yan Rushi’s heart ached for her.
Ached for her, yearned toward her, wanted to be near her.
Why is Senior Sister always so listless, so dispirited? Even in sleep her brows are knit. Yan Rushi always wanted to reach out and smooth that frown, just to make her smile.
Smile more, Senior Sister…
But the moment her fingertip touched You Fusang’s brow, the sleeper’s eyes flew open.
On the infirmary bed, You Fusang’s eyes were bright and fixed on her, a dazed question in their depths. “Junior Sister Yan?”
Caught red-handed, Yan Rushi flushed to the roots of her hair. “I—I have Night Blindness! I can never see things in the dark, so I wanted to touch you and make sure you were still alive!”
Ahhhh, Yan Rushi howled inside. What kind of excuse was THAT!
The Night Blindness was true—though not that bad—but what on earth was that last sentence! Senior Sister will be angry, won’t she?
But You Fusang only laughed a little and lay back. “Alive and well. Don’t worry.” She held out her own wrist into Yan Rushi’s palm. “If you don’t believe me, Junior Sister, feel for yourself—does a living person’s pulse beat so?”
The Night Blindness seemed to worsen; a fog-colored dimness filled Yan Rushi’s eyes. She couldn’t read You Fusang’s expression—could only seize on that trace of warmth and softness in her palm. Thump, thump—
She couldn’t tell whether it was her Senior Sister’s pulse or her own heart.
Watching her stare into blankness, You Fusang asked softly: “Can’t sleep, Junior Sister?”
As if finding an exit in all that panic, Yan Rushi seized on it at once: “Mm. Can’t sleep, can’t sleep…”
“Is Junior Sister’s Night Blindness truly so bad?”
“Mm… I daren’t go out at night. I’ve never even seen the moon…” The Little Peacock, the very picture of aggrieved. “Senior Sister, I’m so pitiful…”
“You’ve never seen the moon?”
You Fusang sounded as if she didn’t believe it, so Yan Rushi grew urgent: “Truly never! Cross my heart…”
“Then would Junior Sister like to see the moon tonight?”
“Eh?”
You Fusang took her hand.
“The moonlight is cool and clear tonight. If Junior Sister wants to see it, I’ll take you.”
So Senior Sister You was this gentle? Or was it that the Night Blindness blurred the scenery away, and touch alone, infinitely magnified, was all that reached Yan Rushi’s heart—so that all that arrived was that length of soft, warm wrist?
She didn’t know.
By then their broken legs had healed by half; they still limped a little, but they could walk. Pushed out toward the open air, endless darkness folded around Yan Rushi—even the most familiar mountain paths left her helpless.
But You Fusang’s presence steadied her.
Faint sandalwood, like a thin sleepy snow settling on pine branches, poised between cold and warmth—not extreme in any way, mild to the point of a heart-ache.
Just like the sudden opening of willows and flowers—the clear cold moonlight before her eyes.
The moon hung high above; the evening woods below the hill lay hushed.
“Look, Junior Sister.” You Fusang smiled. “The moon.”
Yan Rushi looked at her, and at the moon, and could not bear to blink even once.
It was simply this: an early-spring moon shining on snow, stirring a whole still sky into clouded glass, and a wind rising in the heart.
