Chapter 005
Chapter 5: Day and Night Are Worlds Apart
Knock, knock, knock! The banging came fast and hard, full of impatience. A sharp voice snapped from outside: “Xiao Man, did you die in there? The Steward wants you to take the new incense to the Eldest Grandson Young Master’s Auspicious Cloud Residence.”
It was Chun Yan, a third-class maid, the sharpest tongue of them all. Xiao Man’s heart skipped. Eldest Grandson Young Master. Auspicious Cloud Residence. That was the place she least wanted to go.
“I… my stomach feels a bit off,” she said through the door, voice thin.
Chun Yan snorted and called back, colder still: “What, you’re special now? Since when do chores pick people? If you won’t go, tell the Steward yourself. Don’t drag me into it.” Her steps clicked away.
Xiao Man sagged against the door, pale as paper. She couldn’t avoid it. In the end, she carried the tray of incense, inching step by step toward the Auspicious Cloud Residence. The closer she walked, the heavier her feet felt; her heart climbed into her throat.
The yard was very quiet; every servant there held their breath. Under the corridor, Lin Qing Xuan sat in a round-backed chair, prayer beads passing gently through his fingers, eyes closed at rest. His plain white monk’s robe made his features look even colder, like an immortal sent down to earth. He gave off a distance that warned people to stay away. This was the real Buddha’s Chosen—clear heart, few desires, no joy, no sorrow. He was nothing like the warm man in her dream. Xiao Man’s heart sank. It really was only her dirty thoughts that made such a foolish dream.
Biting a smile at herself, she handed the incense to the Steward Granny in the yard and turned to go.
“You,” a clear male voice called behind her.
Xiao Man froze where she stood. Her blood felt like it iced over. It was Lin Qing Xuan’s voice. She didn’t dare turn.
“Lift your head,” he said, tone flat and unreadable.
Her fingers twisted into her hem until the joints blanched. Her body moved on its own—she turned and slowly raised her face.
At some point he had opened his eyes. Those cool, distant eyes were fixed on her. Her heart almost stopped. What was he going to do? Had he found something out?
As her thoughts spun, Lin Qing Xuan lifted his hand and, with his long fingers, tapped his own earlobe—right where she had bitten him in the dream. The motion was small and quick, almost like an illusion. But Xiao Man saw it.
Her mind boomed into white noise. He let his hand fall, his fingertips rolling one bead forward on the prayer beads. His gaze slipped off her shocked face. “You may go,” he said lightly.
She fled from the yard. [That little motion doesn’t count. It doesn’t count. I must have imagined it.] Back in her room, she called into the air for Tuan Tuan. No reply. It was as if it had never existed.
Night still came, quiet and sure. In the dream, Lin Qing Xuan bent to her ear and murmured, low and gentle: “Let’s be an ordinary husband and wife, Xiao Man.”
For two heartbeats she said no inside, but she lost to his handsome face and drowned again in that mutual sweetness. Dream-love had no price. She wouldn’t get pregnant. She didn’t have to think about family rank. Even better, in the dream his deep affection belonged only to her.
A wild wish rose: [I’ll pull the cold, self-controlled Buddha’s Chosen down from his altar.] She consoled herself with a secret plan: [Soon I’ll be released from the manor. My most glorious feat in this era will be that I slept with Lin Qing Xuan in a dream. The cold Buddha’s Chosen is my bedmate—no one knows, but I feel great. Once I leave, I’ll still be a maiden. I’ll have money in hand, run far, and live on my skills.]
By dim candlelight, he held a crystal grape between his lips and leaned close. Xiao Man lifted her chin to take that touch of cool sweetness, her light green top brushing his robe by accident. Breath mingled, warm enough to singe the edge of the dream.
[When did he learn to do this?] she wondered, dazed. [Last night he bumped my teeth like a novice. Now he’s sure and steady, like a hunter.]
When his brocade sleeve brushed her sweaty temple, she suddenly noticed the prayer beads on his wrist were still cool to the touch. [Where did Tuan Tuan go?]
“Are you distracted?” Lin Qing Xuan asked, voice low.
[What? No… He noticed!] she thought, flustered.
He bit her lip lightly, a hint of anger in it, and breathed against her mouth: “You’re looking for that fog?”
“Wait, what did you say?” Xiao Man gasped, trying to push him away.
Candle shadows climbed the silk canopy, turning the room hazy and warm. Lin Qing Xuan’s eyes darkened; his roaming fingertips, even through thin cloth, raised a tide of tingles. He had no plan to let her go. He bent and took back the sweetness from her lips; heat and breath tangled, and his husky warning melted into their kiss: “Xiao Man, don’t get distracted…”
Broken whispers curled like vines, dragging her last bit of sense into a deep fall. Only when their ragged breathing slowly eased in the dim light did he speak again, soft and certain: “My good Xiao Man, the mist is me. I am that fog.”
He touched her brow and said, half dream, half real: “This place is a dream and not a dream. You and I are in Shared Dreaming, bound by an Empathic Link. You can’t escape.”
Gray-white dawn leaked through the window paper and spread across the floor. Xiao Man jerked upright. Cold sweat had soaked her underclothes, sticky on her back. His words circled her ears like a ghost she couldn’t shake: “You and I are in Shared Dreaming. You can’t escape.”
[Empathic Link? Shared Dreaming?] she thought, face draining of color. [So he knows everything I did in the dream? No—not just knows. He did it with me.]
It wasn’t only her dream. It was their joint fall. She had thought she was in control, getting the better end. In truth, she had walked into the net he wove.
Outside, the third-class maids were getting up. Xiao Man slid off the bed, legs weak, barely able to stand. The mirror showed a woman with a paper-white face, bloodless lips, and heavy dark circles.
She scooped up cold water and slapped it onto her face. The chill cleared her head, but the cold in her heart dug deeper. [How am I supposed to face him today?]
In the yard, Chun Yan stood with a washbasin, chatting and laughing. Spotting Xiao Man, she raised her voice: “Well, who is this? Did your soul get lost, or were you out stealing? Your face is white as pasted paper.”
A few maids covered their mouths and snickered. Xiao Man clenched her fists; nails bit into her palms. She said nothing and walked fast. She didn’t dare argue; if she opened her mouth, her voice would shake.
She moved like a wandering spirit, doing chores by habit while her mind twisted in knots. She tried to recall the dream’s details. The fog called “Tuan Tuan” was Lin Qing Xuan himself. He had lured her, step by step, into that heated dream. Cold and restrained by day, fiery by night. [What kind of man is he, really?]
“Xiao Man!” the Steward Granny snapped, voice sharp. “Why are you dawdling? The Eldest Grandson Young Master’s copy of the Diamond Sutra is finished. Take it to him.”
A book was shoved into Xiao Man’s arms. The stiff paper edges poked her chest, and a new ache sparked there. Once more, it was the Eldest Grandson Young Master’s Auspicious Cloud Residence—the cage she couldn’t escape.
Carrying the sutra, she felt like every step was onto a knife’s edge. The yard lay silent, sandalwood thicker than usual in the air. Lin Qing Xuan sat again in the corridor, but now a book rested in his hands instead of prayer beads. Sunlight fell across his white robe, laying a faint glow over him.
Head lowered, Xiao Man hurried to the stone table at his side, set the sutra down gently, and turned to flee.
“Stop,” he said, voice cool as a pin of ice in her back.
She froze. She didn’t dare turn or even breathe. Behind her, only the soft rustle of turning pages.
A long moment passed.
“Last night, you said you liked me in scarlet,” he murmured, as if remarking on the weather.
Xiao Man’s body began to shake on its own. She whipped around. Lin Qing Xuan was still looking at the book, his profile perfect and hard. He didn’t look up. But his words were a key that opened a door to the pit. In the dream, she had clung to him, teasing that his pure white robe was dull, begging him to wear a bright scarlet one instead. How did he…
“I don’t like that robe,” he said, turning another page.
Her lips moved, but no sound came out. At last he raised his eyes. The calm surface of them clearly reflected her terror-struck face. The corner of his mouth tugged up the slightest bit—a blink-and-miss curve.
“Are you afraid of me?” he asked.