Chapter 82
Chapter 82: I Don’t Want to Be a Concubine
In the Auspicious Cloud Residence, the candles had long since died.
Little Man was so tired her bones felt hollowed out. She drained the warm bowl of apricot cream in a single breath, and the heat settled through her like a smoothing hand, comforting every cramped corner inside her.
The moment her head touched the pillow, she slipped into sleep.
It had been a long time since she’d dreamed.
This time, she fell back into that familiar, misty chaos.
The fog thinned slowly. The same towering tree emerged, so thick it would take several people to wrap their arms around its trunk, its leaves dense enough to blot out the sky.
Only now, the dream was too quiet.
No embarrassing, shameless sounds like last time. No two tangled, joyful buddha figures, either.
Everything was clean. Almost excessively so.
Someone stood beneath the tree.
Lin Qing Xuan.
White robes, untouched by dust. Black hair spilling down his back, bound with nothing but a plain wooden pin.
A cold glow like moonlight haloed him, making him look like an immortal banished into a mortal world by mistake.
When he saw her, the chill in his brows eased at once.
He reached out.
His lips parted, and his voice rang clear, like jade tapping stone. “Little Man.”
As if pulled by something she couldn’t name, she went to him.
His warm palm closed around her hand. The heat traveled through her skin and struck straight into her chest.
He drew her down to sit beneath the thick roots, then lifted her other hand and lowered his gaze to her fingertips.
The pads were still faintly red from the hot oil that had splashed her while she’d been making pastries earlier.
His thumb, callused and gentle, brushed the tender spot as if it might break.
“Does it hurt?” he asked softly. “I can still feel the burn in your fingers.”
That single question lit Little Man up like a fuse.
“This damned shared-dream empathic resonance!”
She yanked her hand back, scowling. “Lin Qing Xuan!”
She didn’t even bother with “Eldest Young Master” this time. She called him by name.
“Explain it. How do you just walk into my dreams whenever you feel like it? Why can you share what I feel? I burn my hand and you know. I think something and you hear it. What is this? What’s the principle behind it? Tell me!”
The words came in a rush, sharp as claws.
She could accept waking up in another world. But this? This shared-dream empathic resonance that stripped her bare—thoughts and all?
Lin Qing Xuan didn’t look offended. If anything, a faint, almost helpless happiness flickered in his eyes.
He went silent for a moment. His lashes lowered, shadowing his gaze.
“…I don’t know.”
The honesty clogged Little Man’s anger in her throat, leaving it stuck there, neither up nor down.
“You don’t know?” she snapped. “Then go find out. Check. Research. Figure it out and come tell me.”
He looked at her. “Then why did you come into my dream tonight?”
Little Man folded her arms and eyed him like a suspect. “Why did you?”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
He finally lifted his gaze fully. His eyes were usually calm, distant, unruffled. Right now they were full of quiet focus, like he’d narrowed his whole world down to her.
“But you keep avoiding me.”
There was a trace of grievance in his voice, so soft it almost sounded like accusation.
Little Man’s temper flared hotter.
“Avoid you?” She snorted. “Do you even hear yourself? You punish me with copying sutras every day—hundreds of times. Anyone would run. My hand is about to fall off!”
“I only…” His voice roughened, suddenly hoarse, like it had been scraped thin. “Wanted you closer. Closer still.”
Before the last word had even settled, he gripped her wrist and pulled.
She was yanked up from the root and dragged into him, hard and fast, her body pressed against his like there was nowhere else to go.
His arm wrapped around her waist, locking her in place.
The distance between them vanished.
Her nose nearly hit his chest. That clean, cold scent of his—faint sandalwood beneath it—flooded her breath, possessive and unavoidable.
Heat rushed into Little Man’s face.
She shoved at his chest with both hands. “Hey! Talk properly. Stop getting handsy!”
She tipped her chin up, cheeks puffed, eyes bright with fury and fluster. “You Buddhist Scion—why do you turn into this in dreams? Can’t win an argument, so you go straight to forcing it?”
Lin Qing Xuan’s ears turned red so quickly it was almost impressive.
He looked away, stammering. “I… I…”
He said “I” until the word meant nothing, and still couldn’t produce a full sentence.
Watching him flail like that—pure and helpless—Little Man’s anger couldn’t hold its shape.
How could she not understand what he wanted?
He was like a young man who’d tasted something once and couldn’t forget it. There was only the difference between the first time and the thousand that followed.
He could chant scriptures all he liked. His body didn’t lie.
A thought flashed through her mind—bold, reckless, instant.
She stopped struggling.
Then she turned in his arms, deliberately facing him, and lifted both hands to cup his face.
Her grip was firm, impatient, unyielding.
Lin Qing Xuan froze as if someone had turned him to stone, letting her hold him like that.
She forced him to lower his head, forced him to meet her eyes.
Then she studied him, slowly, shamelessly—from the cool line of his brow to the straight bridge of his nose, to those peach-blossom eyes now wide with shock.
She clicked her tongue, admiration bare and teasing. “You really are good-looking.”
A beat.
Then, lightly, as if she couldn’t help herself: “Even I can’t not be tempted.”
The teasing drained from her face.
Her gaze sharpened. Her voice lowered, steady and unmistakably serious.
“But I don’t want to be a concubine,” she said. “Do you understand?”
The words hit like thunder.
Lin Qing Xuan went rigid.
He’d grown up in a great house. He’d seen what happened behind closed doors, what women endured when their lives were confined to courtyards and rankings and the whims of others.
How could he not know?
And yet he’d never truly thought about her.
“I don’t want to be a concubine.”
Each word was a blade. It cut clean through the heat in his chest and laid bare something ugly underneath.
He wanted her close. He wanted her warmth, her attention, her company. He even wanted the tangled joy of these dreams.
But he hadn’t once asked what she wanted. What future she would have if he kept her at his side without giving her a place in the open world.
Desire made selfish people out of even the devout.
His hand at her waist loosened without him meaning to.
Little Man let her hands fall from his face.
They sat beneath the immense tree, facing each other in silence, both swallowed by thoughts that wouldn’t settle.
Even the wind in the dream turned thin and bleak.
At the same time, in Little Man’s bedroom in the Auspicious Cloud Residence…
On the windowsill, the black cat Tuan Tuan sat in perfect, lazy elegance. In the darkness, its golden eyes glowed as it stared at Little Man sleeping.
It stretched out its pink tongue and licked its paw, unhurried.
A languid, faintly disdainful voice drifted through its mind.
It shifted, resting its chin on its front paws, the look in its eyes sharp with the smug contempt of a spectator.