✧✧ ~~~~~ ⚜ ~~~~~ ✧ ~~~~ φ ~~~~ ✧ ~~~~~ ⚜ ~~~~~ ✧✧

The wind hushing through the yard carried her hair a little. It swayed behind her and one of her hands raised to hold it back from her eyes. Qianye had just given her his thanks again.

In all these years that she had served the man named Ouyang Qianye, today had been the first times that she had ever heard a thank you. Thus, even with urgencies and anxieties on her mind, she stood silently watching his back curiously as his figure disappeared into the bushed.

’For him to change so much within the span of a few hours...’ She thought, thinking of how he behaved before he had closed his eyes to rest, right before the assassination.

Comparing that emotionally volatile, haggard and... contemptible version of him, the one that was her master now...

No... The Qianye before her that demanded she be herself, was forests apart from his old self.

’He hasn’t been possessed but...’

Such change in his licht... that fullness of it, its nectary scent and its drawing luminosity...

She caught herself gulping down the taste in the air that had just left along with him. And she closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath.

’I wonder what his last life was like...’

In this wonder of hers, as she remembered what he had just confessed to her, she had come to accept... or rather, make the decision that she could and would not consider them the same person.

It would be the greatest disrespect to the fortune of the Qianye before her, comparing him to the misfortune of being the slave of the last—although she remained eternally grateful that perhaps it was that slavery that had granted her this opportunity.

Her eyes opened gradually, and half of her awareness watched Qianye’s back disappear into the darkness of the woods.

And the other half of her awareness rained away, down into that glimmering, raining sea, where now hundreds of illusory, feminine figures dances at what she had felt from touching his soul. When her soul sea danced so ardently before his, how could she ever conflate them?

She spun on her heels quickly, not able to see him anymore, and she walked back into the shack, down across the room.

From the moment since she had first seen him after his resurrection, when he had stormed out of the shack and shocked her thoroughly with him revealing that he knew about what she thought had been sealed as securely as possible, her soul had been stirring.

And then... with no choice but to... she touched his soul to hold it together. And since then, her soul has not for even a breath, been calm. It rained, and danced and buzzed, throbbing through her heart and into her back.

’Since you... he is the first my soul has longed for at the sight of...’ Then, she could not help the wavering laugh that slipped out. ’But not even in paradise do all the flora bear fruit... For the only man to complement my soul so thoroughly to be a human... what a cruel joke.’

Words could not describe the tumultuousness sinking her gut at each guiltily satisfactory sight or scent of his soul that she got.

Possessing a soul as special as hers, in all those years at home, not once could any resonate with her, even when given time.

It was a blessing and a curse for one to be excellent amongst the elves.

The extremely rigorous practice and learning of the soul birthed high affinity with it. At the same time, it birthed fastidiousness in their souls to degrees that only grew higher and higher the greater ones connection to it.

The forming of friendships, of living in places with content, ones association with desires, the forming of deeper relationships, everything was contingent on the inclinations of one’s soul towards the thing.

She lowered herself before the unassuming artifact that had housed the entity that nearly collapsed his soul.

Her visage fell back into solemnity and she drew a breath, calming the indignation that had been rising.

Whatever it had been, it was dead now. She need not worry.

Picking it up, she rose.

However, not yet resolved, she simply stood there for several seconds, and while a portion of her awareness remained wrestling with her conflicts, the other remembered the hazy memory of a gorgeous woman.

Her figure, as clear in her memory as the sun was through the day, was adorned with long, golden hair, and it’s mellifluous voice reminded her:

’Why worry yourself about those who cannot inspire you? Seeking their validation leads you nowhere but precisely where you stand, stagnated and soon enough, desperate enough to disgrace your Paradisic Soul. The greatest misery I beg you never subject yourself to, is forcing pliancy onto yourself, forsaking patience for vanity. It might be lonely, and arduous, however that is the price we pay for our connections. You may not find a friend who stirs you, much less a soul mate who rouses you for hundreds or thousands of years. But so long as you do not betray yourself, once you do, you understand why our elven souls must be demanding. When that time comes, give yourself freely to your yearning, my yen. A licht as magnificent as yours will not steer you wrong, so long as you trust its conviction.’

There, she clenched the thing in her hands harder, and her jaw tightened briefly.

Then she sighed and turned on her heel.

If Meng Jue and Chu Xuan had originally come here for it, then while she and Qianye would be away and the shack was left unattended, it was best that she hid it somewhere else.

Their night would be long after all. To restore him... it would be a long and sinful night.

Once she had hidden it, rather than immediately head for Qianye after she had prepared his food, she went towards the back of the shack. There was a well nearer by, much closer than the lake.

And from there, she took water, and filled a tub that she had set to the back of the shack with water. It was where she had been washing while Ouyang Qianye used the lake.

Now, she had taken with her only a small bowl of innocence that had been left over from her cleaning, and a light fabric white robe.

It was the best one that she had amongst her belongings.

Placing it neatly over a small table standing by the side of the tub, she poured the somewhat viscous innocence into the water.

’I should have gone to search for a gardenia...’ It had been so long since she had thoughts about smelling nice herself that she hesitated at the thought.

In the state her body was in, she could not give herself he means to smelling nice without a bath, so she truly cursed her earlier indecision.

However, then, her hands swiftly moved to untie her robes, pushing through the indignity.

’We don’t have time to worry about this! Washing clean is enough! Smelling clean is enough!’

Her dirtied green robes fell to the floor, then those under robes. And soon, her naked body, with scars marring her arms and legs, was revealed. She released the bandage wrappings around her breasts, and their loops fell circle by circle.

With a blush dawned on her cheeks, her hair was down so her back was utterly covered, and thus, one could not see what it was shimmering across her back, illuminating the rear of the shack.