Su Zhan had fallen asleep without realizing it.
She lay on a rooftop, drifting from the bright moonlight into the breaking dawn.
At the stone table in the courtyard, Li Xingyue had also sat there the entire night.
At first they had simply chatted.
Su Zhan told her that ever since she began cultivating, she often went into closed-door seclusion.
When she emerged, she would always see the clear, silver river of stars overhead.
She loved that time of night.
It felt as though only then did her body and soul truly belong to her.
Li Xingyue asked why.
Su Zhan answered that there was no special reason—she simply felt that when the world grew quiet and everyone else was asleep, it was as if the entire world belonged to her. She thought that was wonderful.
She liked it very much.
Later Su Zhan told her more about the stars, pointing out the twelve constellations and explaining that each had its own story, full of tongue-twisting names.
Li Xingyue listened, half-understanding.
She couldn’t tell a Pisces from a Leo; to her the stars all looked the same.
But watching Su Zhan speak so earnestly, she decided it was nice anyway.
She and Yan’er had never done anything like this.
Only on hot summer nights when neither could sleep would Yan’er drag her onto the roof to enjoy the cool air, pillow her head on Li Xingyue’s lap, and complain about the heat.
As she spoke, Su Zhan’s words grew slower and slower until they finally stopped.
Li Xingyue smiled lightly and teased that perhaps all those stories had been made up on the spot.
The only reply she received was a soft, even breathing.
Only then did she notice that Su Zhan’s eyes had closed.
She was half-leaning against the tiled edge of the eaves, arms folded across her chest, head nodding until a breeze finally tipped it gently onto the roof ridge.
It made sense.
Su Zhan hadn’t slept the night before, had trained with her sword nearly all day today, and had told so many stories. She must have been exhausted.
Later the wind picked up, rustling the crabapple tree.
Li Xingyue watched the petals drift down and land on the stone table, right beside her hand.
She lowered her gaze, picked up the fallen blossom, and stared at it in a daze, lost in thought. After a long while she stood and returned to her room.
She glanced sideways at the few wooden bowls on the table.
The bottoms held the dregs of medicinal herbs and the faint fragrance of crabapple blossom tea. A mortar and pestle sat beside them.
She looked away after only a glance.
There wasn’t much time left. She didn’t want to waste any of it tormenting herself.
From beneath the bed she pulled out a bundle, sat down, and unfolded it.
Inside she found a sheet of red paper.
She spread it out in front of her and gazed at it silently for a long moment before reaching out to trace the characters with her fingertips.
She closed her eyes and whispered without sound.
“In the 718th year of the Heavenly Calendar, on the auspicious seventh day of the seventh month, I, Li Xingyue, and my wife Su Beiyan, hereby make this vow.”
“Witnessed by Heaven and Earth, attested by mountains and rivers, we swear to remain together forever, never to betray one another, to grow old side by side, and to share this life.”
“I vow to love what my wife loves, to think what my wife thinks, to bear her pain and hardships, and to protect her completely.”
“Whether in riches or poverty, through ten thousand tribulations or a thousand calamities, I will stand by her side, never to part.”
Li Xingyue drew a deep breath and slowly let it out. In a trance, she was back several years earlier.
She still remembered the day that mischievous girl returned from Fangcheng with a book in her arms—the most popular storybook of recent years, she said.
Li Xingyue had never cared for books, yet she still read it cover to cover with the girl.
It was a good book, but also a strange one.
The strange part was how closely the plot mirrored their own daily life together.
The only difference was that the hero and heroine in the story got married, had children, settled in a little courtyard, and lived out their days in peace.
The girl read the book over and over, flipping through it again and again, and began calling her “Silly Senior Sister” just like the heroine in the story.
She disliked the nickname, but there was nothing she could do.
No matter how annoyed she grew, the girl’s coquettish whining always extinguished her anger.
Then one day the girl fell ill.
Everything seemed fine, yet she couldn’t get out of bed, burning with a fever that had no cause.
Li Xingyue panicked. She stayed by the bedside day and night.
Half-asleep and delirious, the girl demanded to use her as a body pillow.
She gave in.
That night she let her heart have its way, slipped out of her clothes, and allowed the girl to hold her.
She herself didn’t sleep a wink, simply staring at the girl’s sleeping face until dawn.
She listened to the girl’s sleep-talking all night. She heard her mumble “Silly Senior Sister” over and over.
Each time she answered, the girl would giggle foolishly, then call out again, still unsatisfied.
She answered patiently several times, thinking the girl would finally settle down.
Instead the girl, tired from talking, buried her face in her chest and muttered in a muffled voice, “Silly Senior Sister… I like you.”
She had frozen then.
After a long pause she asked whether the girl had been awake the whole time, just teasing her. The only reply was a soft nasal hum; the girl ignored her.
Looking back, she really had been utterly clueless.
She should have answered that confession the same way she answered the nickname.
At the time she had never wondered why, when the girl first turned to the last page of the book, she had asked so seriously what she thought of the ending.
She had also never wondered why, when she answered that she envied the couple in the story, the girl had smiled so happily… She truly was a block of wood.
She had missed the girl’s hidden meaning and dodged her probing while she pretended to be sick.
So the girl had simply confessed outright.
On the seventh day of the seventh month—her birthday—the girl had pestered their master for a long time and finally obtained a jar of wine.
She dragged Li Xingyue to drink with her.
The girl insisted she drink a cup. She agreed. The girl smiled triumphantly.
The cup she handed her had been laced with a muscle-weakening powder.
Her body went limp; she could only watch helplessly as the girl pushed her down onto the bed.
The girl drained the rest of the wine in one go. A red flush crept across her cheeks, brighter and lovelier than any rouge.
She still remembered the silk-like touch of the girl’s long hair falling across her cheek as she leaned over her, and the burning intensity in the girl’s eyes.
“I like you, Silly Senior Sister. You obviously knew, but you kept pretending to be dense… It made things so hard for me.”
She listened to the girl’s resentful voice but didn’t know how to answer.
From the very beginning she had felt she didn’t deserve her, so she had never dared to think about it.
“Silly Senior Sister… repeat it with me… repeat the vow from the storybook, okay?”
The girl had never been able to hold her liquor. She had barely pinned her down before she grew tipsy.
With a coquettish hiccup and her head swaying, she began reciting the vow.
“In the 718th year of the Heavenly Calendar… on the auspicious seventh day of the seventh month, I, Li Xingyue, and my wife Su Beiyan, hereby make this vow…”
She was truly shameless. The girl recited the entire vow herself, answered “I do” for both of them, and giggled foolishly while lying on top of her. Under the forceful “purchase,” she never gave her a chance to refuse.
That night, Li Xingyue felt as if she had gotten drunk too.
Breathing in the wine-scented breath of the girl in her arms, she didn’t know what came over her.
When the girl had fallen into a deep sleep, she whispered, “I am willing too.”