Faint light seeped quietly into the room from somewhere unknown, outlining the shapes of a few things here and there; far off, the indistinct sound of a dog barking drifted in, though what hour it was, no one could say.
The mosquito net stirred faintly a few times, and a woman’s bare arm reached out from within, fingers groping across the wooden stool by the bed, where various pieces of clothing lay scattered. The room was very dark; after groping around for a while, she picked up a garment and drew it back inside the netting.
Perhaps to avoid waking the person beside her, these movements were kept small and made little noise. But after a moment, the hand dropped back down out of the netting, and the garment fell back onto the wooden stool—the motion carrying a faint hint of disappointment. In the dim light, one could make out that it was a stomacher, pale blue in color, patterned with red lotus blossoms against white—an item that stood as a symbol of feminine privacy, carrying with it something of a girl’s innocence and clarity, a touch of ancient charm.
Only its tie had snapped, and a stubborn knot had formed in the middle, making it awkward to wear. Perhaps that was why the hand had withdrawn it again in disappointment. After a moment, the hand stirred again, this time finding another garment and quietly drawing it into the netting.
After a brief stillness, a soft rustling sound arose, and then the mosquito net was pushed open again—this time revealing a pair of bare, fair feet emerging, settling lightly onto the wooden stool, resting on tiptoe. The netting parted further, revealing that the woman had now sat up.
She had a loose robe draped over her shoulders, held closed with one hand; her long hair hung loose and disheveled, and she brushed at it idly with her fingers. She lowered her head, searching the stool for her embroidered shoes, and after some difficulty finally found them. As she stepped into them and prepared to stand, she winced slightly, pressed a hand to her lower abdomen, and sat back down again.
In the quiet stillness, the woman pursed her lips, puffed her cheeks slightly, and finally stood up after all. She took a deep breath, turned, crouched down, and began gathering up the clothes scattered on the floor. At this moment, she wore nothing but the outer robe and her embroidered shoes, her bare figure occasionally showing beneath it. Even she wasn’t quite sure why she felt the need to tidy up the clothes on the floor, but once she’d gathered them all into her arms, she set them down on the chair by the writing desk, then turned and opened her own cabinet, feeling around inside for a fresh stomacher and a change of clothes.
The room held only faint light, but from long familiarity, finding her own clothes wasn’t difficult. Once she’d found them, though, she simply held them against her chest and glanced back at the bed, seeming to consider whether or not to put them on. In the end, she merely set them down on the cabinet by the bed, then turned and found a fire striker, quietly lit it, and used it to light the oil lamp.
Shielding the light with her body as best she could, she walked over to the newly moved-in cabinet on the other side of the room and carefully picked out a few pieces of clothing, then blew out the lamp and laid the man’s garments atop her own skirt. Once this was done, she sat back down at the edge of the bed, took off her embroidered shoes, and curled back into the bed.
This was, after all, her own embroidered bed—everything about it deeply familiar. Only tonight, a man had, for the first time, encroached upon her domain. And yet she found she didn’t dislike it—found, in fact, that she rather liked it. She sat there for a moment, looking at the dark outline of the bed, lifted the blanket to lie back down, then, after a moment’s thought, took off the robe wrapped around her, and only then slipped in beneath the covers from one side. Holding the robe in hand, she reached back out through the netting and tossed it onto the floor by the bed.
A warm sensation enveloped her from beside her. With nothing on, her calf soon brushed against her husband’s body beneath the blankets, and she shifted slightly. From childhood, through the whole process of growing from a girl into a young woman, ever since she’d come to understand the concepts of chastity, modesty, and the propriety of keeping men and women at a distance, this was the first time she had ever lain fully unclothed beside a man—and she found herself trying to make this feel like the most natural thing in the world.
It felt, somehow, like belonging to someone—and in his presence, all the old rules simply no longer seemed to apply…
She herself didn’t quite understand why she’d gone to do all that just now, nor did she quite understand why, upon climbing back into bed, she’d felt the need to strip off her clothes again. Perhaps she could have put something on—but in her heart, she found she didn’t particularly want her husband to know she’d woken up in the night.
She turned onto her side, facing the direction where her husband lay sleeping; in the darkness she could only make out a dim outline, but beneath the covers she could clearly feel the warmth radiating from his body. She lowered her head within the blankets and quietly shifted closer, until their bodies lightly touched. But in the next instant, her husband seemed to sense her presence too, and turned slightly, drawing her into his arms just like that.
Skin against skin.
She curled up, not quite daring to move. No matter how she looked at it, in a state of undress like this, whenever her mind cleared even slightly, embarrassment would rise up all over again. Perhaps she’d simply be held like this by her husband until dawn… her clothes lay right there beside her—should she perhaps put on the stomacher at least, in a little while? Her mind buzzed with these thoughts, but her body, in the end, still couldn’t quite bring itself to move… perhaps she actually liked being held like this… occasional hazy thoughts drifted through her mind…
At last… she and her husband truly were husband and wife now, and from now on, it would always be like this…
Thinking such thoughts, over and over, her awareness gradually grew hazy, and she drifted off to sleep in his arms…
…
When she woke, the sky had just begun to lighten faintly, and outside a light rain had begun to fall, pattering softly.
The woman who was his wife lay sleeping in his arms—a woman who, in daily life, always seemed to carry a certain edge about her, now docile as a child, her vibrant body soft and warm. It felt wonderful to hold her. Ning Yi rarely experienced this kind of feeling—the sense of holding someone and feeling genuinely warmed at some deeper, psychological level; in fact, he could hardly recall ever having felt this way before at all.
In the past… a life that now, looking back, felt impossibly distant, he’d never lacked for female company. In his younger years, he’d perhaps pursued that particular kind of pleasure and thrill with some abandon too, a period when he’d taken considerable interest in such things—though the memory of that time had already grown hazy. Even then, though, he’d never felt anything like this. Perhaps he’d simply been too busy, and later it had all become nothing more than a matter of meeting a physical need.
Among his friends, there’d been some real profligates too—carrying on with four or five women at once, that sort of thing. Troublesome, and frankly rather dull; if he himself had held three or four undressed women at once, he’d probably have felt nothing more than the burden of their combined weight. One was enough to meet the physical need—more than that served no purpose. Unrestrained indulgence only left a person exhausted, even distracted from work. Though one of men’s less admirable traits was their tendency to constantly boast about their prowess in this arena, exhaustion was exhaustion regardless.
Romantic love, in any real sense, had almost never entered into it for him—aside from the occasional recollection of certain feelings from his youth, the ledger, so to speak, had always been kept scrupulously clear. Whether it was a one-night affair or a high-class escort, either could give you anything you wanted for an evening; but genuinely pursuing a woman required a great deal of thought and investment, would distract you, and could sometimes even bring real pain—and later, when weighed against business matters involving stakes in the hundreds of millions, it simply wasn’t worth it, a poor bet with little chance of paying off. In the end, he’d stopped even bothering with one-night affairs, because even those inevitably left the other party thinking there might be more to come—after a few such incidents, having seen the tears and clinging that followed, he’d settled for nothing but clean, transactional exchanges from then on.
Some said that the desire for power or control often outweighed even sexual desire in importance, since once material conditions were sufficiently met, the latter became too easily satisfied. Perhaps there was some truth to that; he’d never much cared to dwell on it. But he’d rarely felt that holding someone close carried any great significance—until now, when he genuinely found that holding his wife felt wonderful.
In this ancient, unadorned world, he really had managed to forget a great deal of what had come before. That other world existed a thousand years in the future, not yet arrived; even holding someone there, he’d only ever been able to feel his own warmth—true, some of that had been his own doing, but… perhaps this was a good beginning?
Musing along these lines, he held his wife a while longer before finally deciding to get up. In principle, he should have been the one sleeping on the outer side, but somehow he’d ended up on the inside instead. He rose as quietly as he could, and upon seeing the clothes laid out by the bed, couldn’t help but smile.
He’d go bathe in the neighboring courtyard. As for Tan’er, Chan’er and the others outside would take care of everything for her—given how unusual the situation was, with everyone sharing living quarters together for the first time, and his wife being rather shy about such matters, the white cloth stained with blood on the bed, along with the bedding that likewise needed washing, could be left for them to handle. There was no need for him to get involved in that.
Thinking back on the night before, it really had been quite tiring—his wife, being a first-timer, had gone into it with eyes shut as though facing execution. He’d worked hard to help her relax, and later, once things had properly begun, she’d still clearly been in pain; he’d had to keep an eye on her feelings throughout, which naturally left little room to think of his own comfort—being with a virgin really was a lot of trouble. Still, she’d been in pain, and he’d been worn out, so as far as husband and wife went, that made them even. After all the effort he’d put in, his wife shouldn’t be left with any lasting hesitation about it going forward.
He’d assumed that, given her shyness, once he stepped out she’d either pretend to still be asleep or genuinely fall back asleep, and that would be that. But just as he was about to leave, a faint voice reached him from the bed. “Husband.”
He turned to look, and found that Su Tan’er had indeed already woken. She lay there with one hand holding the edge of the blanket, gazing at him, a smile spreading across her face as she said softly, “Good morning.”
This was the very phrase Ning Yi had so often used to greet her in the past. Hearing her say it back to him now, he found himself momentarily stunned, before smiling and nodding.
“Good morning…”
This day was the sixth day of the eleventh month, in the eighth year of the Jinghan era of the Martial Dynasty—a year and a half since Ning Yi and Su Tan’er had married. Only now had that sense of family finally come full circle between the husband and wife. Winter had long since settled in, and the temperature was dropping fast; in a few more days, the first snow would fall, and the city of Jiangning would truly enter the long depths of winter.
The charred remains of the small building on the other side of the courtyard still stood as they were, not something to be dealt with just yet. In the bedroom on this side, Ning Yi’s belongings had finally become thoroughly mixed in with Su Tan’er’s own; for the time being, the room felt rather cramped, but at least for this winter, no one was giving any thought to changing rooms.
Come next spring, they planned to undertake major construction in the courtyard, incorporating this small building as well, to create an entirely new layout altogether. Ning Yi and Su Tan’er had recently been discussing these plans together, occasionally calling in Chan’er, Juan’er, and Xing’er to offer their opinions as well. In the evenings, the five of them—master, mistress, and the three maids—would gather in the sitting room around a lit stove, the atmosphere as warm and cozy as ever. Of course, now that Chan’er and the others understood that the relationship between their young mistress and young master had progressed, there were, naturally, somewhat more intimate jokes to be shared among them when they were all together, though little needed to be said of that.
Chan’er occasionally felt a touch of loneliness and envy, but more than anything, she found herself happy for the two people who mattered most to her. Ning Yi and Su Tan’er treated her no differently than before, and she understood, of course, that just because the young mistress and young master’s relationship had progressed didn’t mean the young master would take her in as his own right away. Whenever a wave of envy crept over her, she’d sneak off to the mirror at her dressing table and whisper to her own reflection, “No rush, Chan’er—there’s a whole lifetime for this…” before pursing her lips at herself in quiet encouragement.
She already knew what kind of man her young master was. Whatever happened, he would never abandon her.