Chapter 406: Extra [Mount Hua 1]

The mountain was still asleep when Bai Li opened her eyes.

A thin layer of mist hung beyond the carved wooden windows of the private residence, softening the outlines of the pine trees and making the distant peaks look like islands floating in a pale sea. Frost had gathered along the branches overnight. Far below, somewhere past the stone stairs and the outer courtyards, the first disciples of Mount Hua were beginning their morning exercises. Their voices drifted up the mountain in scattered calls, faint enough to sound almost like part of a dream.

Bai Li listened for a while without moving. The room was warm, the quilt was heavy, and the woman sleeping against her was even warmer. One of Yan Cijin’s legs had found its way between Bai Li’s, and one arm was draped firmly around her waist. A loose strand of dark hair had slipped across Bai Li’s cheek. When Bai Li carefully moved it aside, Yan Cijin made a quiet, dissatisfied sound and pulled her closer.

That settled the matter. Bai Li would not be getting out of bed just yet.

It was a ridiculous decision, considering the responsibilities waiting for her. Mount Hua had thousands of disciples, dozens of elders, several allied villages, a mountain pass that needed repair, and a council agenda that had already been delivered to their residence the previous evening. Bai Li had reached the Heavenly Dao Sovereign Realm at an age when most martial artists were still struggling to understand the deeper foundations of their art. She had stood before entire sects without raising her voice and watched proud masters lower their heads because they understood that a fight with her would end before it truly began. She could cross half the mountain range before the tea in a cup had time to cool. Yet she found herself completely defeated by the small hand curled into the front of her sleeping robe.

Bai Li lowered her gaze to Yan Cijin’s face.

She had seen that face under moonlight, candlelight, sunlight, and the red glow of festival lanterns. She had seen it smeared with dust after a battle, bright with amusement over some private joke, pale with exhaustion after a long night spent helping injured disciples, and fierce enough to make an arrogant elder forget the speech he had prepared. None of those memories had made her any better at dealing with the sight of Yan Cijin asleep beside her. The woman’s beauty still struck her with the same quiet force it had years ago, when Bai Li had first understood that the clever, maddening woman standing across from her was going to become the center of her life.

Yan Cijin looked almost innocent in sleep. Her lashes rested against her cheeks, her lips were relaxed, and her hair spread over the pillow in a dark, shining pool. The line of her face was so graceful that a painter could have spent an entire season trying to capture it and still failed to show the life beneath the beauty. Even now, there was a faint strength in the set of her brow, a hint of the woman who could silence a hall simply by looking up from her tea.

The heavens had made an outrageous mistake, Bai Li often thought. A woman this beautiful should not have been left unattended in the mortal world. Someone ought to have placed a warning sign outside their residence. Something simple, like: Enter at your own risk. The woman inside is already married, and her wife has very little patience for foolishness.

Then again, Bai Li had never been especially grateful for the heavens’ judgment. If they had made no mistake, she would never have met Yan Cijin at all.

She leaned down and pressed a careful kiss to Yan Cijin’s forehead.

Yan Cijin’s arm tightened at once.

"Where are you going?" she asked, her voice soft and rough with sleep.

Bai Li paused with her lips still close to her wife’s hair. "My love, I haven’t moved."

"Your breathing changed."

Bai Li stared at her for a moment. Yan Cijin kept her eyes closed, looking entirely pleased with herself, as if detecting the slightest change in her wife’s breathing while half asleep was an ordinary thing that any reasonable person should manage.

"You detected a change in my breathing?"

"Mm."

"While sleeping?"

"I was resting," Yan Cijin murmured. "I never said I was unconscious."

Bai Li let out a laugh so quiet that it barely disturbed the room. She had been called cold, severe, proud, impossible to impress, and frighteningly calm in the face of danger. No one who used those words would have believed that a sleepy answer from Yan Cijin could make her feel so soft that she hardly recognized herself.

She kissed Yan Cijin’s cheek this time, just above the corner of her mouth. Yan Cijin’s eyes opened slowly. They were clear and bright despite the hour, and the look she gave Bai Li held a kind of lazy satisfaction that made Bai Li want to kiss her again simply to see what expression would follow.

"You are too attentive these days," Yan Cijin said.

"Would you prefer that I neglect you?"

Yan Cijin considered that with great seriousness. "No. I would prefer another kiss."

Bai Li obliged.

One kiss became two. Two became a third because Yan Cijin turned her face at the last moment and caught Bai Li at the corner of the mouth, then smiled as if she had won a contest. Bai Li drew back just enough to look at her properly. Her wife was still wrapped around her, warm beneath the quilt and clearly in no hurry to let the world intrude.

"You’re enjoying yourself," Bai Li observed.

"Immensely."

"At my expense."

"I married you. Everything you do is now part of my household property."

Bai Li raised an eyebrow. "Is that how marriage works?"

"It is how ours works. You may submit a complaint to the proper authority if you disagree."

"And who is the proper authority?"

Yan Cijin placed a finger against Bai Li’s lips. "Your wife."

Bai Li caught that hand and kissed the fingertip. Yan Cijin’s smile softened, losing its teasing edge for a moment. They had been married long enough to have a thousand small habits that belonged only to them, and still there were moments when one simple touch made the room feel quieter. Bai Li rubbed her thumb over Yan Cijin’s knuckles and let herself study the woman she had chosen, again and again, through every difficult year that had brought them to this point.

They had not become devoted overnight. Their love had grown through arguments about tactics, long journeys in bad weather, shared meals after exhausting battles, and late evenings spent discussing martial principles until the candles burned down. It had grown when Yan Cijin insisted on treating Bai Li’s injuries herself even though the medical hall was full of skilled healers. It had grown when Bai Li stood in a rainstorm for three hours because Yan Cijin had been delayed on a mountain path and she refused to go inside until her wife was safely home. It had grown through ordinary days too, through tea poured without asking, sleeves straightened before a meeting, and the quiet certainty of reaching across a bed in the dark and finding the other woman there.

There had been no sudden end to their courtship, no point at which the warmth had faded and duty had taken its place. Marriage had only given their love more room to become ridiculous.

A bell rang from the outer courtyard.

Neither woman moved.

The bell was an old one used to announce the arrival of elders who needed to speak with the Matriarchs before the morning council. It had a clear, pleasant sound. Bai Li had once approved it because it was less harsh than the iron gong used at some other sects. On mornings like this, she sometimes regretted that decision.

A second bell rang.

Yan Cijin tucked her face against Bai Li’s chest. "Your elder is persistent."

"Our elder," Bai Li corrected.

"Our elder is persistent."

A third ring followed. This time a voice came from the courtyard, careful and apologetic. First Elder Lu Wenshu had arrived with the morning reports, and a delegation from the River Cloud Sect had come earlier than expected. He wished to know whether the Matriarchs would receive them before the council session.

Yan Cijin sighed as if she had been asked to personally carry the entire mountain downhill. "Perhaps we should conquer another mountain. One without elders."

Bai Li rested her chin on the top of Yan Cijin’s head. "We could conquer the whole world."

"Would that give you more time for me?"

"No," Bai Li said without hesitation. "I would simply have a larger territory to neglect with you."

Yan Cijin laughed, a warm and unguarded sound that made Bai Li feel as if the morning had already given her everything she needed. She tipped her head back and looked up at Bai Li, her eyes shining with amusement.

"You cannot say things like that and expect me to let you leave the bed."

"I had no idea that I needed permission."

"You do now."

"Then I accept the terms."

Bai Li settled down again, and Yan Cijin immediately drew the quilt higher around them. For a few precious moments, the bells and the reports and the delegation outside the residence ceased to matter. The world could wait. The sect could survive one more minute without their attention. The two most powerful martial artists in the jianghu had decided that the important business of the morning was to hold each other a little longer.

At last Yan Cijin lifted her head and brushed a kiss across Bai Li’s jaw. "If we make them wait too long, Lu Wenshu will begin pacing."

"He always paces."

"He will pace with purpose. It will be worse."

"A terrible fate."

"You are a cruel woman."

"Only to the world."

Yan Cijin’s expression softened again. "And to me?"

Bai Li brushed the loose hair away from her face. "Never."

It was not a grand promise. Bai Li had never been good at grand speeches unless someone forced her to give one. She simply meant it. Yan Cijin could tease her, argue with her, beat her at chess, steal the last piece of pastry, or wake her in the middle of the night because she had suddenly remembered a line of poetry she wanted to discuss. None of it would make Bai Li less willing to protect her, less proud of her, or less grateful that she had been allowed to build a life with her.

Yan Cijin kissed her once more, and then finally released her hold.

Getting out of bed took longer than it should have. Bai Li reached for the robe folded beside the bed, but Yan Cijin caught her wrist and pulled her back for one last kiss. Bai Li straightened, then bent again to fasten the tie at Yan Cijin’s shoulder. Yan Cijin took the opportunity to smooth the collar of Bai Li’s sleeping robe and retied the ribbon in her hair with the care of someone performing a sacred duty. They moved around one another easily, familiar with every small preference and every little complaint. Bai Li warmed the water. Yan Cijin chose their outer robes. Bai Li handed her the comb before she asked for it. Yan Cijin fastened Bai Li’s sword belt and checked that the buckle sat comfortably instead of digging into her waist.

When they stepped from their private room, the transformation was almost startling. Bai Li’s dark robe fell in clean lines around her tall, lean frame. Her long hair was tied high, revealing a composed face and sharp eyes that made it difficult for people to forget that she was a sword sovereign. Yan Cijin wore pale silk beneath a light outer robe, her hair arranged with a simple jade pin. She looked graceful and almost angelic, but the stillness in her gaze carried the unmistakable weight of a woman who had reached the same realm as her wife and had no intention of being underestimated.

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TO BE CONTINUED.