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Ceremonial wine finished, the newlyweds were escorted to the bridal chamber.
The door shut; both instantly peeled off their ornate wedding robes with matching expressions of distaste and summoned maids for hot water. Their unspoken harmony was almost eerie.
Xie Yu’s eyes curved into crescent moons. “Husband, I’m a woman. It’s normal that I like to stay clean. But what about you?”
“Out on the sea,” Li Yuan replied, “clouds are everywhere. I love clouds, pure white ones. When a cloud gets dirty it turns to rain, and rain turns the world to mud. No matter where you step everything is wet and filthy. I can’t abide filth.”
“I don’t like rain either,” she said.
Li Yuan stood beneath the lantern hanging from the eaves, head tilted to drink in moonlight and the starry sky. His thoughts drifted.
After their first awkward hours, he had begun to lose himself, not in pretending but in becoming. Acting was for actors; he refused to fake his way through life as Ximen Gucheng.
He wanted, for a brief span, to forget the past, remember only his mission, and sink wholly into the proud, cold, immaculate mind of a blade obsessed wanderer. At first the skin chafed; now it fit.
Xie Yu watched his profile, never tiring of it....
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