When morning light spilled past the window lattice, Qi Silì was already seated beneath the old pear tree in the courtyard.
Yan Yan stood under the eaves with a porcelain bowl of medicine in her hands. She saw him in a plain white robe, grinding ink on the stone table. When the breeze passed, a few pear blossoms drifted into the inkstone. He plucked them out with his long, slender fingers—so graceful it was almost cruel. Just like the way he'd pushed her away last night.
"Your medicine."She set the celadon bowl on the edge of the table, carefully avoiding the sheet of xuan paper he had spread out.
Qi Silì's brush paused. A drop of ink bled into the paper, blooming into a tiny sunspot. Then suddenly, he reached out and caught her wrist, his fingers pressing precisely over her pulse."Afraid of me?" His voice was colder than the morning mist.
Yan Yan noticed the fresh pinprick on the inside of his left wrist, a purple bruise spreading across the pale skin—a mark left by the family doctor's IV that morning.
"You should be resting in bed," she said, trying to pull her hand back. But he caught her again, reversing her motion easily.
Qi Silì fished a wet purple brush out of the pen washer and pressed it into her palm."Paint for me." He gestured toward the banana plants glistening with rain beyond the veranda. "Paint that."
By noon, the sunlight had baked the painting table warm to the touch.
Yan Yan's third painting of banana leaves was once again crumpled into a paper ball. Qi Silì reclined in the rattan chair with his eyes closed, resting. His long lashes cast faint gray shadows beneath his eyes. She stole a glance at the faint red mark along his neck—left by Zhao Mingyuan's bite in last night's madness.
"Use the side of the brush," he said suddenly, eyes still closed. "At the turning of the leaf… it should have bone strength."
Out of sheer defiance, she dipped her brush too deep into the ink, flooding the paper and ruining half the sheet.
She didn't notice when Qi Silì had come up behind her. His breath brushed against her ear."Your wrist is too stiff."
When his hand covered hers, the skin on the back of her hand tensed instantly. The faintly bitter scent of medicine clung to his warmth, seeping through the hollow between her thumb and forefinger—like ginseng boiled all night, bitter on the tongue but leaving a lingering heat within.
That near embrace cast their shadows together on the table. She remembered the tremor of his hair against her neck last night, and the tear that had fallen onto her collarbone—it burned just as hot now.
"Here," Qi Silì murmured, his finger hovering over the sharp curve of a banana leaf. His wrist bone grazed her shoulder blade. "It should feel like a snapped string."
His breath skimmed the fine hairs behind her ear, calm as though he truly were a disciplined teacher. Only the rough edge in his final word betrayed him—the leftover rasp from when he'd bitten his tongue in passion the night before.
The cicadas outside fell suddenly silent.
By late afternoon, the shadows of the pear tree branches clawed across the xuan paper.
When the butler entered with a black lacquer tray, he caught sight of Qi Silì guiding Yan Yan's hand as she washed the brush. The celadon medicine bowl on the tray trembled slightly, spilling two amber drops of tonic.
"Drink it while it's hot," the butler said quietly, eyes lowered as he withdrew. The sole of his shoe crushed a dry leaf in the corridor with a faint crack.
Qi Silì lifted the lid of the bowl. The faint bitterness of lily and lotus seed drifted out. He stirred the porcelain with a silver spoon, the engraved lotus vine pattern gleaming faintly in the dusk."Try it."
He raised the spoon to her lips. The curved surface caught the reflection of the two of them—overlapping, blurred, like an old painting soaked by water.
Yan Yan instinctively leaned back, but his other hand pressed against the small of her back, holding her still.
As the warm sweetness slid down her throat, she heard him say softly,"I heard that when Mingyuan was seven, he had a fever and broke out in rashes… kept talking nonsense."
The jade spoon clicked lightly against her teeth."He clutched this very bowl the whole time and wouldn't let go."
The slanting sunset dyed Qi Silì's eyelashes gold, yet Yan Yan saw his fingers gripping the spoon go white. On the ring finger that still wore a wedding band, a smear of ink lingered—like snow burned by something unseen.
A flock of sparrows burst from the trees, and the reflection in the bowl rippled apart.
Yan Yan tasted the bitterness of lotus seed core mixed with the sour sting in her throat, and at last—under the dimming sky of the courtyard—tears welled up, too late by an entire day.
As twilight deepened, the sound of a car engine drifted from afar.
Qi Silì rose and packed away the brushes. The hem of his robe brushed lightly against her leg."Tomorrow… I'll keep teaching you to paint banana leaves."
In the last trace of daylight, his pale fingertips were still stained with ink—like the unfinished stroke of a half-complete ink painting.