Verdant thousand crags, silent valley.
Washing clothes on the cool stream stones, the thud of pounding garments came in waves.
In the distance, rice fields and wheat ears gleamed golden, rising and swaying in the wind like a golden sea. Now and then, a head poked cautiously from the grass, looking toward the stream, then toward the little courtyard, hesitant and deeply conflicted.
Bai Yujun took advantage of the hottest hour of the afternoon to wash clothes. Once washed, they would dry quickly.
She scrubbed hard against a stone slab slanting into the water, then rinsed them after a few scrubs.
She folded them a few times and gently wrung out the water.
She put the wrung clothes and thin blanket into a wooden basin. After about the time it took an incense stick to burn, she had finally washed everything.
It was not tiring—far easier than when she had been an immortal maid in the Heavenly Court.
"I haven't washed clothes in so long. I'm getting rusty."
As usual, she stood and stretched lazily.
She picked up the wooden basin and headed back. With the sun still high, she needed to hang them up quickly; by evening, she could take them in.
She strolled along with the basin in her hands, her dragon tail swaying loosely and carefree.
Her scaled dragon tail, tipped with fluffy bone spurs, swept through the grass and startled fluttering butterflies, brushed past flowers and scattered colorful petals. It pressed the flowers and grass low, but after she passed, they slowly stood tall again. Time was tranquil, and the distant mountains looked like an ink-wash painting...
"Perhaps... it'll be a long time before I can live so leisurely and at ease again."
She muttered inexplicably and continued slowly home, passing rice fields and fishponds, passing