Airs of Chen: Moonrise

Liu Chang'an stood on the balcony, looking at the waterside pavilions and terraces. Dotted lights cast their glow, while strange rocks, kiosks, and boat-shaped pavilions hid in the night. A tranquil, elegant fragrance gradually filled the air.

The beauty had yet to arrive, but her fragrance had already spread.

Qin Yanan was changing in the bedroom. Her shadow fell upon the curtains, light and slender like a figure in a shadow-puppet paper cutting. She gathered up her long hair and carefully arranged it into a bun.

Her hand rested on her collar as she began undoing the buttons one by one. Liu Chang'an turned away and stopped watching her shadow, continuing to gaze into the boundless darkness.

If one wished to live like an ordinary person, one could not be free of emotion. Ordinary people were worldly folk, filled with the smoke and fire of life. Partings, deaths, joys, sorrows, and griefs—what tugged at the heart most was longing.

Liu Chang'an had always felt that he possessed a mortal heart. He had never truly risen above the mundane, and he was quite content with that state. It had always been what he sought.

This mortal heart was far harder than that of ordinary people: impossible to steam to mush, boil through, pound flat, or stir-fry apart, like a copper pea. Yet upon close inspection, it was incomparably smooth, without the slightest flaw.

But most mirror-smooth surfaces in this world were only made that way after countless rounds of polishing and cutting.

Ye Sijin. He missed her.

He missed how, as a child, she had skipped along behind him, occasionally taking a few quick steps to tug at his little finger.

Whenever he turned to look at her, she would tilt up her head, a delighted smile blooming across her round