Female Consort Chapter 61: White Hair

Qiu Che stared at her for a moment, then suddenly licked her lips.

There was a flicker in her eyes, an unmistakable mix of tension and something almost predatory. Li Qingwu instinctively gripped the edge of the bedsheet, tense and unsure, bracing for a question she wasn’t sure how to answer.

But instead, Qiu Che looked away.

She rotated the brush in her hand, lowered her gaze, dipped it lightly in the cinnabar, and turned her attention to Li Qingwu’s other ankle.

Li Qingwu wasn’t sure whether the feeling in her chest was more relief or disappointment.

Either way, that kiss, or rather, the brush of lips that didn’t quite qualify as one, left the air between them strangely sticky, laced with ambiguity.

Afterwards, the more Li Qingwu thought about it, the more embarrassed she became. She stared at the sky, at the floor, anywhere but at Qiu Che.

Once Qiu Che finished the final stroke, she rose, put away the brush and the cinnabar, and said, “All done.”

Li Qingwu looked down. Her eyes sparkled, clearly pleased. “...It’s beautiful.”

It reminded her of the lotus on the lantern Qiu Che had made years ago.

Qiu Che lowered her gaze. “I’m going to wash up. If you’re too tired to wait, go ahead and sleep.”

She said it casually, just like she always did. Li Qingwu, long used to this routine, didn’t find anything unusual about it.

She nodded, watched Qiu Che leave, then looked down again at the lotus now blooming at her ankle.

It had completely masked the ugly, knotted scar beneath. The bright red petals trailed along her slightly raised foot, winding gracefully along her slender bones until the scar was entirely hidden.

One phrase suddenly popped into her head.

Lotus blooming with each step.

Before long, Qiu Che returned, damp from washing. Since they lived alone in this wooden hut and no one came by at night, she hadn’t bothered to fasten her collar tightly. A sliver of her collarbone peeked out, delicate and defined.

Li Qingwu glanced once, then immediately turned away, her face and ears flushing crimson. Whatever she was about to say vanished into her throat.

Qiu Che followed her gaze to the neatly folded clothes on the stool beside the bed. “...What’s this?”

“I didn’t know what to wear tomorrow…” Li Qingwu mumbled. Her eyes flickered guiltily, as though she’d done something wrong. “I wanted to ask you which one you thought looked better.”

“They all look nice.”

The clothes were hand-me-downs from Uncle Jiang, dresses once worn by village girls. Though freshly laundered, the styles were plain and outdated, their only charm being their vibrant colors.

Lately, Li Qingwu had taken to sewing and altering them in her spare time, and they now carried a touch of refinement, enough that whoever wore them would appear elegant and distinguished.

Qiu Che didn’t know much about fashion and couldn’t understand why Li Qingwu was suddenly fixated on this.

Still, after a moment’s thought, she asked, “Is tomorrow a special day or something? Why the sudden interest?”

Li Qingwu gave a shy laugh. “No. I just... felt like picking something nice.”

She couldn’t bring herself to admit it was because of the two lotuses Qiu Che had painted for her. On a whim, she wanted to wear something that matched them, something that felt worthy of them.

She didn’t say any of that aloud. But Qiu Che followed her gaze to the lotus painted at her ankle, still faintly gleaming in the lamplight. Her expression didn’t change, but she nodded as if she understood.

“Wear whatever makes you happy.”

Li Qingwu hesitated. She looked like she wanted to say something, but held it back.

Qiu Che realized then that she used to ignore other people’s expressions without a second thought, never bothered guessing what others were feeling. That part of her nature had made her vulnerable in her past life, repeatedly falling for the warmth shown by the Qiu family father and son.

Even in this life, she hadn’t changed that habit. If anything, grief and hatred had made her words and actions even more reckless.

But ever since realizing her feelings toward Li Qingwu were different, she had begun to unconsciously observe her more carefully, trying to read her expressions, her little movements, to figure out what she was thinking.

It wasn’t like her at all, yet strangely, she didn’t mind it.

And now, even though Li Qingwu hadn’t said a word, Qiu Che seemed to know what was on her mind. She sat beside her on the edge of the bed and said calmly:

“When you’re with me, you never have to hesitate. Just say what’s on your mind.”

Li Qingwu’s heart skipped a beat.

“I don’t actually know what I like,” she admitted softly, with a hint of vulnerability and a trace of loss. “I mean... I think I do, but maybe I don’t.”

Qiu Che tilted her head, a little surprised. “I’ve seen you wear a lot of crimson and pale yellow. You don’t like them?”

“I do,” Li Qingwu smiled faintly, “but maybe not really.”

She’d worn crimson because the Emperor and Empress liked it, because they said it made her look young and lovely, like a flower in full bloom.

Most girls her age probably did like that color. So naturally, Li Qingwu thought she did too.

But if that preference came from being chosen and displayed like a beautiful ornament, then... she suddenly felt repulsed by it.

As for pale yellow, she had never liked it.

Her entire childhood had been spent with her head bowed, eyes cast downward. All she ever saw was the palace wall and the hem of imperial yellow robes.

In Great Xia, yellow was sacred, the color of the throne. Only the Emperor could wear bright yellow in abundance.

To Li Qingwu, any color that even resemble imperial yellow symbolizes absolute power, paternal authority.

It symbolized the hand that pushed her head down.

It symbolized the puppet strings.

It symbolized submission and suffocation.

Ironically, the night she wore pale yellow was also the night the Emperor had chosen her to leave the palace during the Lantern Festival. It was his "favor", his gift.

A color that meant she was special. That she was seen.

And something she could never refuse, no matter how much she hated it.

But that night... that was the first time she met her.

From that moment on, she didn’t hate that yellow dress anymore.

She had come to love lotus flowers, to love butterflies, to love everything that reminded her of Qiu Che.

In the long, lonely nights of the palace, those things were her only fragments of color, her only hint of freedom.

“You know,” Li Qingwu said as she lay back on the bed, staring at the moon through the window, “I really love the moon.”

“Back then, when I was punished, I couldn’t even leave the courtyard. I couldn’t see the moon at all.”

“That night during the Lantern Festival... it was the freest I’ve ever felt.”

There was no need to flatter, no need to be demure and well-spoken.

She only had to look up and share a moment of moonlight with a stranger.

It was theirs alone. A quiet moment. As if the whole world had gone still.

“Because I met someone that night,” she smiled, “I ended up liking that pale yellow dress I wore when I met her.”

What she didn’t say was that, when they met again at Linglong Pavilion, she had worn that exact same dress.

Exactly the same style.

But old friends had become strangers.

“I love lotuses too,” Li Qingwu said, “But they’re so pure and noble... Someone like me, who grew up in filth... do I really deserve them?”

It wasn’t clear whether she was using the lotus to describe herself, or the other way around.

Qiu Che paused, then lay down beside her, both of them staring at the moon beyond the window.

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“What’s not?”

“What you like or dislike shouldn’t be decided by anyone or anything else. And there’s no such thing as not deserving something.”

Qiu Che said softly, “Besides... the thing you should hate isn’t the color. It’s the person who gave it meaning.”

Just like the thing you truly like isn’t the lotus flower, or the lantern, or anything else...

It’s the person.

Of course, she didn’t say the last part aloud.

Li Qingwu was quiet for a long while. Then she turned over to face the wall and mumbled, “Then what do I actually like?”

Qiu Che folded her arms behind her head. “That’s for you to find out.”

“What if I never figure it out?”

“You will. Life is long. There’s no need to rush.”

“What about you?” Li Qingwu asked softly. “Aside from wood carving... what do you like?”

“What do I like?” Qiu Che almost blurted out I like you, but the moment the thought crossed her mind, she cringed at herself.

Is this how lovestruck people always end up talking like this?

She rubbed her nose and gave it some thought. “I like blue and red. I like weapons. I like martial arts...”

Li Qingwu laughed and rolled over to face her. “Why do the things you like all sound so...”

She trailed off, unsure how to describe it.

Qiu Che paused, then added, “I also like sweets. And pretty jewelry... though I’ve never worn any.”

“Qiu Chudong wouldn’t let me eat sweets. Said it wasn’t proper for a man to like them. Bright-colored clothes too, he said they were too flashy, not respectable.”

And yet, Qiu Zhe pranced around the manor every day in embroidered robes like a peacock. Qiu Chudong never said a word to him.

"I still want to try... How to use lip balm, whether it really looks good after using it, and whether it can be eaten."

Qiu Che lowered his eyes and smiled, "I secretly used my mother's when I was a child, and she beat me so hard that I hid in my room and cried secretly."

Li Qingwu opened her mouth: "... So it seems that I have no worries about food and clothing."

Her jewelry and clothes are always piled up in cabinets, and she can never use them all.

When she was tired of being dressed up by the palace maids every day, it turned out that there was a girl who was raised as a boy. She stared at the jewelry on the heads and the colorful clothes of the women passing by on the streets every day. She also cried secretly because she was beaten for using her mother's lip balm.

Qiu Che shrugged nonchalantly: "It's okay, I practice martial arts and can withstand beatings."

"Then why are you crying?"

"I was a little crybaby when I was a child," Qiu Che said lightly, "I would hide and cry secretly when I saw my father favoring Qiu Zhe, I would hide and cry secretly when I saw Madam Liu not giving me dessert, and I would cry secretly when my mother beat me because of lip balm..."

Li Qingwu felt distressed when he heard it, but he wanted to laugh for some reason.

The curve of the corners of his lips hung on his cheeks neither rising nor falling. He felt much more relaxed after being infected by Qiu Che's relaxed, conversational tone: "Did you ever cry secretly when you were in school?"

"Not really," Qiu Che said, "They were all a bunch of kids and deserved a beating. Unfortunately, I practiced martial arts. I avoided them at first, but later I beat them and made them cry secretly."

Li Qingwu really laughed this time: "It's good."

"What's so good about it?" Qiu Che sighed. "They cause trouble every day, get bruised all over, and the teacher punishes me every day, makes me stand, smacks my palms."

"Just being able to attend school... is already a blessing."

Li Qingwu spoke softly, and when the air suddenly grew quiet, she smiled and asked, "Does it hurt when the teacher hits your palms?"

Qiu Che paused.

"It hurts a lot."

She said it with a serious tone, a little exaggerated, "My palms get swollen and itchy, and there's no ointment. The teacher's fierce too, won’t even let you move while standing as punishment."

She spoke casually, so Li Qingwu also responded lightly, “Really?”

“It’s true,” Qiu Che turned her head, “So in a way, it’s a good thing you never had to go through it.”

In many ways, they were complete opposites.

One was raised in comfort but had never received a proper school education.

The other had suffered physically, yet got to study, pursue her aspirations, take the exams, and earn her place openly and honorably.

They had each lived through things the other had never experienced. From a few sparse words, they could only glimpse the tip of the iceberg of each other’s childhood.

It felt like two people who were never meant to meet, so different, walking paths that should have never crossed, had somehow, by a twist of fate, started moving toward one another.

And from then on, their branches intertwined, inseparable.

The two of them turned their heads at the same time and looked at each other, breaking into smiles in unison.

As if something quietly began to grow in the stillness of that night.

Qiu Che smiled for a moment, then suddenly fixed her gaze.

Li Qingwu noticed her look.

Her heartbeat instantly grew louder.

When your heart is moved, you can’t control its rhythm.

And every time she was alone with Qiu Che, Li Qingwu could never control her heartbeat.

She pretended to be calm, as if used to it, and lifted her chin slightly in a nearly imperceptible motion.

Softly, she said, “I... put on some lip balm today.”

There was no lip balm in Taoyuan Village, really.

But these past few days, they’d been so idle that she had nothing better to do.

So, when she got bored, Li Qingwu picked fallen petals from the peach trees, crushed them into juice, added some common household ingredients, sealed the mixture, and let it steep in water.

That was the simplest way to make lip balm.

Qiu Che’s eyes darkened.

Seeing her unresponsive, and with the candlelight casting a dim glow, Li Qingwu’s ears turned red, yet she didn’t look away. Instead, she added quietly, “Didn’t you say... you wanted to know what lip balm tastes like?”

Qiu Che lowered her eyes.

“Qingwu.”

“Hm?”

After a moment, Qiu Che spoke again, her voice slightly hoarse: “Actually... you never lost your memory, did you?”

The faint smile on Li Qingwu’s lips, and the nervous anticipation in her eyes, vanished instantly.

She froze for a beat, panic quickly filling her eyes. She opened her mouth, “I...”

For a long while, under Qiu Che’s calm gaze, she couldn’t come up with an excuse. Instead, she turned over to lie flat on her back, biting her lip subtly, then closed her eyes and mumbled, “How did you figure it out?”

Qiu Che smiled.

But she didn’t speak, so Li Qingwu, eyes closed, didn’t see it.

Qiu Che said, “The amnesiac Li Qingwu didn’t know who I was, yet remembered everything about me.”

“The carving knife, meeting at the Lantern Festival, running into each other again at Linglong Pavilion... all had to do with me.”

“If you remember all that, how could you not remember me?”

Qiu Che leaned in slightly, resting a hand on Qingwu’s shoulder.

They were lying side by side on the bed, and this time, Li Qingwu didn’t back away, there was nowhere to go, with the wall right behind her.

Qiu Che leaned so close, her lips nearly brushed Li Qingwu’s flushed ear as she whispered, “There’s only one possibility left.”

“You lied to me.”

Li Qingwu’s breath quickened.

“Good acting,” Qiu Che said, her voice husky. Her lips accidentally grazed Qingwu’s ear, making her shudder, “Too bad you weren’t fully prepared.”

“There were too many holes in your story.”

It was clear Li Qingwu didn’t guard against her, and didn’t put her heart into the performance either.

That thought unexpectedly lifted Qiu Che’s mood.

“That time, when you kissed me in front of Uncle Jiang, was that part of your Yao Tai training?”

She propped her head on her hand. Before Li Qingwu could answer, she chuckled softly. “I figured. If you were really that bold, you wouldn’t be lying next to me night after night, doing nothing.”

Li Qingwu flushed with embarrassment. She opened her eyes angrily and reached out to cover Qiu Che’s mouth. “...Enough already.”

Her palm brushed against Qiu Che’s cool lips, then she pulled back like she’d been scalded, and yanked the quilt over her head in frustration.

Only the tip of a red ear peeked out.

Too cute.

Qiu Che held herself back from kissing her right then and there.

She tugged at the quilt covering Li Qingwu’s head and said, “Alright, I won’t tease you anymore. Don’t suffocate yourself in there.”

“...Really?”

Qiu Che said with conviction, “Really.”

But the moment Li Qingwu cautiously poked her head out, Qiu Che grabbed her wrist.

Startled, she struggled in vain. “...What are you doing?”

“Didn’t you say you wanted me to taste the lip balm?”

Qiu Che’s voice was slightly husky, since arriving in Taoyuan Village, she had returned to her original female voice, clear and bright, even more stirring than before.

She leaned down. “I think it’s a great idea.”

“When you kissed me earlier as a reward, you didn’t do it right.” Qiu Che gently brushed her cheek with her other hand.

When their lips met, Li Qingwu felt like she was burning up.

She stammered, dazed, “What... what was wrong?”

Qiu Che said, “That’s not how you kiss someone.”

Li Qingwu thought: Then how do you kiss?

But before she could ask, she got her answer.

Qiu Che’s kiss was clumsy, but gentle.

The heat between them rose. The wet, intimate sounds of their lips entangling filled the air.

At some point, the candlelight in the room flickered out.

Qiu Che could hear the other girl’s breath, just as unsteady as her own.

Their bodies pressed tightly together, burning hot. On the edge of the bed, the lotus-shaped cinnabar mark on Li Qingwu’s pale, bare ankle glowed vividly in the moonlight.

At some point, their fingers had interlaced, their slim, delicate hands fitting together perfectly.

Even their heartbeats seemed to synchronize.

In the rush of pounding hearts, it was impossible to tell who had fallen first.

Qiu Che let herself sink into this tender sea of longing.

When she bent down to place a calming kiss on Li Qingwu’s burning ear, Qiu Che thought, fate had never been kind to her.

But perhaps, once, it had given her something after all.

In this second life, aside from the ailing Wang family who had once cared for her, she believed she had no attachments left.

For revenge, for status, she had been willing to sacrifice everything. She didn’t care about reputation, didn’t care if she had friends, didn’t even care if her life was short or if she died in peace.

And yet now, for the first time in a long while, she found herself wanting something more.

She wanted forever.

She wanted to grow old with Li Qingwu.

When they were old, she wanted to find a village like Taoyuan and settle there together. Sit side by side on the bed, or in the courtyard, or under the eaves, shoulder to shoulder, back to back, just like the night they first met, gazing up at the moon.

They would wear gold and silver hairpins, wear lip balm, eat candied figures, dress in red, green, pale yellow, and rouge-colored robes, carry lotus lanterns, hold the wooden carving and the carving knife Li Qingwu had given her...

They would journey far, and for a long time, into the future, together.

And when they turned to look at each other...

They would still be there.