With the lamps lit inside and the familiar room around her, Fang Qiu felt the dread in her chest ease at last.
In the inner hall, Tingyu was still sprawled across the sofa, fast asleep. Not the faintest sign of getting up to welcome them home.
Which got Fang Qiu thinking, seriously this time, about whether she should suggest to the Tavern Proprietress that she open a cat tavern like the Cat's Tail over in Mondstadt, and send Tingyu off to earn her keep.
Let her feed herself for once.
"Hu Tao, could you take a bath with me? I'm a little scared…"
Hu Tao was busy poking at the sleeping Tingyu with tremendous enthusiasm. Fang Qiu's fingers wound restlessly through the strand of hair falling over her chest, and she hesitated a long time before she managed to ask.
She didn't want to ask, honestly.
But she and Hu Tao had spent the entire day wandering Liyue Harbor.
The weather was bitter enough that she hadn't worked up much of a sweat, but a bath would still feel better.
Except…
Embarrassing as it was to admit, she didn't quite dare soak alone.
In her past life, far too many horror films had the ghost show up while the main character was bathing.
Like the water running clear one moment, then blood spurting out of the pipes the next.
Or closing your eyes to enjoy the heat, opening them again, and finding the tub full of hair.
Or something grabbing your ankle and dragging you under to drown.
Hu Tao agreed without a second thought.
Fang Qiu laid out one of her own nightdresses for her.
The size wasn't quite right, but since it was only a nightdress, it would do.
And so the two of them went to the bath together.
The bathroom was pitch dark. Fang Qiu's brows drew together and she slid half a step back, tucking herself behind Hu Tao.
Hu Tao laughed, took her hand, led her inside, and lit the candles.
Warm firelight spread through the whole room in an instant.
Fang Qiu walked to the wardrobe and began undressing.
Before long she wore nothing at all.
Her fair body stood bare in the warm air — the full, proud swell of her chest, the flawless white line of her back, a flat stomach, a slender waist, softly rounded hips, and long, straight legs.
"Hu Tao, what are you staring at?"
Finished undressing, Fang Qiu turned her head and caught Hu Tao watching her.
Color rushed into her face all at once.
Her instinct was to cover herself, but that felt silly — they were both girls, so what was there to hide?
"You know, I think your figure's gotten even better, Fang Qiu," Hu Tao said, eyes crinkling with a grin.
"Has it…"
Fang Qiu's cheeks burned. "All right, hurry up and get undressed. I'll go start the water."
She walked over to the open-air pool, felt the dark pressing in around her, shivered from head to toe, and hurried straight back to Hu Tao's side.
Once they'd rinsed off, the pool had filled, and the two of them settled into the water.
As they soaked, Hu Tao told her all the latest gossip from the streets.
With the hot water swallowing her body in that pleasant, tingling numbness, and Hu Tao chattering away with a smile about one funny thing after another, the tension in Fang Qiu's chest unwound considerably.
Soon enough they were done. They dried off, pulled on their nightdresses, and returned to the inner hall.
Shenhe still wasn't back.
It really made you sigh…
Liyue Harbor's civil servants had it rough.
Nine-to-nine, six days a week, had long since become the norm.
Speaking of overtime — once, while she was drinking juice at that dessert shop in Mondstadt, she'd overheard two secretaries from Yuehai Pavilion discussing exactly how many hours Lady Ganyu worked.
They said Ganyu often arrived at Yuehai Pavilion at eight in the morning and didn't clock out until eleven or midnight.
Sixteen, seventeen hours a day.
Sometimes she worked straight through, day after day, with nothing but a short nap in the afternoon.
Who could survive that?
Only someone with the constitution of an Adepti like Lady Ganyu could take it.
If it were her, she figured she'd be checking into Bubu Pharmacy by the end of day two.
Hold out three or four days and she'd probably end up as one of Hu Tao's orders.
And who knew whether Liyue's civil servants even got benefits — insurance, a housing fund, anything. At the very least you'd want medical coverage for when the late nights wrecked your health.
Or, well.
Some kind of compensation if you dropped dead at your desk.
Still, she had to admit she envied it.
If only she had half of Lady Ganyu's half-immortal constitution.
Never mind fighting.
Just for writing — if she could put in eighteen hours a day of high-efficiency work, would she still be worrying about how to buy the Jade Chamber?
Hmm…
Eighteen hours didn't seem like enough.
To buy the Jade Chamber she'd probably need the time difference between the Heavenly Court and the mortal world.
One day in heaven, one year on earth.
That might just cover the Jade Chamber…
"Hu Tao, let's go to bed a bit later. I want to write for a while first."
Fang Qiu glanced at the desk and pushed back the hair the bathwater had accidentally soaked through.
"Mm, go on, go on. I can't wait for your new book."
Hu Tao waved cheerfully, plucked a book off the sofa, and settled down to read beside Tingyu.
Fang Qiu sat down on the Jumpy Dumpty plush, her hips sinking deep into it.
She let out a long breath and closed her eyes. From the fireplace came the occasional soft crackle of burning wood, keeping time with the sound of Hu Tao turning pages.
She meditated a moment, letting the mood build, then picked up her quill, dipped it in ink, and set it to the clean sheet of paper.
A line of neat, graceful characters appeared.
Title: anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day.
Also known as We Still Don't Know the Name of the Flower We Saw That Day — though anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day had more literary flair to it.
When Hu Tao had first suggested she write something on the theme of death and the afterlife, two books had come to mind: Angel Beats! and anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day.
But after hearing Hu Tao tell the story of Old Meng and his companions, she'd settled on anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day.
Besides, that one leaned closer to the supernatural.
As for Angel Beats!, the heart surgery and the school setting were both awkward things to handle here.
anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day had that Pokemon game in it, sure, but settings that weren't rooted deep in the main plot could be swapped out however she liked.
Trading card games, for instance, would do just fine as a replacement.
So she'd write the other one once she thought of a solution — or else start from an ancient era resembling Liyue, work forward through the modern age, and simply construct an entire past-life universe.
That was a problem for later.
While soaking in the bath just now, she'd worked out her revision plan for anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day.
She'd decided to blend the manga and the anime plots together, cutting the parts that dragged and trimming down the messier romantic entanglements.
Atsumu "Yukiatsu" Matsuyuki's two confessions to Naruko "Anaru" Anjou, for example.
And at the point where Atsumu "Yukiatsu" Matsuyuki questions whether Meiko "Menma" Honma's soul exists at all, she'd add the scene from the manga where Meiko "Menma" Honma draws the infinity symbol to prove she's there — it would tighten the pacing.
With her direction sorted out, Fang Qiu began to write in earnest.
Stroke by stroke, the story opened in the heart of a summer loud with cicadas.
Outside the window, a light breeze rose.
Quiet. Unhurried.
Liyue Harbor gradually fell silent too. The wind drifted through, and the lanterns along the roadside swayed and rustled.
It swept onward in a vast, unhurried current, carrying the last trace of Liyue Harbor's liveliness away toward the distance.
As the hours slipped by, Fang Qiu wrote and wrote until drowsiness overtook her, and she decided to nap for a little while.
Half-asleep already, she pushed the pages aside, laid her head on the desk, and sank into sleep.
The fireplace was going anyway, so there was no chance of catching cold.
Hu Tao read for a while longer, and when she noticed how late it had gotten, she went to tell Fang Qiu to turn in — only to find her slumped across the desk.
Hu Tao froze for a beat, then hurried over to check whether she was breathing.
Mm. Good. Alive.
Then she touched Fang Qiu's forehead lightly.
Mm. Good. Normal temperature.
The fireplace kept the room warm, but sleeping there still wasn't good for her.
So Hu Tao decided to carry her to bed.
She lifted Fang Qiu carefully into her arms, and feeling the softness of her, gave Fang Qiu's thigh an absent little squeeze.
So soft…
And she smelled lovely.
They were both in thin nightdresses, bodies pressed close, and Hu Tao could feel Fang Qiu's warmth coming through the fabric.
Burning warm.
She carried her all the way to the bedroom, set her down gently on the bed, and eased the door shut.
Fang Qiu must have been dreaming about something delicious — the corners of her mouth were curved faintly upward.
Very sweetly.
Looking at her sleeping face, Hu Tao smiled, slipped under the covers, and lay down beside her.
"Good night."
She gazed a moment longer at that peaceful sleeping face, then turned onto her side and closed her eyes.
Only, the instant her eyes shut, she felt a hand come to rest on her waist.
Hu Tao blinked and opened them again.
What met her gaze was Fang Qiu's lovely face, close enough to touch. She could feel the breath on her cheek, faint and sweet as orchids.
At some point Fang Qiu had rolled onto her side to face her, and laid a hand on her.
Before Hu Tao could react, Fang Qiu pulled her into an embrace.
Her heart slammed against her ribs, and heat flooded her face.
Two fingers' width separated their faces.
If she leaned forward even a little, she'd be kissing her.
Looking at Fang Qiu's soft, rosy lips, Hu Tao's pulse hammered harder still.
But just as she found herself drifting forward without meaning to, pain flickered across Fang Qiu's face and her delicate brows knit tight.
"No…"
Fang Qiu mumbled brokenly in her sleep. Fear and panic surfaced on that calm, pretty face, and the arms around Hu Tao tightened.
"A nightmare?"
Hu Tao blinked, and every muddled thought in her head scattered at once. She considered for a moment.
Then she slowly raised a hand and laid it gently on Fang Qiu.
The softness that met her palm sent the color rushing back into her cheeks, and she quickly slid her hand higher, resting it on Fang Qiu's back.
"It's all right. I'm here."
Once she'd steadied herself, Hu Tao stroked Fang Qiu's back slowly and murmured to soothe her.
Under her hand, Fang Qiu's brow smoothed out little by little.
Seeing her settle back into peaceful sleep, Hu Tao smiled faintly, lay down beside her, and closed her eyes as well.
"Good night."
She whispered it with her eyes shut.
But the arm around Fang Qiu, she didn't take back.
The two of them lay pressed close together and slept deeply.
Outside the window, the wind blew on.
A gentle current carrying the scent of Liyue Harbor swept in a great tide all the way to Dihua Marsh, where the reeds swayed and the water rippled.
Xiao sat on the roof of Wangshu Inn, quietly reading The Legend of Sword and Fairy 1.
He was already well past the halfway point.
The wind caught the pages and set them fluttering with a soft rush of sound.
Xiao raised his head toward where the wind came from.
The direction of Liyue Harbor.
"No wonder Rex Lapis favors this book. The girl writes well."
Xiao nodded to himself.
He'd only gotten through the opening so far — Xu Changqing helping resolve the Poison Men crisis in Yuzhou City, Chonglou giving Jing Tian the Demon Sword.
After that, Xu Changqing had taken Jing Tian to Mt. Shu.
He liked the Xu Changqing of the book very much.
A man who took protecting the world and driving out demons as his own duty.
Jing Tian was interesting too. His temperament was rather like Hu Tao's, the current Director of Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, who had been with Fang Qiu and Shenhe that day.
Just as exhaustingly lively.
Still, going by what Fang Qiu had written, Jing Tian was clearly meant to grow into a great hero.
He had nothing against knights-errant who righted wrongs.
And then there was Demon Lord Chonglou — that hunger for battle bore no small resemblance to a yaksha.
The characters were vivid. It was well written.
So he turned the page and read on.
Meanwhile, the day's work finished, Smiley Yanxiao, the innkeeper Verr Goldet, and the others had gathered around one table for a meal.
"It really is a bit bitter… and here I thought you were pulling my leg…"
Verr Goldet picked up a piece of Golden Shrimp Balls, put it in her mouth, chewed slowly, and frowned.
"Come on, why would I lie about that?"
Huai'an looked over at Smiley Yanxiao. "You should probably lay off Fang Qiu's books for a while."
"If it really is her books affecting your mood, then yes — leave them for a bit and come back to them later," Verr Goldet said with a nod.
Yanxiao was an outstanding chef, but his mental state wasn't the sturdiest; things around him got to him easily.
Back when Wangshu Inn was supposedly haunted, for instance, he'd been too rattled to even lift his knife.
"Fine," Yanxiao said, resigned and more than a little ashamed.
Food cooked in a bad mood really did carry bitterness.
Even if Fang Qiu's books were genuinely that good.
But as a chef, letting his dishes turn bitter and lose the flavor they were meant to have was something he couldn't tolerate.
So he'd just have to give it up, painful as it was.
He did wonder, though, whether Xiangling — the Liyue Harbor girl who'd beaten him in the cooking championship at the Moonchase Festival — read Fang Qiu's books, and if she did, whether they affected her the same way.
With that matter settled, the talk moved on.
"Oh, right. I heard some guests talking earlier. They said Fang Qiu teamed up with the Yun-Han Opera Troupe again and wrote Splitting the Mountain to Save Mother 2. Apparently it's already showing at the picture studio. No idea how good it is," said Huai'an, the shopkeeper.
"Speaking of which, Fang Qiu's got to have a new book coming soon, doesn't she? How about I make another trip to Liyue Harbor and buy copies for everyone?" Jiangxue asked.
"Hmph. Buying books for us, is that what you'd be going for? I'm being kind by not calling you out," Yanxiao said coldly.
Jiangxue could only laugh, embarrassed.
For the moment, the mood around the table was warm and easy.
…
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