Fanfiction3: A-Li's Three Lives, Three Worlds - Chapter 34 (Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms 三生三世十里桃花)
Chapter 34
written by LigayaCroftedited by Panda and Kakashi
“This isn't working, Mei Lin. Are you sure you put the needles in the right place?”
“Xiăohŭ!” Mei Lin groaned as she looked up at the ceiling from the fifth scroll she has been reading on postpartum care, part of a set she had started for today’s reading goal. “Why can’t you lie still and just let the treatment run its course?”
Huo Zheng had given Mei Lin her entire set of scrolls on midwifery last month — composed of about 500 scrolls on prenatal to postpartum care, along with exhaustive information on herbs, foods and feng shui rules to be followed or practiced at each stage of a woman’s pregnancy— and had expected her to be up-to-speed by the next full moon, which was next week.
Mei Lin had her hands full.
Literally.
A mortal woman was only pregnant for ten months and yet, with everything she had read so far, a mortal pregnancy felt like the longest ten months in a mortal woman’s life. Still, the birth of each child was a celebration and the care of the mother a topmost priority, which was why people like Huo Zheng had jobs. There were just too many details to memorize and that was because mortals were flimsy; thank heavens she, as an immortal, was not.
Her underused brain has been overloaded with more information than it had normally been able to tolerate in immortal centuries. But Mei Lin also discovered that if she really put her mind to the task at hand, she could do anything — even memorize everything. She had amazed Huo Zheng at the speed by which she had absorbed the placement of all qi meridians and which specific meridian points should be targeted to treat each known disease.
Still some days she felt like she was cheating. It didn’t make sense until she saw the diagrams outlining the meridian points. As an immortal, her phoenix eyes were actually able to see past skin and bones. To her, it used to not make sense — flowing trails of yellows, greens, reds, whites, and blacks — but now it did. She had been seeing a creatures energy pathways and overlapping her memories of how they looked like with Huo Zheng’s intricately-drawn diagrams made it easier for her to understand what she was looking at.
She had barely slept in weeks and Huo Zheng barging in to demand to be treated during the rare instance that Qianling was asleep was not helping her meet her self-imposed deadline. Further, Huo Zheng questioning her needle placements was an insult.
But — this was her best friend, thus, she needed to be more dependable. It worked that way, right? Li-Gē and Gun Gun may be men but there was no question one of them always had the other’s back.
Mei Lin sighed.
“Mei Lin, take out the needles, please,” Huo Zheng cried out from the long table behind her. “Beginning with the ones on my face.”
With an even heavier sigh, Mei Lin stood up and rolled her scroll closed. Then she turned to Huo Zheng who still lay on her back but whose nose and fingers twitched almost miserably.
Mei Lin retrieved a wooden bowl and began pulling out Huo Zheng’s sixteen needles. She didn’t take her eyes off her friend as she added more wood and hay to the fire and put the needles in the boiling pot of water that she had set up on top of the stove, and with fascination watched Huo Zheng alternate between staring blankly into space before vigorously shaking her head to put her face between her hands. She did this so many times Mei Lin simply just knew her friend needed alcohol, not acupuncture.
She opened a cupboard and took out a bottle of rice wine, uncorked it and brought it along with two earthenware cups to the table in front of Huo Zheng.
"I don't need a drink."
"As your best friend," Mei Lin said as she poured Huo Zheng a drink. "I declare you do."
Huo Zheng frowned. "Again, Mei Lin, we're friends but you're not my best friend."
Mei Lin turned her head from the left to the right to scan the room’s perimeter. "Do you have any other best friend hanging about?"
"No, I don't have a best friend."
"Yes, you do," Mei Lin grinned triumphantly as she pushed the full cup toward Huo Zheng. “From yesterday forward, you did. Me. I'm your best friend."
Huo Zheng’s head tilted to one side. "Why must you always be the best in everything?"
“Heredity?” She sighed and felt that familiar pang which spread outward from her chest every time she thought of her parents. “I was told that at school, my father was the best from philosophy to martial arts. My mother on the other hand still insists to this day that she was the world's first Phoenix."
Huo Zheng openly stared at Mei Lin, with a look that she was familiar with by now. Mei Lin had told Huo Zheng some of the craziest — yet — true stories about her life as an immortal these past five months. Initially, it was to scare or overwhelm Huo Zheng and she should have stopped when she decided they could be friends, but Mei Lin found herself compelled to be all the more honest afterward. In her mind, when all was said and done, she wanted Huo Zheng to know that she had never lied to her.
Huo Zheng grabbed her drink. "If your mother is a phoenix and your father is a dragon, then are they the Emperor and Empress of your kingdom?"
Huo Zheng was once again trying to wrap her head around the outrageousness of Mei Lin’s stories by humanizing it. Still, she pushed on with the truth.
"It's a little bit more complicated than that. My mother is a phoenix and is the Demon Ancestor but Li-Gē’s parents are our Kingdom’s Emperor and Empress. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"Demon Ancestor, you say?" Huo Zheng giggled as she took another swallow of her drink. "With your personality, that makes sense."
What would it take for this woman to believe her? Mei Lin wanted to rub her face on her hands but she settled to pay attention to her drink instead.
"Is Bai Li a virgin?"
Mei Lin choked and spewed the liquid inside her mouth to the wall.
“Why do you ask?” She asked as soon as she recovered her breath.
"I tried to seduce him earlier but he acted like a virginal miss. I wasn't even able to get his tunic off."
Ah. Finally, her cousin and her best friend had moved on to the next phase. The grin on Mei Lin’s face was nonretractile. "You seduced him?"
"Yes.” Huo Zheng’s fingers tapped a harried staccato on the table. “You haven't answered my question. Is he a virgin?"
"Gods, no."
Huo Zheng stirred her drink with one finger, looked up and sighed, "You're right, why did I even think he was? He was married."
The way Huo Zheng said it sounded like she had put an end to the situation, but Mei Lin was no way finished especially since this piece of information was too juicy to let pass.
"I always knew it was just a matter of time between the two of you. So you like him, huh? I just told you his parents are Emperor and Empress of our realms but have I ever told you he's our realms' future Crown Prince?"
"Crown Prince? I don't care if he's the son of the man who cleans up the garbage in your realms. That's not why I like him.”
“No?”
“Yes. No. I like him because — he's very handsome. And taller than me, which is a rare trait. He smells nice all the time too even if he just came back from the farms all sweaty."
“Wait — “ It was the first time Mei Lin had heard her cousin described in the most unexciting of terms. “You do not care that he's our Crown Prince? Future Emperor? Heavenly Lord?"
"Heavenly... Lord..." Huo Zheng formed each word slowly then burst out laughing as if she was just told the world’s funniest joke. “Mei Lin, I do not know where you live but I think your family thinks too highly of themselves."
"B-But we are—"
Huo Zheng raised her hand which effectively cut off Mei Lin, downed the last of her Baijiu, and slammed her cup down on the table.
“Mei Lin, I do not care because Bai Li’s most attractive quality to me is that he is leaving in about two years, as will you and Gun Gun." She expelled her breath in a groan as she looked up the ceiling again. "I just wanted to have a good time while he’s still here, is that too much to ask?"
“It seems to me — “ Mei Lin’s jaw couldn't drop any lower further. "You only want his body?"
Huo Zheng frowned and the creases in the middle of her brows got deeper each time she blinked.
"What's wrong with that?"
The gathering laughter finally exploded from Mei Lin’s chest. Huo Zheng continued to look bewildered but instead settled to pour herself another cupful of Baijiu as she waited for Mei Lin to catch her breath.
"I do not understand. What is so funny about it?”
"Y-You — Mei Lin pointed to Huo Zheng and ended up laughing again. "You're actually serious? You only want my cousin's body?"
"Yes. Is there any reason I should not? He doesn't have máfēng [1], does he? Was that why he wouldn't let me undress him?"
Huo Zheng’s monologue made it slowly dawn on Mei Lin that her friend was indeed serious. Her laughter died down to give way to increasing discombobulation.
"Or was it my technique that was bad?" Huo Zheng continued to wonder. "But the books said, ‘Many men are shy - yes, they like to pretend to be strong, but very often, they are not. Flatter them, if you have to, but do not waste your time with waiting. If they do not move, move on your own.’ And that was exactly what I did.“ She made a clasping motion with her hands. “I saw an opportunity and I grabbed it.”
Book? Huo Zheng learned seduction from a book? Mei Lin reached out to put her hand over Huo Zheng’s wrist.
“Hold on, what book?"
Huo Zheng’s head jerked back. ”The Books, Mei Lin."
"What books?"
"Mr. Mo's Magickal Moments?"
Mei Lin never liked literature but a book or a series of books with such an outrageous name should have come to her attention by now.
"How could a fantasy book — “ She paused, once again unsure if she used the right category but for mortals, anything that had the word magick automatically meant fantasy, right? Still, she corrected herself. “How could a book teach you about seduction techniques?"
"Goodness, no!" A conspiratorial glint shone in Huo Zheng's eyes. "These are red books, Mei Lin. They contain wisdom passed on to women for thousands of centuries."
Mei Lin was nothing short of shocked. "You pass on erotica?"
"If a household is forward thinking enough — yes,” Huo Zheng shrugged. "Nǎinai gave me my first book when I came of age."
"N-Nǎinai gave you, her granddaughter, erotica when you turned fifteen?" Mei Lin stuttered, bewildered. “This is unbelievable! I thought young mortal women were given a hairpin?"
"I got a hairpin and I got a book. Also, we hold the ceremony when a woman gets her first monthly courses in Huicun so I had my ceremony when I was ten.”
“Ten!”
Huo Zheng nodded earnestly. "I haven't stopped collecting them since. I have even committed some of its lines to memory. Mei Lin, the books are wonderful. The storytelling is so riveting that it feels like the events happened for real. Legends say the books showed up every year for one hundred years! Can you imagine?"
Huo Zheng always thought her stories weren't believable and yet here was her friend talking about — "Legends?"
"Yes, the books have been around for centuries. The series are one of the greatest classics of the world. Many men and women have benefited from the author's gifted imagination."
This, Mei Lin had to see for herself. "I'll be the judge of that. Show me the books."
Huo Zheng stood up and unlocked a cabinet filled with scrolls. Her hands grazed along the edges of each roll until they stopped at one and pulled it out.
"No wonder you told me to keep my hands off that cabinet." Mei Lin snapped as she looked at the scrolls from where she sat, thinking of the filthy contents it held within. "I didn't take you for one who reads erotica."
Huo Zheng closed the cabinet and sat down on her chair again. She untied the string that held the painted red scroll together and unrolled the contents on the table.
"This book is a particular favorite of mine," She grinned widely at Mei Lin. "It's called Three Fingers and a Smile."
Mei Lin hated reading with a passion, a fact which was known to Huo Zheng by now so she was not embarrassed to ask her friend to, "Jump to the juicy bits, will you? To be honest, between reading your medical scrolls and filthy scrolls, I would rather read the medical scrolls."
Huo Zheng gave her a careless shrug and a smirk, and her finger jumped from the scroll's first character to somewhere in the middle part. Then she began reading.
***
Impatiently, I gripped his head and positioned his mouth on my left nipple. Northerners needed help with everything.
It took me by surprise when he sucked on the sensitive bud with force and I cried out sharply, but he was already back to teasing my skin. Bastard! I arched my back as he alternately sucked and licked. I twisted and thrashed and tossed as his tongue teased me, trying to guide his head, always wanting more than he gave. Dizzy with desire, I tried to reciprocate; rubbing my hand all over his smooth shoulders, twisting my body to get to some skin to nibble, to claw at. His skin tasted incredibly good. Funny that I had to die and come back to find that out.
My body was filling with the most delicious tension from Mo Huīxià [2]’s tender attentions, and I briefly wondered how he had gotten so skilled at this (and with whom!) when his hand started to lightly stroke my inner thigh. My attention immediately narrowed to the span of his palm and the press of his finger tips as they traveled upwards to the innermost part of me. I tensed. I felt defenseless against this gentleness. Why was he in control like this?
He lifted his head from my breasts and whispered to me in a voice that I hardly recognized: “Let me.” Quivering slightly, I did. It was completely against my character and I should have known better.
Putting a finger inside me, Mo Huīxià slowly drew me open and then lightly stroked and caressed me. He touched my walls, finding my bud and gently flicked it. He added a second finger and increased the speed of his strokes until I writhed desperately against his hand. I longed for another kiss but he distracted me from thinking, maddening me with exquisite touches until I couldn’t take it any longer. Panting heavily, I begged, “Enter me.”
“No," he said as he slipped a third finger into me and smiled. Damn, but the bastard was handsome.
I lost all reason as he gave my nipple a particularly hard bite, surrendering to the immense wave of pleasure that washed over me. My dangerous energy surged wild and fiery around us as I climaxed.
He remained unscathed by it, of course. He was the unflappable general. He wasn't to be killed that easily.
When I could think again, I realized from his taut body and heavy breathing that he hadn’t found his own release. Good. I still wanted more. I wanted to feel him inside me.
“Enter me,” I demanded again, voice cracking. “Mo Huīxià, now.”
It was the first time I called him by his name, and it was a mistake.
I stiffened as I felt him fully retreat into himself. Cold, calm, utterly infuriating. The Mo Huīxià I'd always hated was back.
“Sorry,” he whispered. And with that, he was gone. He even remembered to take his wedding gown with him.
“Sorry? SORRY?” White hot rage engulfed me.
“I will kill you the next time I see you!” I screamed, filled with bitterness, rage and another emotion I tried very hard to ignore.
***
"Well?" Huo Zheng visibly bounced with ill-contained glee, as if she had just inducted Mei Lin into a secret society.
"It was... hot. Mo Huīxià sounds like he knew just how to drive her to the edge. But how could he leave her just like that?"
Huo Zheng rolled the scroll back closed. "It was part of their long winded foreplay, Mei Lin," she explained with a frozen smile on her face.
"I do not get it.” Mei Lin sat straighter and tugged at the scroll. “Okay, start at the beginning. Where were they?"
Huo Zheng gave up on her cup and instead gulped straight from the bottle before handing the earthenware to Mei Lin who also took a draught.
"The story started when our heroine's bloodthirsty pet bull Fong Fong crashed into Mo Huīxià's bride's wedding party, which scattered the servants and well-wishers into several directions. This caused the wedding party to be unable to move from the location for quite a while, which made the wedding fall out of the auspicious date and time — thus indefinitely postponing it. The general was not happy at the recent turn of events and so he sought her out and found her while she was boxing a tree at Old Fart's peach farm. She was an unparalleled warrior, said to be even better than Mo Huīxià himself, so she was not intimidated by the general’s martial arts prowess. They engaged in a fight that turned," Huo Zheng fanned her fingers over her face. "Heated. Do you know she bit the general's cheek and then licked the blood that flowed from it? How… primal. I'm not sure I can ever do that with a man but the thought, the rawness, excites me.”
Mei Lin wasn't sure she was one for using martial arts and blood in foreplay — not that she would not give it a try if the opportunity presented itself. As if on cue, her injured finger throbbed with pain, and Huo Zheng’s voice retreated to the background.
The pain brought her back to what had happened earlier that afternoon: of the way Gun Gun's brown eyes had stared back at her as he sucked the blood from her injured finger.
He had never looked at her that way before.
But a word from Huo Zheng’s incessant buzzing in the back of her mind broke through Mei Lin’s daze.
"Cave?" Her eyes flew back to focus on Huo Zheng who was still rambling on. "You said the general went to a cave?"
"Yes," Huo Zheng sighed, because like Mei Lin, she didn't like to repeat herself. "The general likes to reflect and strategize inside his special cave. It helps increase his mental stamina. But do you know they also eventually made love several times inside the cave? There were about three or five books on that. It was all so intense."
Air.
Mei Lin suddenly found it hard to breathe.
A wedding crasher?
A pet bull...frog?
Fong Fong...Fong Hung?
An Old Fart... Old Phoenix?
A Peach Farm... grove?
A female warrior of greater skill?
A General... God of War?
A cave?
"Huo Zheng, who wrote this... book?" She demanded and wondered how she could even speak when she was no longer breathing.
Huo Zheng leaned back. "I'm so shocked and honestly a bit upset that you do not know about Mr. Mo's Magickal Moments.”
Mr. Mo.
Mo Yuan.
No, this could not be.
Mei Lin recalled a funny story Lian Song had once told their group — also to purposely embarrass Li-Gē — where he revealed that the Heavenly Emperor Ye Hua, during his mortal courtship with the Heavenly Empress Bai Qian, unimaginatively used Hua Ye as his mortal name.
Oh, how they had all laughed about the High Gods’ innate lack of imagination. It was as if died along with their heavenly ascension.
Huo Zheng held up the scroll in front of Mei Lin's eyes to show both the title and author.
"The great Wan Shao wrote the masterpiece. How could you be alive for this long and not know about her or her works?"
Huo Zheng had barely finished her question when Mei Lin uncontrollably heaved and for the first time in her long life, threw up all over the floor.
Chapter 35
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Endnotes
1. (麻疯) Leprosy2. (麾下) Literally means "beneath your flag". Used when addressing generals and military officers