Chapter 107 - Lost?

Following Ao Wen's explosive demonstration the banquet had progressed smoothly to its conclusion with many voicing their anticipation of Ao Wen's next revelations. The City Lord had taken in all of these comments, noting both the verbalized desires and the ones spoken only through suggestive glances, setting each of the next pieces of his plan in place. While more violent than he anticipated, the charged confrontation between Ao Wen and Alchemist Wai had effectively suppressed the Holy Light Abode who had no desire to step into such a heated environment when their most notable elders still hadn't returned from taking the batch of newly awakened young women to White Sails Holy City. Even better, Feng Lieren's surprise return had been matched by Ao Wen's scathing rebuke of Long Ma, setting the stage for the City Lord to build anticipation for Feng Lieren's future appointment as Deputy City Lord. In virtually every measure the City Lord could select, the night had been tremendously successful. 

In another room in the City Lord's manor, however, the atmosphere was far less celebratory. 

"Wen," Feng Xi said from the doorway of Ao Wen's bed chamber. She'd followed Ao Wen all the way from the banquet, trailing like a ghost, her presence barely noticed by the woman who meant more to her than anything else in this world. The walk was neither long nor short but it felt like it had taken an eternity before she'd been able to slip inside Ao Wen's bed chamber for a private conversation. "Wen, I'm upset with you," she made herself say, firming up her resolve to have this conversation now rather than pushing it off to later. 

"Hmm?" Ao Wen said, turning to regard Feng Xi with confusion before her eyes widened in terror. "Xi!" she cried out, dropping to sit on her bed like a ragdoll. "Xi I…"

"What's wrong Wen," Feng Xi said softly, crossing the room to kneel at Ao Wen's bedside, taking the younger woman's hands in her own and looking into Ao Wen's trembling amber eyes. "You can tell me, I promise."

"Xi… I… when you called me Wen, I…" Ao Wen trembled. "For a moment, I forgot that my name was Ao Wen," she whispered. "I was about to correct you the second time, to say that my name was 'Daiyu' now and… Xi, what have I done?" Images of the evening flashed through her mind bringing one horror after another. Scolding Long Ma in front of the crowd of Turning Leaf town's elite? Nearly crippling Alchemist Wai Dan? Acting like she was still part of the Sacred Flame Celestial Temple? Each step felt like the right one after the one before it but by the time she'd taken the last step, how far away from Ao Wen had she walked? 

"Wen," Feng Xi said softly, setting a hand lightly on Ao Wen's cheek. "Ever since you came back, it felt like you were moving from one crisis to the next. First we had to get back, then you saved my father, then the bit with Mao Ailum…. I understood all that," she said, giving Ao Wen a reassuring squeeze. "But these past several days, you've been bottled up in your lab here with Lady Wan and Novice Wu. At first, I thought you were just working on the medicine you sent for Father so I didn't say anything, but you were doing a lot more than just that weren't you? Wen," she forced herself to ask. "Do you know why I'm upset?"

"I've been avoiding you," Ao Wen said softly, unable to meet Feng Xi's pleading emerald gaze. "I promised that I'd tell you what happened but every time I thought about it, I just…" she faltered, finally glancing up through misty eyes to look at Feng Xi's anxious face. "Xi, it wasn't all bad, I swear, but a lot of it was really hard. Mother told me," she paused, drawing a deep breath. "Cong Houzi told me that I didn't have to push myself as hard as I did but I didn't know what else to do. I didn't know how to make the vision stop," she said, voicing the greatest fear that had plagued her the past several years. "I knew enough to treat Jin a year ago but I couldn't wake up. I started to think, maybe this time, I wouldn't wake up until I'd lived Cong Daiyu's whole life. Until I'd been Cong Daiyu longer than I'd ever been Ao Wen."

"Was it really just three years?" Feng Xi asked, wondering if Ao Wen had held back the truth for her and Tang Jin's sake. "Wen, I can't help you if I don't know," she pleaded softly. 

"It really was just three years," Ao Wen said, shaking her head fiercely. "Xi, I wouldn't lie to you. But those three years, a lot happened."

"So tell me about it," Feng Xi said, grabbing a pillow and pulling herself into bed with Ao Wen. "Just you, me and the rain outside. Tell me all about it."

Ao Wen took a deep breath, closing her eyes as she gathered her thoughts. It took several moments before she felt collected enough to begin her story. "When I woke up in the orphanage, I was already infected with Yin Fiend Transformation sickness," Ao Wen started slowly, the fingers of her right hand drifting over the patch of skin on her left arm where Cong Daiyu's arm had once been disfigured by transforming flesh. "I didn't know what it was at the time, but the sickness had sweapt over Salt Flats City killing hundreds of thousands of people and transforming thousands or maybe tens of thousands of people into Yin Fiends. The orphanage was a chapterhouse of the sect. There was an Aesthete there, my senior sister, she died the night I woke up there and she left me in charge of the orphans…"

From there, Ao Wen explained slowly, leaving out no details as she described her fumbling attempts to teach herself alchemy, the children she'd killed because they couldn't be saved, the painful healing she'd gone through to purge the horrific disease… she described every single bit of it through hot tears and broken sentences. 

At first, Feng Xi tried to hold herself apart from the storm of emotions but they quickly became too sharp, too raw and far to overwhelmingly deep. All she could do in the face of such raging hurt was to cling to Ao Wen and stroke the younger woman's hair, offering soothing sounds and letting her tell the story at her own pace. 

Eventually however, Feng Xi noticed a shift in Ao Wen's emotions as she began to speak about her Senior Sister Qi Yue. The more she spoke of her, the more Ao Wen blushed and squirmed, occasionally looking and feeling almost… guilty? "Wen," Feng Xi finally asked, keeping her tone light and teasing. "Are you telling me that you found a girlfriend in the sect? Did you seduce your Senior Sister?"

"Pfft, what?" Ao Wen sputtered. "It wasn't like that!" she insisted instantly. "She seduced me! I mean, she…" Ao Wen paused, trying to find words that wouldn't just make the whole thing sound worse than it already did. "She's 'Desire' incarnate," Ao Wen finally said in an awkward attempt to explain. "I mean, literally, she cultivates the word 'Desire' as a Mystic the same way I cultivate the word 'Fire.' She could seduce the muck at the bottom of a carp pond until it stood as erect as a soldier on parade day," she said with a burning blush across her cheeks and the tips of her ears. 

"So you're saying I have competition?" Feng Xi teased, giving Ao Wen a gentle shove. "Maybe I need to play more music for you to remind you who knew you first," she added, sticking her tongue out at Ao Wen and smiling. 

"Act-actually," Ao Wen started, lowering her head with a deeper blush. "I'd like that a lot. I couldn't ever tell her that there was a different woman waiting for me at home," she explained. "I think she took it as a challenge, like I was playing hard to get. For the last year or so though, I'd spent enough late nights in her courtyard that I just… moved in. We shared a courtyard for a while, and baths, and…"

"Was she a good kisser?" Feng Xi asked, trying to suppress her own blush at the question she couldn't hold back from asking. 

"I don't know!" Ao Wen said, throwing a pillow at Feng Xi. "We never did."

"Good," Feng Xi said, feeling a bit smug that even a woman who cultivated desire itself hadn't managed to steal a march on her. "Then I get you first," she added, leaning in close, brushing Ao Wen's trembling lips with her thumb as her long nimble fingers caressed the Ao Wen's soft cheek. 

"Xi, I…"

"Shh," Feng Xi breathed from centimeters away. "This kiss belongs to Ao Wen," she whispered. "To the woman I love."