A Short Story Collection with Non-Human Protagonists - Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Earthly Fireworks

Lu Xiaokui kept her head bowed, her fingernails sinking deep into her palms.

“I came… to apologize.”

Tang Yanqing didn’t even bother to look her in the eye. “I’ll say it one more time: we’re closed.”

But Liu Jin caught Tang Yanqing’s pinky finger, giving it a light shake and coaxing her in a soft voice.

“Ah Qing, let’s hear what she has to say.”

Tang Yanqing didn’t agree, but for Liu Jin’s sake, she didn’t refuse either. She turned and walked back behind the bar. If the Fox Immortal Maiden wanted to listen, what choice did she have?

Liu Jin beckoned to the teary-eyed girl at the door.

“Xiaokui, come in and sit.”

Gin, lime juice, syrup, blackberry liqueur.

Tang Yanqing maintained her impeccable professional spirit and used the remaining ingredients to mix a Bramble for this unwelcome guest, hoping she truly had the resolve to “carry thorns and ask for punishment.”

Lu Xiaokui sat beside Liu Jin. Before a single word could come out, her tears began to fall in large droplets.

“Senior… Auntie Liu… I’m sorry… I really know I was wrong…”

What was the use of crying? It made it look as if she were the one who had suffered a great grievance. Tang Yanqing found it irritating and turned her head to continue wiping glasses.

Liu Jin poured Lu Xiaokui a glass of lemon water, her fingers resting on the girl’s shoulder. “It’s alright. Take your time.”

Lu Xiaokui wiped her tears and continued between sobs.

“I… at that time, I didn’t know what to do… She told me, Li Mingyi told me, that if I didn’t listen to her, she wouldn’t let me graduate… and if I did, she would…”

The girl paused, her drenched eyes looking toward Tang Yanqing.

“…She would… make Senior fall in love with me…”

Tang Yanqing’s head throbbed. “You’re a graduate student; how could you believe such nonsense?”

Did she really think a few talismans and some cursed water could manipulate the human heart?

Lu Xiaokui trembled with sobs. Suddenly, she pushed back her chair and, with a thud, knelt down before Liu Jin.

“Auntie Liu, I’m sorry… whenever I think of what happened, I feel so much regret and fear every day. I have nightmares the moment I close my eyes. I can’t even sleep…”

Liu Jin reached out to help her up, and Lu Xiaokui took the opportunity to grasp Liu Jin’s hand.

“I heard people say that wishes can come true here… Auntie Liu, please, my wish is for you to forgive me…”

“Xiaokui, get up first and listen to me carefully.”

Liu Jin helped her sit back down and took a business card from her bag, placing it in Lu Xiaokui’s hand.

“This is…” Lu Xiaokui looked down.

The card bore the name and phone number of the head of the Moqiao City Orphanage.

Liu Jin’s features softened into a gentle, broad smile.

“Go to the orphanage and serve as a volunteer for 1,000 days. The good and bad seeds you have sown will offset each other, and your wish will be realized. It only counts if you complete the full 1,000 days, so no being lazy.”

“Thank you, Auntie Liu! I’ll go tomorrow!” Lu Xiaokui held the card, her tears turning into a smile.

After Liu Jin saw Lu Xiaokui out, Tang Yanqing threw the rag into the sink. “Finished playing the bleeding heart? Time to go home.”

She was so annoyed she didn’t speak to Liu Jin the whole way back. Even after getting home, she stayed silent.

They had rented an old house near Fox. Human and fox cooked together, slept together, and shared the same small nest. Tang Yanqing shut herself in the study to read as soon as they arrived, intentionally letting a certain someone know she was still sulking.

Having experienced so much by Liu Jin’s side, she understood that on a cosmic scale, any person’s achievements or crimes were trivial matters, small as grains of sand. She just felt it wasn’t worth it for Liu Jin. Why always forgive those who had caused her harm so easily?

A certain someone knocked on the door and spoke from outside. “Ah Qing, what do you want for a midnight snack?”

“Not eating,” Tang Yanqing said coldly.

The person didn’t leave. “Then what kind of tea would you like?”

“Not drinking,” Tang Yanqing said heartlessly.

It was quiet outside for a long while. Tang Yanqing was just wondering if she should just coax herself out of it when the knocking returned.

“Ah Qing…”

Tang Yanqing grabbed her book, pretending to be busy, and gave a chilly response: “What is it?”

“Can you give me a massage? My waist hurts…” Liu Jin pushed open the study door and asked softly.

“What’s wrong with your waist?”

Tang Yanqing turned around, only to see that Liu Jin had just bathed. She was wearing only a silk nightgown, her skin flushed pink. The woman’s amber eyes still held the steam from the bathroom; her lashes fluttered as her gaze swept over Tang Yanqing’s face.

“Last night…”

A few syllables were enough to awaken thick memories. The nail polish had been only half-applied before it all spilled onto the floor, taking forever to clean up.

Tang Yanqing immediately shouted “Stop”: “Alright, alright, I get it!”

She put down her book and obediently followed Liu Jin to the bedroom. It was like a human raised by a fox.

The back of the nightgown was almost entirely open. The light hit the woman’s shoulder blades, casting shadows like butterfly wings. Tang Yanqing wasn’t particularly skilled at massage, but for taking care of Liu Jin, it was barely enough.

She poured medicinal oil into her palms and rubbed them together to create heat. Using techniques she’d learned from the old masters at the clinic, she slowly pressed along the spine. Liu Jin’s face was buried in the pillow, letting out an occasional soft, muffled groan. The sandalwood in the corner of the room burned with a faint, ethereal fragrance, as if anticipating a certain plot.

But Tang Yanqing insisted on ignoring it. “Does it hurt here? Or here?”

Tang Yanqing’s thumb pressed against the Dachangshu point. With a little pressure, Liu Jin groaned again, sounding like a whimpering kitten.

It seemed it really did hurt. Tang Yanqing repeatedly pressed along the meridians before moving to the next acupoint, focusing entirely on the technique and process, definitely not getting distracted for a second by the woman’s attire.

“Finished.”

Tang Yanqing wanted to keep up the act; she straightened up, wearing a grumpy face as she prepared to leave.

But out of nowhere, tails and ears appeared on the little fox. She looked back at her with eyes like shimmering silk. Having seen so much of the Fox Immortal Maiden’s cold, aloof, and otherworldly side, an occasional flirtation was all the more heart-stirring.

“And what if… it hurts elsewhere too?” the woman asked in a sweet, moist voice.

It was like honey sliding down a throat, or a feather brushing a fingertip. Even her bones felt itchy. Tang Yanqing let out a sigh. She felt she was truly a person with no backbone.

But what could she do?

She kicked off her slippers, lunged onto the bed, and spent two seconds finding Liu Jin’s lips. Their lips were perfectly suited for entanglement, as if they were born to kiss each other. Every curve and texture melted together. Their breathing reached a boiling point with every overlap.

When the fox was moved by Tang Yanqing’s kisses, she would grow more tails. …Or perhaps she simply felt Tang Yanqing liked them, so she grew them to please her. Like many arms softer than willow catkins, they embraced her, wrapped around her, and coiled around her limbs, letting her sink deeper and deeper into the woman’s fragrant, soft embrace.

Fluffy, soft fur brushed against Tang Yanqing’s palms again and again. Tang Yanqing kneaded a boneless tail while biting down hard on the fox’s pink ear-tip.

Until a soft voice begged for mercy: “Ah Qing, be gentler…”

“You said just now, where else does it hurt?”

Tang Yanqing whispered against the fox’s ear, blowing every word deep into her ear canal, watching with satisfaction as the woman’s toes curled against the sheets.

Liu Jin caught Tang Yanqing’s fingers, leading them across her lips, then sliding them slowly over the silk, pausing, and sliding again.

“Here… here… and, here…”

The pads of her fingers touched the wet softness between her lips, and then bunched the silk into wave-like wrinkles.

Tang Yanqing nodded solemnly. “Then you have quite a few ailments. Let me give you a good rub down.”

Dr. Tang’s massage skills were destined to make a breakthrough tonight. The medicine called love was a specialized cure for all difficult and complicated diseases.

The balcony was full of blooming orchids and lilacs, keeping them company until the middle of the night as the hidden fragrance drifted about.

The next morning, the woman from before brought her son to the clinic for a follow-up. She immediately noticed the red marks on Dr. Tang’s hand.

“Dr. Tang, what happened to your hand?” she asked hurriedly.

Tang Yanqing pulled the sleeves of her white coat down to hide the marks. “It’s nothing. A fox bit me.”

“Oh! A fox bite? That’s serious! You should bandage it and get a shot right away!” The woman was incredibly worried for her.

Tang Yanqing’s gaze passed through the clinic’s glass door, looking at the Fox tavern across the street. The proprietress was wearing a blue floral qipao, sitting on the sunlit terrace by the window.

Tang Yanqing smiled calmly. “It’s fine. It’s not a fox from outside. It’s a pet I keep at home.”

During the lunch break, she went across the street to soak up the sun, her head resting on Liu Jin’s shoulder. The sunlight felt warm on both of them. Photons born in the sun’s core usually take tens of thousands of years to reach the surface, followed by an 8-minute and 20-second journey to become the light that hits the Earth. Just like them, they were refugees from an ancient past.

The record player on the bar was playing Huangmei Opera with a bit of static.

“Melons and fruits hang heavy on the racks, the wind blows through the sea of rice, ripples of golden waves, in the quiet night laughter is still heard, after all, there is much joy in the human world…”

Liu Jin handed Tang Yanqing a moon-white sachet embroidered with osmanthus and locust leaves.

“The old one was stained with blood. I made you a new one.”

“I don’t want it,” Tang Yanqing didn’t take it. “What, you want to use your life to bind me again?”

Liu Jin pinched her cheek. “You’ll know if you smell it.”

Tang Yanqing held the sachet to her nose. Floral and medicinal scents flooded her senses. Agarwood, lavender, benzoin, night-crossing vine… it was a prescription from medical books for calming the mind and aiding sleep.

She tucked the sachet into her pocket, though she still complained: “You said you wanted to sleep with me. What, do you find me too restless a sleeper?”

Liu Jin leaned in and gave her a light kiss on the cheek, her earrings swaying in the sunlight.

“Now that you are by my side, you don’t need to dream anymore.”

On New Year’s Eve, Tang Yanqing took Liu Jin on her bike to see the fireworks. She put the helmet on Liu Jin and reminded her repeatedly: “Hold on tight.”

The biting cold wind blew as they rode through the winter night, but neither felt cold. Many scenes flashed in the motorcycle’s rearview mirror: the city of ten thousand lights, the peach blossoms of Wuyuan Mountain, the boats on Moon Lake, the shade of the locust tree.

On the other side of the bridge, brilliant fireworks blossomed in the night sky. The debris fell like a glowing rain, reflected on the quiet surface of the Jiu-Nian River.

Amidst the surging crowd, Tang Yanqing turned her head to kiss Liu Jin.

All dharmas are empty, but cause and effect are not. From now on, she would work hard to sow all good seeds, so that in the next life, and the life after that—any life the Bodhisattva could or could not manage—she would be stuck together with her little fox.

She gripped Liu Jin’s hand tight.

Wherever Liu Jin was, she had a home to return to.