Chapter 11: Slow

On the eleventh night, the fever was so small that Zhiyi almost missed it.

She made the eleventh pill, and bit off her crumb, and the spark that jumped to the furnace leg was as long as her thumb.

She shook her hand out.

"That looked like it hurt," said Juehan.

"It tickles."

He swallowed the pill from her palm.

Almost nothing was left of the black fern on his chest.

It was only a faint grey shadow now.

He waited for the heat.

It came as a mild warmth, no more than a bath.

"Ten more," he said. "Ten more pills."

"Ten more nights."

"I should be afraid."

"Are you?"

He looked at her, sitting cross-legged on the stone bed in her undershirt with her hair down.

"No," said Lei Juehan. "I am a man in love, and it leaves very little room."

She had meant to say something dry.

It died in her throat.

She put out a hand and touched his cheek.

"Say that again," she said.

"I love you."

His voice did not shake at all.

"I'm in love with you, Tang Zhiyi. I mean to be alive for a very long time to prove it."

"Juehan."

"I want to take you slowly tonight, with our eyes open."

"I'd like that very much," said Zhiyi, and found that her eyes had gone hot. "I love you too."

He kissed her.

It was unhurried, and deep, and it went on until she forgot the stone bed under her.

He lowered her down onto her side and lay facing her, with their knees tangled and his hand spread on her back.

"Open your eyes," he said.

"They're open."

"Keep them open."

He took off her undershirt, and she took off his, and neither of them looked away.

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