Chapter 5: The Hot Spring

On the eighth morning, seven wicks of the great lamp were dark.

Qin Heyan counted them twice, standing in the pavilion hall in his sleeping robe.

One went out each dawn, quietly, with a thread of smoke.

Ninety-three were still burning.

He told himself it was a fine number.

Lu Baichuan came up behind him with two cups of tea, hair still wet from the lake.

"Don't count them," Lu said.

"I like to know the number."

"I like to know the water temperature."

Lu held out a cup and tilted his head toward the back door.

The path to the hot spring ran behind the pavilion, through a stand of bamboo.

At the end of it, the ground opened into a pool of milky water ringed with black rocks, steam rolling off it in slow sheets.

A bamboo screen stood on one side.

On a flat stone beside the water lay a small jar of camellia oil, a stack of white towels and a clay cup.

"The Garden thinks of everything," Qin said.

"It really does."

Lu's voice was too bright.

Then he coughed, a sharp short cough into his elbow, and waved a hand at the steam.

"Damn mist."

Qin watched him for a moment.

Then Lu stripped off his robe, walked down the stone steps into the water, and sank to his neck with a groan of pure pleasure.

Qin stood on the edge.

He had never bathed with another person in his life.

"Are you coming in," Lu said, "or do you want to be told?"

Qin untied his sash.

The water was just short of too hot.

It closed over his skin like silk, and every muscle he owned gave up at once.

He sank against the rocks with his eyes shut.

When he opened them, Lu was in front of him, close enough to touch.

"Turn around," Lu said.

"Why?"

"Because I'm going to put my hands on you, and I want to start with your back."

Qin turned.

He folded his arms on the warm rock and put his forehead on them.

Lu's palms landed on his shoulders.

They were big and slick with water, and they pressed in slow circles, thumbs digging into the knots under his shoulder blades.

Qin groaned.

He couldn't help it.

"Ten years of sword drills," Lu murmured. "Every muscle in you is a rope. You never rest, do you?"

"There's no time."

"There's a hundred days."

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