I actually started writing this one right before Chinese New Year, ergo the setting.

Here's to my favorite couple at the moment. May their love be never ending so that the fangirls can keep fangirling!

I also realize belatedly that the whole reincarnation / author thing is similar to Palace. Hmm. I never watched Palace II, but can't deny that maybe I got some inspiration from it anyways.

Also, some translation notes on the bottom.

The Eve of Chinese New Year.

The snow was fluttering down non-stop and soon, the rooftops and sidewalks were covered by a thin dusting of white powder.

The temperature wasn't cold though.

From inside the cozy teahouse, Xiao Jingyan gazed out the window and followed a snowflake as it landed on top of a small, ancient-appearing bell suspended on the outside of the sliding wooden doors. It melted almost on contact.

It reminded him of confectioner's sugar melting on a cream puff that was still too warm to be dusted. Much to his mother's chagrin, Jingyan was infamous for doing just that.

Absentmindedly, Jingyan wondered if the master of the teahouse he was in ever got impatient. When he first met the man a few years ago, he wouldn't have hesitated to wager that he didn't. Mei Changsu had the inborn grace and poise of a palace courtier and carried himself with the calm peace of a snowy mountain on a sunny winter day.

Currently, the young tea master of Nanjing's most renowned tea shop and café was concluding the last tea ceremony of the year.

Soon, the doors of the tea ceremony room slid open and several high profile clients respectfully bowed to the young man who had opened the door as they filed out. In return, the young man, dressed in a pale blue traditional robe, inclined his head to the exact angle that would make a Tang dynasty Confucian sculpture jealous and with a flowing gesture of his wide sleeves, directed the guests towards the exit.

Once the last of the guests was out of sight, Jingyan let out a light "humph" and stood up from his floor cushion.

"Jingyan!" The robe-clad young man exclaimed in as much a surprised voice as he was capable of, "You're still here!"

"Of course I am!"

"Well, sit down and have some tea then! I hope the staff at least got you something before leaving for the day!"

"That's okay," Jingyan refused – he never did understand why everyone around him was so obsessed with tea, "Mom sent me over to give you some pastries she made."

Mei Changsu clapped his hands together and the clear still pools that were his eyes seemed to ripple at the sight of the pastry box Jingyan was holding.

"Oh don't be silly! We'll have the pastries together with some of the new tea that came in!"

Of course Mei Changsu would feign ignorance over Jingyan's lack of appreciation for tea. Sometimes Jingyan was sure that Changsu did this to irritate him. But other times Jingyan wondered if maybe the concept of someone not adoring tea was so devastating to Changsu that his unusually intelligent mind just simply couldn't comprehend it.

By now, Changsu was behind the counter, carefully using a bamboo spoon to measure out the correct amount of dried tea leaves while an antique kettle was heating next to him.

As much as Jingyan didn't appreciate tea, he could appreciate why the man behind the counter was successful. Mei Changsu was an unknown name in the highly competitive upscale tea trade. In a market where gift-giving was the predominant motive for purchase, brand name was unduly important. However, within the span of a few short years, Changsu's teahouse had become a household name in the upper circles. Even Jingyan, who couldn't for the life of him taste the difference between a common poorly stored and oxidized green tea and Changsu's carefully vacuum packed batches of fresh seasonally picked teas that he personally inspected, could at least attest to the fact that Changsu's tea brewed into gorgeous shades of golden green and jade and smelled exactly as Changsu advertised. That, and Jingyan was certain that a fair number of customers came in just to sit and stare at the tea master himself. It was a wonder why the man chose to set up shop and to stay in their small shopping district when Jingyan knew for a fact that several of Changsu's more elite clients had offered to help him relocate to far more luxurious locations.

Changsu poured the tea into the pre-warmed ceramic cups, the steaming liquid falling in a graceful arc and gathering in the celadon cup, complementing the exact shade of pale jade as the particular cups the young tea master had chosen. He then placed the cups into a simple serving tray and placed the tray down on the table in front of Jingyan.

Changsu then picked up one of the cups with his slim fingers and held it out for Jingyan to take. He had a small smile on his fair face and the lamplight softly illuminated his luminous orbs and elegant features.

Not for the first time, Jingyan completely understood why the reservations list for tea personally served by Mei Changsu was always filled and why throngs of people would wait outside the shop just to be seated and watch the young man at work. His movements were a form of art that connected the present to some ancient era abundant in rustling silks, court etiquette, and painted courtesans. Yet something in the decisive precision of Mei Changsu's tea ceremonies also spoke of military glory and heroes the stuff of epic poems.

Jingyan shook his head. He was clearly too far gone. He hastily grabbed the delicate cup with his calloused hands, rough and a little scarred from years of sword training. He sipped at the tea to at least feign appreciation. To the tea master's credit, this particular cup tasted a step above most teas Jingyan had tried before. It had a soothingly clean and fresh aftertaste and a light, almost undetectable, aroma.

At that, the smile on Changsu's face grew.

At first, Jingyan though he was imagining things. But soon, he saw the small tremors of Changsu's shoulders grow more pronounced. Finally, the light blue robes were forced into a most undignified lump as Mei Changsu collapsed over the table. A bright burst of laughter escaped from the hunched over form.

Jingyan just stared with a perplexed expression on his face and wondered if he should ask whether the tea master was feeling alright.

Before he could do so, Mei Changsu lifted up his head, his expression was a rare and difficult hybrid of pity and mirth. In between small chuckles, Changsu gasped, "Jingyan, how do you like the water?"

Jingyan could feel the heat racing up his neck into the very tips of his ears. His hands shook and he felt torn between slamming the cup down and stalking out of the shop and just wishing that a hole would open up below him.

Instead, he forced down his impulses, placed the cup down with as much pressure as possible without slamming it, and ground out, "You call yourself a tea master."

Changsu looked at him with all the sympathy he could muster for the unfortunate soul born without the taste buds to differentiate tea from plain water, "Yes. And I call you a water ox."

The blue-robed man burst into that bright laughter once again.

Jingyan pursed his lips and clenched his fists. But eventually, his sculpted shoulders began shaking too as he himself let out a resigned chuckle.

As much as Xiao Jingyan hated to admit it, Mei Changsu's surprisingly sunny laughter was contagious.

The man rarely laughed – rarely even smiled past the perfunctory slight lift of his smooth lips towards his clients, regardless of their social status. But when he did, the elegant cheeks would become rosy and childlike, losing the stoic grace that made their owner famous for being a cold beauty. The clear, still pools of Changsu's eyes would overflow with gurgling brooks, magnificent waterfalls, or crashing waves – depending on the cause. At the moment, they seemed like all of those combined.

Unbidden, the thought occurred to Jingyan that Mei Changsu's laughter was lovely.

Later that night, with his belly full of his mother's dumplings, Jingyan sat on his bed in a pair of loose sweatpants and an old well-worn t-shirt. His back was against the wall and one of his legs was propped up so that he could rest his notepad against it.

He was writing to Lin Shu.

Which explained why the floor around his bed was littered with crumpled paper balls.

Lin Shu was an up and coming novelist. Well, he wasn't anymore. He had just been awarded several well-known literary awards for his latest set of historical fiction novels.

But what was important was that Jingyan found him before all that. Jingyan found Lin Shu's novels left deserted in, of all places, Mei Changsu's teahouse.

He still remembered when he first discovered Lin Shu.

It was Mid-Autumn festival a few years ago and his mother had asked him to bring a box of mooncakes over for the owner of the new tea shop that had opened across the street from his mother's bakery. At the time, Jingyan was less than pleased. He had just won the last sword fighting tournament of his undergraduate career – thus bringing his team to nationals, thank you very much – and felt that he quite deserved a warm bath. But as a filial son, Jingyan could only agree as he threw his team jacket on again and picked up a box to bring across the street.

Only to be stopped by his mother again. Because apparently Mei Changsu was too good for the box with hazelnut filling. No, Mei Changsu needed the box with every flavor except the hazelnut because the hazelnuts that year weren't a good size. How the size of hazelnuts that would be turned into paste could possibly be tasted in the final product, Jingyan could not fathom.

But it did solidify the impression that their new neighbor was a pompous prat.

And to top it all off, he was a "too busy to attend to thou" pompous prat.

The shop was bustling with holiday activity as shoppers rushed to get last-minute gifts. In Jingyan's rather jaded opinion, he was certain that most of the shoppers were only here to buy some tea with fancy packaging to gift their bosses, who were highly likely to be getting presents ready at that moment for their own higher ups.

And at the center of it all was Mei Changsu, who was blowing on the drying calligraphy he had just written for a customer. The man was dressed in a set of silvery, almost ethereal, robes and nodding slightly as the customer rather pompously told Mei Changsu that he'd seen better calligraphy and was only getting festival presents here because he wanted to help out small businesses.

Which made it a tad awkward when someone the man scampered to while calling out a simpering, "Chairman! What brings you here?" came in in the next moment and proceeded to tell the young tea master that his calligraphy had the air of the mythical kirin and the dynamism of swiftly flowing water and that he had personally mentioned this shop to his employees.

But Mei Changsu just sported the same serenely withdrawn smile and helped both his customers in turn.

To be fair, Jingyan had to begrudgingly admit that the tea master had a definitive talent for calligraphy.

But he also wanted to retch. So he moved to find a spot further from the scene and was pleasantly surprised to see that the floor cushions near the stone fire pit were vacant. After settling himself on a cushion near the fire pit, Jingyan folded his legs under him, keeping his back straight – as was his norm. Growing up, other children around him liked to slouch or sink into whatever they had their backs against. But Jingyan had always felt an inexplicable drive to maintain a flawless posture. In the end, this proved a boon to his swordsplay but he had heard others call him "stubborn and scrupulous to a tight-assed degree" on more than one occasion. However, Jingyan wasn't one to care about what others thought anyhow.

Instead, he observed the tea shop from his new position. And he had to yet again, begrudgingly commend Mei Changsu on his choice of décor. While the shop area of the teahouse was commercially driven with garish shining glass shelves donning undoubtedly overpriced tea and tea accessories and filled with customers, the café area was quiet and sparsely furnished. A few wood or bamboo chairs and tables, mostly mismatched, were scattered around the central fire pit, which was made of undecorated stone and topped with a simple layer of coal that was glowing red from the flame underneath. The area closest to the fire pit had no chairs but there were cushions strewn around. The café had a separate entrance from the tea shop even though it was rarely used since the two facilities were connected. It was easy to see why. While the tea shop had freshly polished heavy glass doors with golden handles, the café's entrance was an authentic wooden sliding door that looked like part of the interior design. All in all, the area was a fire hazard waiting to happen but it also beckoned a sense of flowing conversation and open forum.

And that was when Jingyan noticed a few novels resting next to the cushion facing his. One was dog-eared while another was placed open-side down. Jingyan inwardly cringed as he imagined the book binding slowly wearing down. He snuck out a sheet of the red tissue paper his mother had used to decorate the mooncake box and went to smoothen out the book, putting the tissue paper in between the open pages. But he didn't get to close the book until much later that night.

The open page seemed to call to him. And quite literally too, since its opening line read, "Xiao Jingyan! You stop right there!"

His breath caught. Jingyan could see it. With no effort, he could visualize the billowing snow. The weak scholar with a heart of chained phoenix fire holding back his bloody coughs as he bellowed at his childhood friend with all his available strength.

And Jingyan was caught. It wasn't just that the character in the book shared his name. It was as if the author were writing about Jingyan himself but translocating him to another time and space. The scenes were vivid.

Xiao Shu would never refuse when Jingyan shouldered his blame for anything ranging from dyeing their great-grandmother's cat red for the New Year to stringing Yan Yujin up on a tree. Xiao Shu would never forego a present, be it an apple picked while still green by a young Jingyan who honestly didn't know the difference to asking for the largest pearl he could imagine. Xiao Shu would never not make sure Jingyan was entangled in whatever mess he was in at the moment. Until he didn't. Until the cockiest and most rightfully self-assured aspiring youth in the capital city decided to silently bear the weight of seventy thousand souls on his own weakening shoulders.

That night, Jingyan read until he could barely keep his eyes open.

The next thing he knew, he heard a faint plopping sound. Blearily, Jingyan opened his eyes only to be met with the strange and outlandish sight of Mei Changsu grilling trout on the fire pit that was the central point of his refined and posh tea shop.

The handsome young man offered Jingyan a wry grin as he poked the trout and after what seemed like some serious internal debate, decided the fish was ready to be flipped.

At Jingyan's undoubtedly surprised expression, Mei Changsu merely shrugged his shoulders. It was the most elegant shrugging of the shoulders Jingyan had ever witnessed.

"Did you think I had the fire pit installed here for décor or something?"

At that moment, Jingyan decided that Mei Changsu was a capitalist pompous sycophantic prat. But he was a down-to-earth capitalist pompous sycophantic prat who enjoyed a good mid-night snack and grilled a damn good trout.

Jingyan shook his head. He'd been thinking of Mei Changsu too much lately. And he still hadn't decided on how to face his current dilemma. Which really wasn't so much of a dilemma at all.

After much pressure from his fans, Lin Shu, who never agreed to any in-person events, finally agreed to meet his fans. Or rather, one specific fan. The elusive author had announced—much to his publisher's joy—that he would meet the fan who won a game he devised. Following that announcement, the publisher's website temporary crashed due to abnormally high internet traffic. It wasn't until the day after that a sleep deprived Jingyan was able to access the page where the game details were listed. The game that the somewhat idiosyncratic author had come up with was called "What would Xiao Jingyan do?"

Essentially, Lin Shu would write a scenario that the fans then needed to respond to by narrating how they thought Jingyan would respond to the situation.

And ever since Jingyan first started reading Lin Shu's works, he felt that he shared a strange resonance with the character who shared his name. To Jingyan, the character's every move made complete sense. As soon as he understood the game, Jingyan felt his excitement rise. He could meet Lin Shu. He knew that he would win.

Then the scenario was released.

Jingyan felt like someone had poured a bucket of ice cold water on him.

He stared at his computer screen intently, hoping that the words would change.

But they didn't.

"What would Jingyan do if Xiao Shu confessed to him?"

The fans went crazy that day.

Jingyan was sure he could here high pitched squeals and soft giggles everywhere he went for several days after that.

But Jingyan didn't know.

The scenario was never mentioned in the canon texts. But more than that, Jingyan really didn't know. It was the first time since reading Lin Shu's works that he drew a blank. Not only could he not predict what his namesake's actions would be, but he couldn't even visualize the scene.

He tried to think of Xiao Jingyan's character. The man was stubborn and upright to a fault. He followed a strict moral code that not even his older brother Jingyu conformed to to such a degree. He valued his friends and would be willing to walk through fire for them. But above everyone else in Xiao Jingyan's life, he adored Xiao Shu. Xiao Shu was like Xiao Jingyan's other half, carved away during creation and reacquainted soon after birth. He was Jingyan's better half who was always beside Jingyan in the worst of situations – though really, a fair number of those situations happened because of Xiao Shu in the first place. If Jingyan walked through fire, Xiao Shu would drudge through boiling water with daggers between his ribs to rescue him. If Xiao Shu were in trouble, Jingyan would bargain with his remaining life to get to his Xiao Shu.

But Jingyan had never considered Xiao Shu romantically. Xiao Shu was simply Xiao Shu, who could not be and did not need to be further characterized in Jingyan's mind.

Xiao Jingyan would gladly lay his life down for Xiao Shu. Xiao Jingyan would always listen to Xiao Shu – in any of his appellations. But he would not compromise his own will. And Xiao Shu would never ask him to.

As soon as those thoughts came to Jingyan almost a month ago, when the prompt first became available, Jingyan had jotted them down. But he never submitted his reply. It didn't seem right. Somehow, something was missing.

Which led Jingyan to his current situation. His short hair was a disordered mess after he alternated between combing his fingers through the silken locks and tugging at them in frustration. The hem of his t-shirt was coming apart from him fiddling with it – he still wasn't sure if he picked up the habit from Lin Shu's books or from Mei Changsu.

The submission was due tomorrow – the first day of the New Year.

Jingyan stretched, irritated at himself. He lifted his long, toned legs and used the momentum to hop off his bed and reach for a cup of water.

The water was plain. It was cool and clear. In a simple glass. Just the way Jingyan liked it.

But it too was missing something.

He remembered a better tasting water. It was precisely heated to what a man in flowing light blue robes ensured him was eighty degrees Celsius. It was served in a small celadon cup that barely contained enough liquid to moisten his lips. But it was delicious.

Jingyan sat up abruptly, almost as soon as he leaned back against his headboard.

A thought occurred to him. He flew off his bed and made a bee line to his book shelf, impatiently tugging out the well-worn paperback copies of Lin Shu's novels. Yes, he had the hard cover copies too, but those were carefully sealed and preserved in mint condition.

He flipped through the latest book in the series. He hadn't had time to familiarize himself with it yet as it had been released right before Lin Shu's announcement. But from what he could recall, the writing style was a little different from the rest. More importantly…

Emperor. Emperor Xiao Jingyan. Emperor Xiao Jingyan whose reign began with a bloody invasion from Northern Yu. Whose reign became steady and uncontested because Northern Yu, the greatest state outside of the Liang empire, was decimated. But it was decimated at an unspeakable cost. To the history books, the cost was the minimum imaginable – ten thousand soldiers. Ten thousand soldiers for a reign of peace and prosperity that would span Jingyan's lifetime and that of his son, and his son's son, and even further. But to Jingyan, the victory that guaranteed his place in history came at the cost of his strategist's, Su Zhe's, life. And Su Zhe was Xiao Shu.

But that was beside the point. Emperor. Emperor Xiao Jingyan. He drank wine at feasts and ceremonies. He drank the tea his mother or his queen made for him. He drank whatever was socially proper for him to drink, depending on the occasion. But Emperor Xiao Jingyan never drank water.

In every previous book, whether Jingyan was a boy prince, a rising soldier, a young general, Prince Jing, or the royally appointed Imperial Prince Jing, Jingyan's love of water was apparent in every stage of his growth. But as emperor, the novel made no mention of Jingyan ever imbibing his favorite beverage.

Because he could no longer feel the heat. Jingyan understood. The emperor could no longer feel the heat of Xiao Shu's mocking laughter as he stubbornly drank his water. He could no longer even pretend to hear Xiao Shu calling him "water ox" as he had for the thirteen years between Xiao Shu leaving for battle and his return.

And Jingyan couldn't feel the heat either. He could heat the water in his glass to a boil and he would still be unable to feel the heat. The heat of Mei Changsu's cool, slender fingers that had somehow been imprinted on the cup. The heat of Mei Changsu's gaze, as tranquil but as dynamic as a clear pond in glittering sunlight. The heat of fulfilling contentment instilled by Mei Changsu's laugh. The heat of soft rosiness rising on Mei Changsu's fair cheeks.

Jingyan ran out of his bedroom, the book abandoned on the floor and his bedroom door still rocking slightly in the aftermath of his departure. He flew off the stairs several steps at a time, narrowly avoiding falling thanks to years of martial arts training.

He impatiently flipped over the door locks and ran across the street, his confused mother calling out after him to put on a coat and his shoes.

It was only when he was in front of the simple doorway across the street that he paused. But only for a second. Then, his finger was frantically pressing the doorbell, his other hand banging on the knocker.

"Mei Changsu!" He called.

It was as if hearing his own voice caused him to falter.

He was standing in the middle of the street on New Year's Eve. His hair and his shirt were a mess. His sweatpants were half rolled at his hips, exposing a patch of his toned side to the chilly early February wind. But he was Xiao Jingyan. And Xiao Jingyan always listened to Xiao Shu. In any of his appellations. Xiao Shu. Su Zhe. Mei Changsu. Lin Shu.

He headed home, not having seen the man he came to see. Just as he did over a thousand years ago after discovering who Su Zhe was.

And he wrote frantically, fervently, passionately, lovingly.

Mei Changsu stirred in his sleep. He let out a light groan as he groped around his bed for his second pillow. Sighing contently after successfully finding it, he rather gracefully pulled it over his head and attempted to fall back asleep.

Attempted. But he couldn't.

"Too excited," he thought to himself as he finally loosened his grip on the perfectly soft pillow he was trying to suffocate himself with.

He tossed the pillow away and sat up, letting the sleeping shirt that had somehow climbed up his abdomen in the night fall back into place.

He chuckled softly to himself as he shook his head and swung his legs over the edge of his bed. So excited that he even dreamt the dense water ox had come running his way in the middle of the night like some young lovelorn Romeo to declare his eternal love.

"But that was wishful," he pondered to himself. He dreamt that his eyes had snapped open and he'd rushed to his window. But by the time he woke up the street was empty and all he received from the open window was a gust of chilled air.

Mei Changsu padded up to his kitchen counter, absent-mindedly pulling up his pajama pants to prevent them from falling. He really needed to get a pair with drawstrings or a functioning waistband. This young man, known for his effortless grace and inborn refinement, then removed several pastries from the batch that Jingyan had brought over yesterday night and popped one in his mouth before turning on his computer. As he took a bite from the perfectly presented pastry that had just met a rather uncultured end in his not-yet-brushed mouth, the handsome young man plopped an extra-bold brew K-cup into his Keurig machine before flopping down in front of his computer.

On mornings like this, when the tea shop on the ground level wasn't open, he took delight in being completely out of character. Or rather, in being completely in character. He was both the disrespectful Lin Shu who abhorred formalities with a passion and the legendary strategist who danced circles around the Liang court. As Mei Changsu, he was both the boy and the mystery. It simply wasn't his fault that the tea store patrons and his publisher never seemed to see it that way. He could already imagine his publicist going blue in the face if his current disheveled appearance and craving for near-instant coffee were discovered. Ha!

He opened his inbox from Lang Ya Books, determined to get through yet another day of reading through contest submissions. To be honest, he quite enjoyed reading the submissions. The homophobic flames were amusing. And besides, the vast majority of the submissions were rife with romance that he could only laugh at and fawn over. The fluffy sweet submissions made his coffee taste better. The more explicit ones made him want to take notes for when he finally got the water ox caught and tied down…Hm…

But his lazy morning ended there.

The submissions were anonymous to make the process fair. But he already knew.

Xiao Shu,

I would hit you if you confessed to me. Knowing full well you'd punch me back. We'd get into a brawl on the training court. I can already see Yujin starting a betting pool and putting his monthly allowance on me. But he'd lose because you always play dirty. We'd roll on the ground and get our clothes and armor dusty. Brother Jingyu would sentence us to cleaning duty for the rest of the day. And you would interpret that as sightseeing duty and drag me, not unwillingly, out of the city with a basket filled with pilfered food for a picnic by the river. Because you found and hid a wolf pup there yesterday and wanted to introduce it to me.

And we would name it Fo Ya and I'd end up raising him like a single father raising a child alone for thirteen years. You were the brattiest and most carefree child in all of Jingling. You were the most thoughtful and trustworthy friend in the kingdom. We would have a great time by the water. You would stick your pudgy fingers into the water upstream and tell me you'd just touched Fo Ya's butt with those hands after you made sure I drank the water from downstream. We'd go home and get scolded some more before going off to bed. And I would feel lost despite my boyish satisfaction from a day well lived.

The water tasted good that day. It tasted good the days before that and for two years after that too. Then in the next thirteen years, it tasted like boyhood memories and oblivious innocence. Unknowingly, it began to taste more and more complex as time went by. To the degree that I yearned for it possessively and enviously while waiting inside a hidden passageway. To the degree that I wanted to cradle it closely, chase it unseeingly, and yet trace its form as lightly as possible for fear that it would shatter. After that, I never drank plain water again.

The water tasted good yesterday. After all, it took you in your entirety to get the temperature just right. It was better and more complex than any tea only half of you could brew.

If Xiao Shu confessed to me, I'd give him a shiner for making my breath come up short. If Su Zhe confessed to me, I would assume he meant to say that he "chose" me, but perhaps in the recesses of my own mind, repeat the words until "xuan" became "xi huan". But I don't want either of them. I want the here and now who exists in my time and space.

"Son of a -," Mei Changsu muttered. It was the first sound he'd made in a long time.

But before he could say anything else, or even begin to process each jitter, pulse, and short gasping breath that was racing through his body, a bell rang.

It was not the tasteful ringing from his tea store bell, or the electronic ringing of his apartment bell. It was the ringing of a bell he had just rediscovered and installed onto the wooden doors of the teahouse so that it faced the direction it always had.

His legs trembled as if they struggled to support his weight as Mei Changsu half-flew and half-floated down the stairs into the still-closed tea store. He raced across the shop area, past the fire pit and the café, and threw open the sliding wooden door that opened to the street.

And as if candlelight were once again illuminating the imperial robe-clad form of the handsomely sculpted Prince Jing, the late morning sunlight basked Xiao Jingyan in unforgivingly harsh lighting – the dark circles under his eyes and the tormented furrow of his dark brows quite obvious in the New Year's splendor.

For once in their almost fifteen hundred year-long courtship, Xiao Jingyan finally got the first word in.

"If you confessed to me, I would be the happiest man in the world."

His words were rushed, hushed, pleading, and hopeful.

For the first time since the Battle of Mei Lin and for the first time since Mei Changsu came into his memories, the genius simply forgot how to think.

He could only respond.

"Xiao Jingyan, I love you."

And it was as it both of them finally let out a breath they'd held for over a millennium.

"Mei Changsu, I love you too."

Was about all Jingyan could get out of himself. Because soon after, he found his lips on Changsu's, their teeth clanking together impatiently, his very breath sucked out of him, and his entire body melded against that perfectly and precisely heated form of the man he loved.

They stayed that way for a long time. Long enough that the sunlight finally hit the ancient bell suspended on the sliding door. An icicle on the roof overhang began melting and a drop of freshly born water hit the bell. It rang clearly, beautifully, and resiliently into the first morning of the New Year.

I brought back the bell from the secret passageway. In my mind, the street between the two shops is actually where the backyards of Su Zhe and Jingyan's properties were in the Liang Dynasty. So their shops are actually exactly where their old homes used to be.