Chapter 42-43 (1/2)
Chapter 42: Elusion
We get taken to a s Lu Zuan, the two guards at the entrance immediately stand up and bow in ceremony Lu Zuan orders them to open the doors Unable to help myself, I try to take a peek inside Rajiva is nowhere to be found, however On the bed is a young woht to hide her chest I can barely recognize her as the little girl Asuya us, she immediately huddles into a corner of the bed, head cast down, her curly red hair falling down to cover her face
“How’s the situation?” Lu Zuan asks the guards
The twothe General’s orders, we have stripped them of their clothes but no avail So we had forced kumarajiva to drink wine earlier We even mixed it with a bit of ‘ princess like that, if it was anyone else, they’d have rushed forward immediately, let alone soht the monk was impotent, but it does not see we gave him to drink Such indomitable will! But this kind of spirit really does reat uards immediately shut up He then turns to me and orders coldly:
“If he still does not break his vows tonight and er, you knohat the consequences would be, yes?”
Seeing how much they have tortured Rajiva has made my blood boil The history books wrote that Rajiva broke his precepts because he was forced out of his clothes and made to drink wine, but they did not write about the fact that his as laced with aphrodisiac Now, having heard such barbaric words pass Lu Zuan’s er in me ready to burst
But before I could do so, Pusysdeva has quicklyGeneral, there is no cause to worry for she will certainly give her all tonight Those concubines and servants will definitely becolances around, thentable is and takes off the table cloth After that, he steps inside the room, wraps the cloth around the Princess and helps her stand up When he’sto a corner and lets his expression fall for a brief h escapes him Princess Asuyahtened When he passes by me, he says loudly in Han:
“Enter quickly and do not disappoint General Lu!
He then switches to Tocharian and says in a whisper: “He has waited for you the past ten years Make him happy”
His face is eerily calm but there’s a certain sadness at the corner of his eyes I look at Pusysdeva, su inside The doors drift shut
I turnat earlier and finally see a thin figure huddling there My breathing comes to a stop I don’t dare to look at him Rajiva, it has only been nine months for me but for you, it’s already been ten years Those ninehavethese long nights all alone with only the Buddha as your company the past ten years! How did you bear such loneliness? If it was the other way around, I don’t think I’d have been able to last this long Forgive iveto come to you at this particular juncture in your life I hope that this is the time where you need the ain this time Let me compensate you for the last ten years
I hold my breath and quietly approach his side I have yet to see hie on his face, but ht
Not a single piece of cloth is covering Rajiva He’s sitting with his knees drawn tight to his chest, head cast down, like that of a fetus still inside a ht overhead I look around and see that there’s no curtains on the s, no table cloth, no blanket on the bed, absolute nothing that can be used to cover hi is certainly as cruel as the books say!
I pull out a jacket froent sround next to him is a mess froers brush his skin and find it burning The little touch startles hirey eyes of his that used to be like two fathomless pools of water are now bloodshot He has become much thinner, his face narrower, and there’s a bit of stubble dusting his chin His face is bright red like he is about to combust Ten years have passed, but he is still as handsome as ever However, the years have unfortunately left behind a few shallow lines of wrinkles on his forehead These past few days of torturous conditions have left hiard, his lips pale and chapped There’s a bit of dry blood at the corner of hison his lips too hard, for there’s also an imprint of teeth on them
“Rajiva…”
Theto suffer such indignity and cruelty, would a nor as he has? It’s not about trying to hold onto his vows, this is hi beliefs How could Lu Guang make him suffer so for some stupid bet?
Those exhausted eyes of his look at ht seeray pupils, full of disbelief as he stares at my face His cracked lips open slowly and a thin voice co like a dry leaf in the wind
“It’s …” Each spoken syllable comes out as stuttered breath, barely discernable, after he takes his ti while But all of a sudden, his face crumbles in embarrassment His shoulders draw back and his whole body treain full of pain:
“Don’t…Don’t look at me”
“Rajiva…”
My heart breaks at his words That a grand master such as him has to suffer like this, how could one’s heart not ache!
“Don’t cry…”
He turns around, one hand reaching forward as if to gently cuspht hand clutching the string of prayer beads, the beads so old now that you can barely see any colour on theers the beads as he chants ave to hi of clear agate beads, and even this one is already over ten years old
“Rajiva, what’s wrong?”
Seeing that the only things left on his body are the strings of beads fro
“Desire begets illusions, that which do not base itself in reality An illusion is s are empty and non-existent” He continues to keep his eyes shut, his voice getting weaker and weaker as he chants the mantras in Han
I wipe my tears away Heon the floor Even though it’s carpeted and it’s suhttime at oases are still very cold I stand up and step out of the doors, only to find that Lu Zuan is still here and talking to the guards I call onto thehs cruelly and says with a scorn: “You !”
My face darkens at that Still, I insist on getting on a cup of water Lu Zuan orders someone to do so, then turns around to me with cold eyes:
“You should make haste so I can return and report to my father soon Also, you must make sure to do ‘the deed’ on the bed!”
He jerks his chin towards theI follow his sight to the hole the shape of a rhombus on the wall, where you can clearly see the bed in the room How perverted! Must he really witness the act before he can be satisfied? The lot of theaust
The hatred rising in me makes me almost toss the cup of water onto his face I have to take several deep breaths to cal to the roohter: “If you are unable to make him break, come and serve er at thisdetail about hoill meet his end later on [as per history]
“Rajiva, drink a bit of water”
I gently call on him and place the rim of the cup to his lips Perhaps he is too thirsty, for he doesn’t decline and gulp the entire thing down I pull out my handkerchief and wipe the drops of water on his mouth
He looks at my handkerchief intently I smile: “Do you still reave this to me You have said that you never seeit is to alipe my mouth with , because I can’t bring myself to-”
All of a sudden, I feelchest His heart beats furiously by ht and tres to h my hair as he exhales my name on a breath
I fall into his ee toin waves, I feel like I’ently lets go of me for a second to put a tiny bit of distance between us His eyes scan rily Before I can even say a word, he falls forward again and crashes his lips onto entle as the one fro to pry my lips apart with fervor The taste of alcohol spreads in ue inside I can feel the stubble on his chin rubbing againstas he pressesrab onto one of his arms and whisper into his ears: “Let’s move to the bed”
He stops, a o of me He bites hard on his already cracked lips A drop of blood bursts out and paints his dry lips red
Tears strea down, he tries to hold hith left in him If there is another way, I would have respected his wishes But those men outside are crazed and our lives are in their hands He and I are merely chess pieces in these turbulent tie cereht in front of these eyes
I wipe my tears and take a moment to compose myself Settled, I pick up the jacket that has fallen onto the side and drape it back onto him I then place his arm onto my shoulders and support him to the bed, every step heavy and slow Gautama Buddha, please understand the pious heart of this disciple of yours, please take pity on hi, has done what no ordinary person can That’s why, I beg you, please punishto bear all of his sins
His body is really heavy, and all of his weight is bearing down on my shoulders In our clumsy walk, my eyes drift over to his body and feel my pulse quicken Despite his will, under the influence of the aphrodisiac, his lower body still has the same reaction as a normal man It’s the human instinct, one that even the Buddha cannot erase Then at least for tonight, let hiht
He falls down onto the bed, still biting his lips, but his eyes are watchingdesire of a in to take off my clothes Han outfits are very si all the buttons, my modern underwear is revealed in front of hi onthat outside of that s us with ill intent
Rajiva’s right hand is still clutching the string of beads tightly I want to take them from him and place at the head of the bed but he just wordlessly clutch theentle tones, I can only get it to be wrapped around his wrist instead
He’s lying on his side, a hand’s breath fro with barely concealed desire His hand is caressing my body, the touch clumsy as he travels from my chest to my waist I wind my arms around him and lick the corner of his bitten lips I can feel a salty taste on the tip ofue all the way in His thin body moves to cover mine while he breaths out in sharp exhales
The taste of alcohol in his mouth is somewhat unpleasant I wonder how much wine they forced onto him A person who has never touched a drop of wine like him, under the influence of alcohol and aphrodisiac, does he still recognize that it’s me in front of him? I want to believe that there is a tiny bit in hih to realize that it is me, and because of that, he is finally able to end the torture he has endured the past few days and displays his desire so openly
I shts Is this really the tihts? I need to be thinking about how to carry out this ‘act’ in the quickest way possible, for only then will those o Otherwise, those soulless bastards will be co up with even worse tactics to torture him further He has endured so much the past three days, exhausted in both body and mind, he needs to rest
The history books wrote that he broke his precepts, and I a to be the person who replaces Princess Asuya history? I only know that I love him and want to be the person he breaks the precepts for Even if he regrets it after, I will not
Those thoughts help e I start to caress his back His skin is smooth to the touch Slowly, as my hand travels further down, I can feel hisbeneath He is all coiledto advance on me but does not kno to, his face hesitant and embarrassed
His hand moves to my panties and tries to pull it off but I stop hi off ers are sticky wet Unable to look at him, I close my eyes and hope that he will finish this quickly
But after a while, coldness begins to seep into my bare skin and still there is nowith exertion as he pants, eyes a little wild but still full of hesitation Such tenacious will, this is not so anybody is able to do Even at this point, hiswith his bodily instinct I biteAh, so during these moments, ‘that place’ of acoal
He one frohtly bent near uide him into the most private part of my body I close my eyes and allow his instincts to take over The moment he enters me, the world see torn apart I cry out and want to grab onto so up erindmy cries, he pauses and tries to lean back to look aton his face and pooling at the botto down onto my chest His bloodshot eyes are still wild but there’s a bit of hesitation in his expression
“I am fine…”
I reassure hi my hardest to not let any tears fall, I s that the fa hen he wakes up to after At the h syllables:
“Ai Qing…”
Even though ain and this time, I don’t try to rein the spreads inside me So he still reht sky through the clear roof It feels as though the sky is falling upon us A million stars and over a thousand years between us, we are here now, together, in this very irl to a woman but more importantly, from this moment on, o
He is deep asleep after three days of ently caress the side of his bony face and brush ant nose, and his thin lips This person who soundly beside ine this kind of scene even in my wildest dreams
I sit up and put on my clothes My lower body is extremely sore and feels like it’s on fire, and with everymy skin The blood on the bed has dried, but the blood on ht red I s the pain, cli s about a fresh wave of pain that tears me apart It is no wonder that almost every woman’s description of their ‘first ti the doors open, I coldly say to the group of laughingme a blanket?”
____________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 43: Waking up
I sit on the bed and gaze at Rajiva in silence
Yesterday was a tiring day, but still I could not sleep very well due to the presence of another person besideselse in the room that I could lie on, so I had curled up next to hiht filled orries—I was afraid that I’d wake him up if I turn, that I’d accidentally touch his aard if I wake up later than him Because of that, I lay very still next him, to the point where my body cramped up from the lack of ot up and walked around the room, but still careful to not make any sounds
Rajiva is still fast asleep Even though he is thirty-five now and not as young as he was eleven years ago, he is still as handsome and otherworldly as before Co, probably because of his lifestyle as a Buddhist monk The barest hints of wrinkles on his forehead and at the corners of his eyes only ht of rest, his coard as before There is a slight s up his face—he azing at him, the idol of my heart It’s almost noon and yet he still sleeps This must be the first tiht up andheavier and heavier Unable to help myself, I lie down and fall asleep just like that
Sofast when I catch a pair of light grey eyes as clear as a lake in autu back at me The same pair of eyes that have appeared countless times in my dreams, they’re now in front of et up and ask, “Are you hungry? I have asked the-”
I reach for the bowl at the head of the bed but find it cool to the touch, “Oh, it has gotten cold Let me ask someone to heat it up-”
But before I can leave, I feel a pull atwith my sleeves, the expression on his face fond and filled with unbridled nostalgia The sight makes my heart ache I call out his name:
“Rajiva…”
“That you’d be back every ten years…it’s really true”
Still lying on the bed, he closes his eyes and lets out a soft sigh, lips quivering slightly:
“It’s good that you’re back…”
Kneeling down next to the bed, I take his hand and put it on my cheek With a smile, I reply: “Yes, I am back”
Rajiva’s hand tre his away across hter with every moveht eht atop , which , teary sound instead
“Gautama Buddha is really too kind towards Rajiva…” he says with a shaky voice, “to allow you to coo and places two hands oned in the slightest…”