Chapter 966: The agony of living forever (2/2)

Han Yunxi didn’t stir, but smiled.

“The newest Winterflakes, try some,” Long Feiye said.

Winterflakes were a speciality of winter teas. Spring teas were as expensive as oil, especially, green tea picked before the Festival of Pure Brightness (around April 5th), but winter teas weren’t inexpensive, either. Half of them consisted of autumn buds harvested in winter, but the best winter teas sprouted and were harvested in winter. Han Yunxi still didn’t budge, but distracted Long Feiye by asking, “Do Winterflakes taste better than spring tea?”

Han Yunxi liked drinking tea, but she didn’t know much about the art. Ever since getting together with Long Feiye, she always accompanied him in tea drinking and eventually acquired more knowledge.

“It’s rainy in spring, which makes the tea leaves plumper. Because the tea is more fragrant, the flavors are mellower and the scent lasts longer,” Long Feiye said as he tasted his tea. “As for Winterflakes, tea leaves grow slower during the winter but end up thick and hardy. That lessens the astringency and brings about a pleasing lightness to the flavor. It’s especially apparent in high-altitude teas.”

If nobody knew his status and only saw his lazy, sprawling form, they might mistake him for a hermit in seclusion who saw through worldly affairs and human hearts while living apart from them. Yet those who did know understood that he not only saw through human affairs and hearts, but controlled all of it firmly within his grasp. No matter what they felt, Han Yunxi loved him like this the best. She couldn’t help but yearn to play a tune on the zither to amuse him so they could forget about the Poison Gu conundrum.

“Long Feiye, where’s your Monarch’s Word?” Han Yunxi asked. That year at the empress dowager’s birthday banquet, Chu Qingge had tried to provoke her into a zither playing contest, but she’d refused. Back at the Duke of Qin’s estate, she’d played “Butterfly Lovers” for Long Feiye on his Monarch’s Word zither.

Monarch’s Word, words of the sovereign. Time passed in stillness akin to a zither.

“It’s in the Plum Blossom Sea in Jiangnan. Do you want to play?” Long Feiye asked.

“No, I was just asking,” Han Yunxi sighed. “When will we be able to go back to Plum Blossom Sea? In two more months, the plum blossoms should be blooming, right?”

“Two more months…” Long Feiye silently calculated the time. Most likely, they wouldn’t make it back by then. He had plenty of other residences, but she wasn’t interested in any of them. Only Jiangnan’s Plum Blossom Sea held her interested. Of course, he was the same.

“Better try next year. When winter comes again, we’ll spend it there every year,” Long Feiye promised.

Han Yunxi nodded seriously. In one year, Cloud Realm Continent should have stabilized. “One year…” She too, was calculating the time. As for what, it was something only she knew.

Their tea cooled in the middle of their conversation. Hot tea had more flavor, especially during wintertimes. Long Feiye gave Han Yunxi a fresh cup as she quickly moved onto another topic. “Long Feiye, if Bai Yanqing can’t die or decay, how lonely and boring must it be?”

“Would it?” Long Feiye asked lightly.

“At least he’d suffer. If there was anyone he liked, such as family or friends, he would definitely suffer,” Han Yunxi said. Watchiing your loved ones pass away while remaining helplessly stuck in place, sending them off one by one--how much pain must one bear? Those who didn’t die or decay would end up left behind by the ened.

But Han Yunxi quickly rejected the idea. “Bai Yanqing isn’t that kind of person.”

He had cast everyone out long ago, leaving no room for anyone except himself in his heart. Long Feiye fell silent for a long time.

After a while, he finally remarked, “If it was anyone else...perhaps they’d feel that way.”

His attractive, slender fingers tapped lightly against the table. Gu Qishao, that guy, he must be hurrying here already.