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“It doesn’t matter; this water is changed daily.” Lu Lingcong lowered his head and kissed the top of his hair, and then, as if with some novelty, combed through the nearly dry smoky hair on his temples with his hand, leaned closer, and sniffed: “Your hair is quite nice.”
This lovemaking session was thoroughly satisfying; Lu Lingcong carried Xie Jing back to the bedroom, fed him a couple of sips of water, and then said no more. Both mindful of the morning’s need to enter the palace, so they got onto the bed, lifted the quilt, and went to sleep.
Lu Lingcong had originally intended to wrap an arm around Xie Jing to sleep, but seeing him lying on his side near the inner edge of the bed, with no sign of wanting their necks to touch or feet to meet, he gave up, stretched out on his back, and closed his eyes.
Xie Jing lay still for a long time; the red candles of their wedding night burned brightly and unextinguished, casting a flickering glow through the bed’s curtains. The subtle movements of Lu Lingcong sleeping beside him—his controlled, steady breaths, the hallmark of a martial artist, quieted Xie Jing’s heart and ushered in a wave of drowsiness.
It was not until his own thoughts became somewhat hazy did Xie Jing finally force himself to keep his eyes wide open while cautiously wriggle out of the quilt, hold his breath, and get out of bed. Fortunately, the bed was extremely wide, and his movements were nimble and quick, so he didn’t alarm Lu Lingcong.
Xie Jing tiptoed to the table, hooked his fingers to pick up the golden scissors in the lacquer tray left by the maid, first selected a lock of his own hair tips and snipped it off, then quietly walked back to the bedside, squatted down, used two fingers to pull open a gap in the bed curtains, and snipped off a strand of Lu Lingcong’s long hair scattered by the pillow.
The two bundles of hair instantly lost the ability to be distinguished from each other the moment they were brought together; Xie Jing held them in his palm, brought them close to the candlelight, and scrutinized them for a long while. Only when Lu Lingcong shifted his position on the bed did he somewhat reluctantly pick up the red silk thread from the tray and tightly bind the two strands of black hair together.
This was something he and Lu Lingcong should have done together, but Xie Jing knew that when Lu Lingcong woke up tomorrow morning, he would not, as Xie Jing was doing now, clip a strand of the sleeping person beside him and tie it together with his own, indistinguishably, with a red thread. He would simply order the maid to remove this lacquer tray.
So, Xie Jing did this thing alone—“Seek a secluded place and tie the concentric knot.”
The mandarin duck love pouch that was supposed to hold the tied hair strands on the tray couldn’t be used; Xie Jing pondered for a moment, found the sachet he had casually untied on the tea table in the afternoon, and from the dried flower petals inside, he extracted a cherry-sized round silver filigree incense box, finely carved, with a clasp in the middle that could be sprung open with a press.
Xie Jing took out the incense pellet and tossed it back into the sachet, bent the now inseparable, integrated hair strands twice, nestled them inside the box, and closed it. He then pulled the cord from the sachet, threaded it through the small hole on top of the incense box, tied a slipknot, and hung it around his neck, turning it into a small and delicate neck pendant.
The most dangerous place Is the safest; this way, even if Lu Lingcong discovered that he had “secretly” and “unilaterally” tied their hair, he would certainly not guess where he had hidden it either.
After Xie Jing finished all of this, he put the golden scissors and the remaining red thread back in place, then quietly and contentedly climbed back into bed and burrowed under the quilt.
Lu Lingcong was now facing away from him. Xie Jing blinked at the pomegranate tree pattern on the top of the bed curtain, bit the corner of his mouth, and smiled silently. Then he leaned outward, turned over as well, and reached out to wrap his arm around Lu Lingcong’s waist while lying sideways against his back with his forehead resting on Lu Lingcong’s shoulder.
