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Gu Xiang is used to pretty girls. Practically all of Luo-yi's girls in the Department are pretty and Qianqiao-jie is the most beautiful of all. Luo-yi is even pretty, in a kind of elegant, austere way.
But good looks aren't everything. They're basically a liability in Gui Gu, or else a trap, and she's begun to think it's the same thing here in the Jianghu. Prettiness is just what people look like, and basically the first thing Gu Xiang learned as a ghost is that you can look like anything you want with a little effort.
It doesn't mean anything.
So why, by all that is holy and damned, does Gu Xiang want to stare at some random pretty girl now?!
Why does she want to follow her around just to watch her walk, and hear her say meimei again in that silvery soft voice like windchimes in a garden? Why does she wake up hoping to catch a glimpse of her sun-bright smile at breakfast, and leave still feeling hungry if she doesn't get it?
Why does she feel her whole mess of insides lurch and flutter when she does?
Gu Xiang turns over and over in bed, agitated as her thoughts do the same in her head. How is she supposed to sleep like this?
There's nothing special about Gao Xiolian, right? She's just another Jianghu woman, daughter of that Gao-mengzhu, privileged enough to have her own entire residence, gullible enough to let a ghost into it.
So it shouldn't keep said ghost awake, knowing Gao Xiaolian is just a couple flimsy walls away, sleeping soundly. What next--is Gu Xiang going to start raving about shoulderblades?
Anyway, it's not like she's going to be here long. Zhuren could decide to leave again anytime. Or tell her to kill everyone in Yueyang Pai, including her host!
For a terrible second, Gu Xiang imagines her own hand clutching her dagger, buried to the hilt into Xiaolian-jiejie's stomach, blood dripping hot over her knuckles, shock and betrayal in those warm eyes. Her breath catches in her throat; the world goes still and strange.
With a frustrated noise, Gu Xiang rolls onto her front and flings her face into her pillow.
What's wrong with her? Since when is there someone she can't bear to kill! She's Wuxin Zisha, fiercest ghost. She can kill anyone. She dares her own hands to defy her.
"Xiang-meimei?"
Gu Xiang's head pops up out of the messy blanket nest she's tangled herself up in and she finally hears the light tapping sound on the door just as it ends.
Unfortunately all she manages to say is, "Ah?"
The very subject of all restless thoughts lets herself into Gu Xiang's room.
Gu Xiang is, as usual, abruptly aware of the knife strapped under her arm. Less expectedly, she is also extremely aware of the reassuring smile turned on her, bright even from across the room in the dim blue of diffused moonlight--and aware especially of her throat bobbing as she swallows. "Xiaolian-jiejie?"
"I heard you moving around--I worried it was nightmares."
Gu Xiang pulls herself upright and huffs. "No. I wish it was nightmares, then at least I'd be asleep."
"Are you feeling unwell?"
The answer is yes, because Gu Xiang can't possibly be well and still feel all the things she's feeling. Unfortunately, the answer is also no, because aside from her traitor of a brain she's actually the picture of health. She shakes her head and smooths out her blanket a bit. "Just, uh, can't sleep."
Xiaolian-jiejie is so horribly sincere when she says, "I'm glad. But maybe I can still help." She closes the door behind her and steps down into the room. "Sometimes restless thoughts just need a new place to settle. What's on your mind?"
Gu Xiang wants to drag her hands down her face. That's not going to help at all! What she needs is less time around Gao Xiaolian, but she can't just say that. She shakes her head again. "It's really okay--I mean, you don't--"
Her eyes catch on the way Xiaolian-jiejie's zhongyi billows as she sits, the thin silky fabric framing her hand as she reaches out to smooth back a lock of Gu Xiang's hair. It feels nice.
"Don't be silly. I can't sleep anyway. Is it something to do with Cao Weining?"
"What?" It's the last name she expects to hear, and she blinks up to meet Xiaolian-jiejie's eyes. "No. Who cares anything about him?" Then she has to break eye contact again. Why are Xiaolian-jiejie's eyes so intense? They're so soft, and they're still staring right through her as much as Zhuren's ever are! Gu Xiang waves dismissively and grumbles. "Who even wants to talk about him? Why are you awake?"
Xiaolian-jiejie might be laughing at her slightly behind her hand, but the mirth fades into a pinched look. A sigh. And she folds her hands back into her lap. Gu Xiang wants to reach out and grab one, but she doesn't.
"It isn't anything new," Xiaolian-jiejie says. "It's nothing A-Xiang needs to worry about, either; we are truly safe here. I only haven't been sleeping well these days. The city is in such turmoil beyond the walls."
That's putting it mildly. Gu Xiang is sure the good Gao Xiaolian, who never even sneaks out to see it, only knows the half of it. She certainly doesn't know that Gu Xiang herself is one of the major causes for the current uproar. That's a strange feeling--in some way, she's the one keeping Xiaolian-jiejie awake just as much as the other way around.
In an echo of Xiaolian-jiejie's words just a minute ago, she says, "Maybe I can help."
It's something Gu Xiang hasn't felt in years, but she remembers it vividly: her head in Zhuren's lap, his long fingers running down the length of her wild hair, circling lightly around the perimeter of her face, lulling her inexorably toward sleep.
For all her prim gentleness, Xiaolian-jiejie is actually quite pliant when Gu Xiang yanks her over into her lap with all her customary confidence. She very carefully doesn't think about how she's now got Xiaolian-jiejie laying in her bed, about how the folds of their robes mingle together as one; about how in this dim light with the shadows heavy around the pallor of her face, Gu Xiang can almost imagine they're in Gui Gu, and Xiaolian-jiejie is a ghost too.
But Gao Xiaolian is not a ghost; her prettiness doesn't feel like a trap at all. It goes all the way through. It's like nothing Gu Xiang has ever seen yet in Gui Gu or the Jianghu or anywhere.
This close, she can see when the tiny creases in Xiaolian-jiejie's brow begin to fade. She feels the tension in her scalp ease and her breath come more steady. It isn't right that someone like Xiaolian-jiejie should feel this stressed over a bunch of stupid people doing stupid things. Her jaw finally untenses, too, and her lips--
Gu Xiang doesn't think about her lips.
She licks her own lips and focuses on keeping her hands gentle.
Ghosts and humans cannot walk the same road. She has never cared about that before. She still doesn't, now. What road does she need aside from the one she's following, right behind her zhuren?
But she sits in the intersection of crossed paths for a little while longer at least, losing herself in the silkiness of hair and the smoothness of skin, the weight of something precious in her lap, and begins to hum an old song.