Longwei had thought about this moment.
During those late nights reading the scripture by candlelight, he'd imagined how it might happen. Finding a partner and beginning trying the practice, the theoretical knowledge becoming practical reality.
In his imagination it had been... smoother, more controlled, with just two cultivators calmly executing techniques for mutual benefit.
This was nothing like that.
Mei stood before him, almost naked, her body perfect in the fading light through the dusty window, with her silver white hair laying over her shoulders, strands resting on the silk of her inner robe. Her eyes held challenge and fear.
She was beautiful. Objectively, undeniably beautiful.
But she was also a stranger, a desperate woman making a desperate choice because she had no other options.
Just like me.
Longwei rose from the floor, ignoring the pain from his ribs. He was still wearing his laborer's clothes which was a rough cotton, stained with dirt and dried blood. Hardly the image of a cultivation partner.
"The scripture describes several positions for initial resonance," he said, his voice coming out rougher than intended. "Most begin with seated meditation, facing each other with hands connected..."
"I know the theory." Mei cut him off. "I've studied this for years, trying to understand what the sect was doing to me. What I lack is practice." She reached out, taking his hand. Her fingers were cold against his skin. "Show me."
Her touch sent a spark through him, not Qi, not even cultivation energy just... awareness. The physical reality of her proximity, her intent, her need.
Trust, the scripture whispered. Vulnerability and surrender.
"Sit..." he said. "On the cot, and cross your legs if you can."
She complied, settling onto the narrow bed, arranging her legs beneath her. The inner robe rose up exposing her calves, her knees. She didn't adjust it.
Longwei sat across from her, their knees almost touching. The cot was small, there was nowhere else to go.
"Hands," he said, extending his palms upward.
She placed her hands in his and the contact was electric, her Yin energy responding even to his faint Yang creating a subtle current between them. He could feel it now, that imbalance she'd described. The ice inside her vast and hungry, pressing against the boundaries of her meridians.
"Close your eyes," he instructed. "Focus on your breathing and match my rhythm."
They breathed together. In. Out. In. Out.
The current between their joined hands grew stronger, Longwei felt his nascent core spark, responding to the presence of compatible Yin. Energy wanted to flow, the universe wanted them to exchange.
But something resisted.
"Your walls are up," he said quietly.
"I know." Her voice was tight. "I'm trying."
"Don't try, Just... let go."
"I can't."
He opened his eyes. Hers were still closed but her face was tense, jaw clenched with shoulders rigid. Whatever relaxation they'd built was gone, replaced by defensive tension.
"Mei."
"I can't." Her eyes opened, and he saw fear in them. "Every time I feel energy starting to move, I think of Lee Ping, his life pouring into me. I think of..." She pulled her hands back, breaking contact. "I can't do this."
The current died.
Longwei let out a slow breath.
FAILURE, he thought. Just like the scripture warned. Trust cannot be forced.
"It's fine," he said. "We'll try again when..."
"Noo... It's not fine." Mei's voice distructed. "I told you this would happen. I'm broken my cultivation, my mind, all of it. Every time I try to open myself, I see his face and feel his death." She wrapped her arms around herself. "How am I supposed to trust when trusting destroyed someone I cared about?"
Longwei didn't have an answer.
He understood the problem intellectually, trauma creating barriers, fear preventing vulnerability. The scripture addressed it in abstract terms: heal the heart before healing the cultivation.
But how do you heal a heart? What technique existed for that?
"Tell me about him," Longwei said.
Mei looked up. "What?"
"Lee Ping. Tell me about him, and not his death but his life, what made him kind? What were the terrible puns?"
"Why?"
"Because you're holding him inside you like a wound." Longwei shifted, settling more comfortably on the bed. Their knees were touching now, a casual contact that seemed less threatening than joined hands. "Maybe talking about him will help or maybe it won't but we're not doing anything else tonight, and I'd rather hear about bad poetry than sit in silence."
Mei stared at him, then her expression softened.
"He wasn't actually bad at poetry," she said quietly. "He just pretended to be, because it made me laugh. He'd compose these ridiculous verses about whatever we'd eaten for dinner or the weather or the way Elder Bingwen's eyebrows looked like angry caterpillars..."
She talked.
Longwei listened.
The night deepened around them, the cabin grew dark lit only by moonlight coming through the window, at some point without either of them deciding to, they shifted, lying side by side on the narrow bed with Mei's head near his shoulder, speaking to the ceiling.
She told him about Lee, and about growing up in Jade Phoenix Palace as a prize rather than a person. About the day she first manifested fire and the terror in the elders' eyes. About the conversion ritual, the screaming, the cold that never left her.
She told him about the first time a companion was assigned to her, how she'd refused to participate. How they'd forced her anyway, and she'd felt a stranger's life energy invade her body while she wept.
She told him about learning to endure and dissociate and become the vessel they wanted because fighting only made it worse.
And she told him about Lee breaking through her walls, his patient kindness, his refusal to treat her as a monster even when she tried to push him away.
"He said he didn't mind dying for me," she whispered. "On the altar, at the end he looked at me and said... he said it was worth it, being with me, knowing me. Even if this was the price." A tear. "How is that worth it? How is anything worth dying for?"
Longwei didn't answer.
He Instead reached out in the darkness and found her hand and held it, not for cultivation, just for contact and to remind her she wasn't alone.
"My mother died for me," he said quietly. "I didn't know until recently, she had burned her cultivation to inflate mine, gave her life to make me something I was never meant to be." He stared at the ceiling then at shadows he couldn't quite see. "I used to think she was foolish and sentimental, that love made her weak."
"And now?"
"Now I think maybe I didn't understand what love was." He squeezed her hand gently. "I don't think Lee ping died because you killed him, I think he died because a corrupt system used both of you. He loved you anyway knowing the cost and that's not your crime, it's your tragedy."
Mei was silent.
Then she turned, pressing her face against his shoulder in a silent sob.
Longwei put his arm around her and held her while she cried. Felt the coldness of her skin slowly, slowly warming where it touched his.
Two broken people holding each other in the dark.
THE NEXT MORNING...
Longwei didn't remember falling asleep.
But he woke up to gray dawn light and Mei's body pressed against his, her head on his chest with her arm across his stomach. She was still asleep, her face peaceful in a way it hadn't been since they'd met.
Her inner robe had moved during the night. One shoulder was bare and the gown fell enough to reveal the curve of her breast. Her leg was tangled with his, her soft smooth skin against rough sheets.
Longwei's body responded, erecting. After all, he was human, male and she was gorgeous. The reaction was automatic and inevitable.
Don't, he told himself. She's vulnerable and She trusts you, don't...
Mei stirred.
Her eyes opened slowly, unfocused at first then sharpened as she registered their position, their proximity, the state of her dress.
The state of his body.
She went very still.
"I..." Longwei started.
"DON'T."