Page 63 of The Scholar's Improper Wife

“They were all in colors she didn’t like,” Cheng-yi said. “He had been married to her for three years. The gift has to say I waslistening,” he repeated, tapping the table for emphasis. “This is the most important. Everything else is decoration.”

“And if,” Ting-zhi said carefully, “my friend has been... not entirely honest. From the beginning. And she knows it.”

Cheng-yi was quiet for a moment.

“Then,” he said, more seriously than he had said anything else, “your friend needs to be more honest now than he has ever been in his life.” He looked at Ting-zhi steadily. “Women always know when you’re still holding something back. My mother always does.”

The teahouse hummed around them. Someone at the next table laughed. The pastry tray was almost empty.

“One more,” Cheng-yi said, rallying back to his usual register. “My third brother-in-law, when my sister refused to speak to him, stood outside her window every evening and read her poetry until she forgave him.”

“How long did that take.”

“Eleven days,” Cheng-yi said. “Good poetry, though. He has a gift for verse.”

“Mm,” said Ting-zhi.

“The waiting is hard,” Cheng-yi said, after a moment, without comedy. “But your friend sounds like someone who knows how to wait.”

Ting-zhi looked out the window at the capital glowing gold as the sun set.

“He’s been waiting,” he said quietly, “for quite some time.”

They parted at the corner of Pear Blossom Lane as the evening settled properly over the city, the street lanterns slowly blooming as the lamplighters make their rounds. Cheng-yi went left toward the Xu residence, already planning, from the look of him, what he was going to eat next. Ting-zhi paused for a moment, then went right.

Scholar’s Lane in the evening was quieter than during the day, the booksellers beginning to close. He slowed when he reached Autumn Leaf Literary Treasures.

The shop was dark inside, but through the latticed window he could make out shapes in the dim light. The debris of construction was gone, and the shop looked ready, just waiting for books to fill its shelves. There was new shelving in pale wood running the full length of the wall, and more shelves in between. Reading nooks had been tucked into empty corners and by the windows. The new sign above the door was covered with a red cloth, waiting for the reopening.

He stood for a long moment, hands tucked into his sleeves, taking in everything she had built.

She hadn’t told him about any of it.

He missed her so much his heart ached in pain all the time.

Waiting, Cheng-yi had said. Not hovering. Not pushing. Just waiting.

He looked at the sign a moment longer. Then turned and walked home through the drifting scholar tree flowers, thinking about what she wanted that she didn’t have yet, and how to woo and apologize when she would not see him.

Chapter 29

The white mist curled around her again, thick and clinging like damp silk. Yun-si recognized it instantly—the same dream, the same endless quiet broken only by the faint rustle of her own breath.

And there he was.

Ting-zhi stood a few paces away in front ofthatbed, arms crossed, one eyebrow arched in that infuriating way of his. He was wearing his white inner robes, but they were so loosely tied that his collar had fallen wide open, revealing his chest and a glimpse of his taut abdomen beneath. The sight sent an unwanted heat creeping up her neck.

“You,” she accused.

His lips twitched. “Me.”

“This ismydream.”

“Is it?” He tilted his head, studying her with that maddening half-smile. “Last time, you seemed quite convinced it was yours. Yet here I am. Again.”

Yun-si’s fingers curled into fists. “Well, I can’t come intoyourdreams! It’s not as if I’m a fox vixen or something! I say this ismine.”

The air shimmered and she felt a sudden heaviness on her bottom.