This year has tested me as a writer. I have had to write happiness for others while in my life I felt the shadows of darkness. I have had to express joy while coldness is what I felt clutched me. It got me questioning. Is true writing all about when you feel like it or is it the persistent creation of an alternate world that is unlike your own and altogether falling for it as if you belong to it?
In my life, looking at my own experience in past romantic relationships, I don't yet have the perfect romance story to write on. I think of myself as a hopeless romantic sometimes… A simple hearted girl who is just doing her best and reminding herself the world is her oyster.
You have loved and supported me on all my platforms. Thank you for this.
I was hospitalized and still recovering health wise. Thank God I'm starting to get back to routine and productivity. I like being a fighter, but updates will be according to the recovery journey. Thank you for understanding. I really am trying my best.
Chapter 30
Wei Li Lian
Her Highness Wei
Princess Elora
“Have you ever imagined what it is going to be like when we are old?” Yuwen Hong readjusted the large straw hat on Li Lian and strapped on the arms of the woven-basket-storage on her back. The sun was warm with beautiful tingles of the welcomed summer fast approaching, radiant in her life, her beloved's love for her always warmed hues of love and care towards her.
“I do not know. I tend to live according to the day, taking whatever life is offering me.” She didn't want to be too selfish, to desire too much, yet so much she did not deserve already.
“You are passive in life, while I am very hungry, selfishly seeking for more all the time. Li Lian, with you enough is not enough.” Yuwen Hong went on to exhale. “On my part I want it all.”
She distracted herself from his attention by examining budding herbs on the ground.
"Don't you want it too?" he added.
She cleared her throat awkwardly, knowing what he was directing it towards. "Want what?"
"I don't know… The simple things and everything… like growing old together?"
Promises.
He wanted commitment to forever and that she would always be there. The wedding and coronation, Yuwen Hong was doing it with all of his heart, hoping and trusting for their future. It was not just an event to him or something minimized to just him getting an empress.
She made a failed attempt to brush off the subject. “Who looks forward to the pains of getting old? We won't be as willful as we are now, getting old is limiting.”
“Yes.” He picked the walking stick he was using to trek down the mountain. Yu'er knew to choose his battles and this wasn't going to be one of them. And an even more sad reality is how less and less vocal he was becoming recently. He was realizing how deeply enraptured he was with her that turning around was becoming a little too late.
Li Lian had won, Mistress Ki's hard work paid off, and Huticah accomplished the seemingly impossible task of bewitching the great emperor. Now, her love had to go all blindly in and trust that she would always have him safe and protected. He was at her mercy and that burden for her was beginning to become an unwanted presence lurking in their relationship.
After a week of his return, Yuwen Hong organised a few days to escape the palace life with her. They did not have a specific permanent place they retreated to or any particular thing they planned in mind. The main purpose was to enjoy each other’s company, ease away from the stress they faced due to their time apart, and to intimately know each other more than they already did.
Each day they woke up and randomly decided what they felt like doing. The first few days were lazy as they did nothing but sleep all day, drinking, massaging each other, and indulging in their sexual fantasies. It was a beautiful serenade of love.
In the next few days thereafter, they travelled from town to town, being part of night festivals, watching performances, visiting sites such as rivers, wine farms, orphanages, and institutions. It was inevitable, due to their status, that some visits attracted more attention than they had hoped for, but it was still manageable to stick to informality.
Everything was going more than perfect for them, yet in the back of her mind, she could tell and sense it, a fatal occurrence was looming over them. It was a knowing, a feeling, that somehow her luck and the heavens' mercy was running out.
A significant night to her was when they decided to watch the stars from the roof of their inn. Li Lian had been drinking a little, which she normally avoided, but Yuwen Hong liked to always hold a bottle to her lips, convincing her to part her lips and have more. Shoving alcohol down her throat always had his lips smirk and desire pouring in his expressions. His eyes mischievously looked at her, pupils darkening, and a twitch of naughtiness crossed his eyes.
Drinking has a way of opening people up and uncovering the secrets that should be rather kept sacred and hidden. He started with it. The conversation that had somehow managed to be avoided in the course of their relationship.
"I don't trust you, that much I know." His thumb ran down her back, caressing slow tantalizing waves of his soft and slow touch.
“You don't." She was more repetitive than responsive.
“Should I?”
He cast her a sad glance, already knowing what he would find in hers; evidence that he was right and their wedge was a real thing that existed.
Her trembling hands he took in his. “You are so guarded, Li Lian. I wish you could trust the love we have. Give us a chance.”
Her eyes swayed from his, pushing away tears at the rim of her eyelids.
He waited for her to say something. Yuwen Hong was hopeful. He wanted her to say it all to him.
But could she? Was he really at that place that she could trust him? Her life would be threatened, measlessly lying in his vengeful hands when the secret came out.
He sighed after a long time lapse, knowing he would not get it out of her. "The only matter I would never pass concerns Fuhuang, so I don't know why you hesitate. Dethroning me, killing me, leaving me, or stealing from me a thousand times… those are possibilities… and I'm telling you I will spare your life. A thousand times if I have to."
Life was unfair to them. The one thing he wasn't offering leniency on. She wanted that.
Though offering all of himself to her, Yuwen Hong was still a son of heaven. A son must be filial. A son is obliged to avenge. By birth it was his duty that he honor his lineage.
"B... but— why?" Even though his leniency was not where she wanted it, she was not worthy of this kindness and goodness. In no way at all.
"Although I may hate you then, although I won't want to see you or have anything to do with you, Li Lian, I still won't be able to breathe without the knowledge of your existence." He further pulled her hand to his heart, "That's how much this hollow place pines for you."
He was confessing his endless love for her and before they knew it he had her undressed and plastered naked on the rooftop. He was climbing her and sweat smearing between their flushed bodies. Then he was singing swears through their rough sexual derangement in which he kept declaring that only to him would she belong to, she belonged to no one else, and he was ruining her for any other men. Only him must be known and remembered. If he could not have her, no one else could.
In the perfect world, he would allow her space, give her time, and try his utmost to be the patient person, but Yuwen Hong was relentless. She could tell he could not hold back any longer and it's not forever that he would be understanding. In their love, he always aimed for more and desired more than they already have.
He was a gentle lover, but not so much on this day when he harshly pinned her wrists together and rammed her hard. When she would shudder and begin to sway in the throes of orgasm, just when the flood was taking her up, he would ease her and leave her scattered and unallowed to have the satisfaction of finishing. He was quietly forcing her hand into confession. His patience was not afterall, I will wait, but rather, in what other way can I try again?
She couldn't take anymore as she cried and pounded against his chest, telling him she could take no more. It was there he sighed his loss and allowed her to finally have her release. His hand roughed her neck, cold eyes pinning her still as he choked the orgasm out of her due to the art he worked on her folds. The welcome high of ecstasy she reached was a familiar comfort place she wished only him would take her there.
Afterwards, they drank more, and half naked they lounged until he decided to carry her in.
S.V