"Alchemist Huang is here?" Wu Ling said, frowning at the way Jieyan had phrased things when he heard a sharp intake of breath from Yao Meifeng. "Why would she come?" Wu Ling wondered aloud, hoping that Meifeng understood he didn't have that kind of relationship with the esteemed Alchemist. While he and Yao Meifeng hadn't made any formal declarations about courtship, he found himself missing her presence several times while they were in the mountains. In fact, her afternoon visits were one of the things he most looked forward to while he was recovering from his injuries.
"Please, show her in," he told Jieyan while he put away his calligraphy and straightened up his robes.
A moment later the willowy alchemist followed Jieyan into the garden bringing, with her a faint herbal scent and an aura of cozy warmth. "Aesthete Wu, Brawler Su, Yue" she greeted warmly, including the fluffy Guardian Beast in her greeting before looking around at the three other women in the small garden. "Aesthete Wu, I didn't realize that you'd added juggling to your collection of arts," she said with eyes that twinkled with mirth behind her gold-rimmed spectacles.
"Alchemist Huang," Wu Ling said, turning slightly red as his mind searched for an explanation. It seemed like today, everyone was going to cast him as a womanizer. A short time ago, he wouldn't have minded and likely would have played along with it more, but since his mother's revelations about his father, he didn't want to be mistaken as someone following in his father's footsteps.
"Allow me to introduce you. This is my Senior Sister Yao Meifeng, we were students together at the Pure Virtue Musician's Hall," he explained quickly. "And these are Jieyan and Yingxu, my mother's caretakers. Everyone, this is Instructor Huang Yeyan from the Amber Lily Academy. She's an Independent Alchemist and was the leader of the expedition that Sister Xiang and I just returned from."
"Oh, you're the alchemist who tended to Junior Brother's wounds," Yao Miefeng said, standing from behind her zither to bow deeply to the alchemist. "He told me that you even made sure that there wouldn't be any scars after he finished healing. I owe you my thanks for taking such good care of him," she said, blushing slightly as she did so.
For a moment, she had to remind herself that it was normal for healers to see the naked bodies of their patients and that just because Alchemist Huang had seen far more of Wu Ling than she herself had, it didn't mean anything. It was hard to be certain, however, when she saw the warm gaze the other woman directed at Wu Ling.
"Of course, I took good care of him," Huang Yeyan said as her eyes took in every detail of the petite, almost doll-like young woman who'd been playing zither for Wu Ling. Was this the kind of woman he found attractive? Was it because she had a pure and refined grace similar to what he'd excluded in his feminine guise? Or perhaps it was because they could share an art together.
No, it was fine! Huang Yeyan thought, shaking off the strange sensation that brushed across her skin like prickly leaves when she saw the way the other woman looked at Wu Ling. She and Wu Ling would always have tea, she thought. Just because he might share an art with someone else didn't mean there weren't still things he shared with her. If she wanted to close the distance between herself and the breathtaking young man, she just had to focus on the things they did share rather than the things they didn't.
"How could I let something as crude as a savage bear destroy the most beautiful man in all of Silver Sword City?" Huang Yeyan said with genuine feeling. "I'm already half a sinner for taking him somewhere so dangerous with only Brawler Su to help keep us safe."
"Alchemist Huang exaggerates," Wu Ling said, looking to Su Xiang for help as the atmosphere felt increasingly strange. "Is there any reason that you've come to visit today?"
"Of course, the first thing was to come check on your healing," Huang Yeyan said, moving quickly to kneel next to the cushion propping up his injured foot. "May I take a look?" While she asked, she barely waited for his nod before unwrapping the bandages and examining the tender flesh of his once mangled foot. "It's still puffy and you shouldn't stand on it for very long," she observed clinically.
"But it's been long enough since I gave you an elixir on the mountain that I can give you a better one now. Drink this," she said, pressing a small porcelain bottle into his hands. "It's extremely bitter so it helps to have something sweet to follow it up with, but with this elixir, you should be walking normally by tomorrow and you'll be dancing in three days at most."
"Really?" Wu Ling said, staring at the bottle in his hands in amazement. "It's that potent?"
"Compared to proper pills, this little elixir is nothing much," Huang Yeyan said, waving off the praise even though it delighted her to hear. It had been too long since anyone had praised her skills the way Wu Ling and Su Xiang did and it made her feel appreciated in a way that she hadn't in years.
"Brother Ling," Su Xiang said with a smile. "This is great news! If you'll be fully recovered in three days then you can attend my cousin's upcoming banquet with me! You just need to decide whether I'm bringing you as my sister, or as my brother?"
For a moment, everyone in the courtyard went quiet. When Wu Ling first awakened, he'd thought that he would leave his mortal life and entanglements behind and start fresh as a cultivator without the need of his feminine guise. The trip to the Amber Lily Academy, however, had made it clear that his 'sister self' was still a very real existence in the minds of people he'd met and befriended at the Pure Virtue Musician's hall, and that included Su Xiang's cousin, Su Yao.
He could, of course, attend the banquet in his feminine guise and keep his real identity a secret from Su Xiang's cousin. But was that what he wanted? Su Xiang and Yao Meifeng had both accepted him for who he really was, and Alchemist Huang had forgiven his deception in joining their expedition in his feminine guise. Maybe this was the chance to do the same with another friend. Maybe he didn't need to leave so much behind just because he was shedding his disguise.