#li lianhua voice MY CABBAGES–

[presumenothing]

random novel excerpts #5, because ofc i had to pull up my favourite wanmian bit upon seeing @difeisheng's post (this is book 2 ch 7, for those keeping score):

Qiao Wanmian did not answer. A long while later, she asked, softly: "Do you hate me?"

"I did, once." With a faint smile, he said: "There were a few years when I hated everyone."

She nodded, slowly; that she understood…

Only to hear him then say: "But now all I fear is that Xiao Zijin and Qiao Wanmian cannot stay together always, til death do you part."

She listened, the moment hanging still; nodding, again, before suddenly shaking her head: "You are not Xiangyi."

Li Lianhua smiled, so very light: "Indeed…"

Lifting her head, she looked dazedly at him, and said softly: "Xiangyi never forgave anyone."

Li Lianhua nodded. "Nor did he ever tend the garden."

The hint of a smile touched Qiao Wanmian's lips at last. "He never wore shabby clothes."

Li Lianhua smiled. "He almost never did sleep."

She exhaled a light sigh, tear tracks still damp on her face. "He always had unending matters to tend to, almost never slept, always had some enemy or other, excelled at spending money, was always ordering people around, sending them here and there and everywhere… but always managed to make a spectacular affair of it."

Li Lianhua sighed, and said almost to himself: "And here I am terribly broke, wanting nothing so much as a quiet place to sleep in, and without much enemies to name, either. Oh, yes – the two pots of rhododendrons in my room are in full bloom, it's quite the lively sight, do you want to see it?"

Qiao Wanmian was still smiling, faintly; in this moment it was as if her heart had woken to something open and bright, and those events of old that had weighed on her for ten years, those things she never could let go – all of it dissipated in this one moment. The man that stood before her was an old companion, a friend; even a maestro in his own way. "I'd like a look."

Li Lianhua straightened out his sleeves, and said apologetically: "Give me a moment."

Qiao Wanmian dried her tears on a sleeve, brushed the dust off herself, and abruptly felt her earlier self to be quite laughable. Seeing Li Lianhua hurry around the building to the dustpans with a wicker basket on his back, she couldn't help finding it funny – couldn't help but wonder: if Fu Hengyang came to know that Li Xiangyi had spent an entire afternoon tidying up the candles that he'd painstakingly arranged to proclaim the resurrection of Sigu Sect, what would he possibly think? But then she saw Li Lianhua waving her over before she could get any further, and so she followed.

On stepping into Li Lianhua's room, she looked at those two potted 'rhododendrons' for quite a while. Both pots boasted fresh yellow flowers, open in full and rich splendour; they had indeed been well and meticulously cared for, and were growing with much vigour.

But now Qiao Wanmian couldn't help but ask, after an age of staring: "These are rhododendrons?"

Li Lianhua paused, baffled, in his tracks. "Fang Duobing said they were… I dug them up from the foot of the mountain, there's a big patch blooming there."

Qiao Wanmian coughed faintly, and said with infinitely kind patience: "These are daylilies, the farmers plant them for… for… anyway, you'd better return them soon as you can."

"Ah." Li Lianhua stared at the 'rhododendrons' he'd been tending to for the better half of a month, and said with an air of apology: "I should've known rhododendrons don't bloom this large…"

Qiao Wanmian truly could not hold back any longer, and laughed aloud. Looking at those two pots of 'rhododendrons', their gazes met over smiles.

Outside, not too far away, a person stood atop the trees, and watched the two from a distance. That person wore golden-edged robes of purple, a figure regal and well-built; he would have been of handsome strength, save for the extreme paleness of his face as he stared dazedly at the pair in the room, unknown thoughts crossing his mind.

In the room, Li Lianhua looked at the daylilies he'd so diligently planted, and suddenly asked with great seriousness: "If the daylilies are already blooming, that means the weather is about to turn chill – are the winters cold up on this mountain?"

Qiao Wanmian paused in surprise. "Cold? Here?"

Li Lianhua nodded with great haste. "Does it snow?"

She gave an answering nod. "It snows."

He cringed faintly. "I don't like the cold."

She smiled. "Xiangyi never feared the cold."

Li Lianhua sighed. "I don't just fear the cold – I fear death, too."