A Pale Moon Reverie: Volume 3 [Complete] by Kuji Furumiya

Author:Kuji Furumiya
Language: eng
Format: epub

9. Half Moon

Before Xixu realized it, the bedroom’s lantern had extinguished. Perhaps the candle within had burned out.

He sat up in the gloom and stroked the hair of the woman sleeping beside him, then reached over her exhausted form for the folded blanket and spread it across her.

The ceremony that had carefully changed him little by little into Sari’s sacred companion had required her utmost focus. Toward the end, she had been visibly dozing off, and she’d fallen into slumber atop him the moment she was done.

Xixu gently shifted her to the side and sat on the bed cross-legged, breathing a single sigh. “I need a cold bath.” He wanted to cool off not only his body, but his head, especially after all the mental pressure he’d endured.

Fixing his disheveled kimono as he rose to his feet, Xixu suddenly recalled the matter of his right arm. He held the palm under the moonlight to examine it.

No trace of his burns remained. At some point they had vanished, and so had the presence of the snake inside his wounds. Sari’s breath must have washed it away.

Xixu looked down at his body. It bore the same form as when he’d been human, but now he had been...shifted out of alignment.

He wanted to say he didn’t feel much different, but then of course, his field of vision had changed. What he could see was still the same, but the way he saw it differed. Even the room’s sliding door felt as though he were observing it from a terribly high height, his mind recognizing it as one detail among the many that made up the world.

He would feel drunk until he grew accustomed to it. Vas had mentioned something similar once, when he’d borrowed Sari’s power.

Xixu left the proprietress’s chambers, heading to where he’d had cold water dumped on him earlier in the day. Though the ordinary guest room was usually for courtesans and their customers, it had been prepared for use for the ceremony today. Upon opening the sliding door, he found Thoma, Isha, and the pair of Midiridos lounging around a low table.

Thoma glanced up at Xixu, then turned back to the other three, grinning suggestively. He held a wine saucer in his hand. “See? What did I tell you?” he asked. “He’s propriety incarnate. I knew he’d heed my warning.”

“He needn’t have done so at all, in my opinion. There’s no guarantee that she would have conceived. It was the guest-taking ceremony. Why not let them enjoy it?”

Xixu remained silent. It wasn’t hard to follow what they were talking about, and he didn’t have the spare energy to join in right now.

Instead, he entered the room, picked up a wooden tray from the low table, and smacked Thoma over the head with it. It made a pleasant sounding thunk. He then tossed the tray atop his friend, who was now clutching his head, and passed by the side of the table.

“I’m borrowing the bath.”

“Go ahead,” Thoma grunted. “Oh, hold on. Was it successful?”

To Xixu’s ears, the question sounded almost trivial, insignificant.

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