Chapter 6 - Best Laid Plans

Feng Jiu's body and spirit had finally recovered fully.  Her wounds had healed and her cultivation had come back. She had started practicing martial arts again and was very happy about it.


With Dijun himself helping her, she didn't need to worry. He would push her just out of her comfort zone, every few days. Only when she got comfortable there he would challenge her further. He was a very good teacher. She was an equally dedicated student.


Gungun would tag along with them all the time. He loved to watch his mom and dad practice. Dijun had made him a smaller wooden sword and every day his mom or dad would spend some time with him playing with it. He didn't realize that while he thought they were playing, they were also teaching him many important skills. He was a happy and grateful child.


Fengjiu had been making great progress on handling her duties as a monarch too. She set aside some time each day to go over various reports and work through them. Her father was delighted to see that for sure. She had also made several decisions to appoint capable citizens of Quinqui to take on more responsibilities around the kingdom. People were appreciative of her efforts. Overall things were settling well.


Dijun undertook several small trips back and forth to the Sky Kingdom to handle his work. He was training Ye Quingti on different aspects of administration at Tai Chen Palace. Fengjiu and Dijun had found that each time they would leave each other, they would be so anxious to meet again.


Tonight was just one of the nights when he had returned from the Sky Kingdom. He had waited (im)patiently for Xiaobai to finish her day, to put Gungun to bed, and to get to their room. As soon as she entered, he closed the door behind her and took her in his arms, kissing her all over hungrily. After her initial shyness kissed him right back, moaning into his mouth. "Missed me?", he whispered in her ear, teasing her. Instantly her cheeks colored up. She buried her face on his chest smiling timidly and nodded. He let out a husky laugh, scooped her up in his arms, and took her to bed.


Hurrying to place a privacy shield over themselves, he buried his face in her neck kissing her all over and started undressing her. She gasped and somewhat boldly, somewhat clumsily tried to undress him. He guided her hands on his body, encouraging her to explore it. She began caressing, touching, marking his body with hers, her natural sensuality taking over. They both got lost in each other.


After a while...


They lay completely blissed out in each other's arms. Dong Hua hugged her close and started caressing her back. He recognized she was still somewhat clumsy and somewhat innocent about intimacy. The long years of being separated from him had added to her shyness. But he had sensed something more in her. Something more than shyness. Maybe a bit of fear? A bit of sadness? What was making her hold back? He realized he would have to tenderly guide her, help her to come out of her shell. Then she would blossom into a beautiful, sensuous woman. His woman. He was okay with guiding her. He was more than okay with guiding her. He loved her in every way.


"Hhhmmm... You are so gorgeous, my Xiaobai. You give me so much pleasure, the likes of which I had never known.", he said and kissed her forehead. She smiled and looked up at his face with her innocent eyes. "Dijun, I want to please you always. I want to be with you forever. I hope you never get tired of me." Fleeting sadness appeared in her eyes before she controlled it and lowered her head. But Dong Hua had seen it. He realized that the sadness he had sensed in her earlier was indeed real.


"Xiaobai, why do you say that? I will never get tired of you, my beautiful Dihou. What's been bothering you, my dear wife? Could you tell me? Help me understand, please? I cannot bear to see even a bit of sadness in your lovely eyes.", he lifted her chin up and coaxed her to open up to him.


He looked deeply into her eyes. She started playing with his hair nervously and said in a low voice, "Please don't get upset, Dijun. I love you. I trust you completely. In my life, you are the one person I cannot live without. But whenever I have come close to you, I have had to go away from you. I fell in love with you the first time you saved me from the tiger in the Demon Realm. I became a maid in your palace to repay your kindness and also to get close to you, but you never noticed me. Then you got trapped in the Lotus ward and I became a fox as I tried to save you. You took me as your pet and I was happy that you liked me. But shortly after Ji Heng came along, you let go of me. Only I know how I continued to live. I drowned myself in too much work and learning, just so that I would not think of you. But nothing worked.


Destiny brought us together again at my aunt's wedding and then somehow we both ended up in Fanyin valley. At that time also, I believed that you had come there for Ji Heng and not for me. That's why I kept avoiding you. But then I fell into Aranya's dream and you came there to save me. You told me that you loved me. You even asked me to marry you! For the first time ever, I was truly happy. But once again we got separated before we could get married.


Now we are back together after all the ordeals. And I am so afraid that this might not last. I am afraid of being separated from you or being rejected by you again. I feel torn between loving you fully and protecting my poor heart from being hurt by love again. After everything I have been through, I will not be able to withstand another separation from you, Dijun. I... I... I love you, Dong Hua... More than you will ever know....". She could say no more. Tears pooled in her big brown eyes and flowed to her cheeks. She tried to wipe them off, only to have more tears pour down.


Dong Hua's heart pained to see her like this. He hugged her tightly and swallowed the lump in his throat. "I love you too, my Xiao Huli. I can't bear to be away from you either. Please don't cry." He wiped her tears lovingly and sat up pulling her to sit up with him.


He settled her across from him and magically clothed both of them in their nightgowns. Slowly, he took her hands in his, and said solemnly, "Xiaobai, thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. I am glad you trusted me with your feelings. As for what the future holds for us, even I cannot know. I can only assure you of one thing. As long as I live, I will love you. For all my existence. Till the day I disappear into nothingness. You will be my only wife and my only lover. No one will ever take your place.


I know what happened in the past was somewhat due to my ignorance and somewhat due to the circumstances. I cannot guarantee that circumstances like that will never happen again. No matter how much I want to, my Dihou, I cannot promise you a completely peaceful, quiet life. I carry the burden of keeping peace in all realms and often have to make personal sacrifices. Despite all this, please trust that I will always find my way back to you. We will be together. You and I. Because honestly, without you, I cannot live to keep the peace in all realms. You have become my lifeline.


Today I want to share something special with you. Something with which you will always be able to know that I am by your side. A piece of my very essence. Keep it in your soul and treasure it well. I give you this with my promise that no matter what happens in the outside world, I will always have you in my heart. As long as I am alive, this will light up with a steady purple aura. As long as you see its purple aura you can rest assured that even if I am far away from you for any reason, I have you in my heart. You can have faith that I will find the quickest way for us to be together again, even if fate forces us to be apart.


In this entire universe, only you share this bond with me, my love. Dong Hua belongs to you - mind, body, and soul. Only to you. Always to you."


He opened his palm and it had a purple flame on it. Xiaobai took it carefully from him and placed it in her soul. She could feel his presence in her heart and it calmed her down. Her face lit up with a smile.


"Dijun, thank you for sharing this with me. I want you to have a part of my essence too. And like you said, only you have this bond with me in the entire universe. Feng Jiu - your Xiaobai - belongs to you. Mind, body, and soul. Only to you. Always to you."


She touched her birthmark and opened her palm. A red flame in the shape of a Phoenix feather was on her palm. She transferred it to Dijun who took it carefully but looked somewhat puzzled. After he had placed it in his soul, he asked Xiaobai curiously, "How did you do that, Xiaobai? Who taught you? Where did you learn it?"


"I have always known how to do it. I never figured out why I could do it. But today seemed like the right time to do it and you seemed like the right person to entrust it to.", she replied simply. Dijun was perplexed but decided to let it pass for now.


Little did the lovers know, that these tokens of mutual promise would be something they would need to rely on in the not-so-distant future.


It was getting really late. Feng Jiu looked tired. She tried to stifle a yawn. Dong Hua realized all his passionate lovemaking must have made her body sore. She had only recently recovered after all. But they had missed each other so much over the last few days that they had completely ignored everything else.


He chuckled softly. In the last several million years, Dijun had never felt this way about anyone else. He realized he was a completely different man now than before. This soft, frail little woman had melted his unyielding heart of rock. For someone who had been devoid of desires for centuries, she had become the one desire he could not give up on.


He waved his hand to fix the room and close the windows. Then he pulled the quilt up on both of them and scooted closer to Fengjiu. Spooning her close to him, he closed his eyes.


—-


As usual, Fengjiu woke up at the first light of the day. She turned to face Dijun who was still sleeping soundly. She reveled in the moment, shyly admiring her handsome husband, remembering his promise from the night before.


Out of habit, she started playing with his silver hair. That woke him up. "You are awake? It's still early, don't get up yet", he murmured groggily and pulled her close. She could hear his steady, rhythmic heartbeat. That was the best sound in the entire universe for her. She closed her eyes and slowly fell asleep again.


After a while, Dijun got up and got ready. He sat at his desk half reading, half watching his wife sleep. Her delicate features looked exquisite while sleeping. He recalled how warm and soft her skin had felt under him last night. How innocent yet bold she had been. He remembered her sublime fragrance and taste. He was very much tempted to get back in bed with her and have a repeat of last night. "Stop. Let her rest, Dong Hua. She has been working hard lately.", he reprimanded himself.


When Feng Jiu finally woke up, the sun was up already.  She stirred and opened her eyes to see Dijun smiling at her. "Good morning, honey." He teased. She made a face. She was still not comfortable hearing him say an endearment in broad daylight.


"Get ready, honey. I will fetch us breakfast and we can eat together. Would you like that? Honey?", seeing her face, he continued to torment her. Frowning, she got up and came to him. She put her hand on his mouth to make him stop calling her that. He was only too happy with the opportunity. He grabbed onto her hand and started kissing it. Slowly, unhurriedly. He put each finger in his mouth and sucked it. Watching her reddening face with his hot hungry gaze. She let out a small gasp and trembled ever so slightly. She felt like her knees were about to melt.


"Mother, you are up! Did you wake up just now? Why did you sleep for so long today?", Gungun opened the door and ran in bursting with questions. She snatched her hand back blushing all over. "I... Me... We...", Fengjiu fumbled for words. Meanwhile, Dijun composed himself quickly, turned around, and hugged Gungun. "I think you got too tired last night, didn't you? Honey?" He asked her with a naughty smirk.


"Last night? But you put me to bed on time, why did you get tired? Did you do a lot of work after?", asked a confused Gungun. She turned a shade pinker at the mention of last night and was rendered speechless. First of all her brain had not fully woken up, then Dijun had turned it almost to mush with his tantalizing finger-kisses and now this. All she could stammer was, "I ... I. .. I don't know how..."


Dijun, who was taking pleasure in her discomfort, finally decided to relent and came to her rescue. "Your mother has been working hard these past few days. She must have been tired but not realized it. Let's go bring our breakfast here. She can get ready by then and we can all eat together.", he said extending his hand to the boy. Together they started walking out.


"Phew", she shook her head and sighed, watching their retreating figures. "Dijun, please don't call me honey in broad daylight. You can call me that when we are alone in our privacy barrier.", she started a telepathic conversation with her husband. "Only if you call me Dong Hua, Xiaobai. I won't do it for nothing.", he replied smirking. "Alright, alright. I will call you that when we are alone.", she said. "Call me what, Xiaobai?", he persisted. "Dong Hua...", she replied and feeling a little embarrassed, quickly added, "Dijun..." "You naughty little fox! I see what you did there. I will make you pay for this tonight.", Dong Hua teased her and left.


Gungun wondered what all that meant. Why were his monther's thoughts all muddled when he asked about last night? Why would his parents need a privacy barrier? Why did they want to call each other special names when they were in that barrier? He was curious, but he had not yet let anyone know about his ability to read minds. So he just kept quiet and walked away.


---


While they were eating breakfast, Dijun started a topic in all seriousness. "Xiao Bai, I think we have lived in Quinqui long enough. Your parents have been very kind to have us with them for so long. Do you think we should go somewhere else for the next few months? We can go to Tai Chen Palace or Bihai Cangling. I can arrange for messengers to deliver important messages about your work to you every day. What do you think?"


Xiaobai nodded and agreed, "I have been thinking about the same thing. Give me 4 weeks to arrange my current work and make sure there are things in place for Quinqui while we are away. After 4 weeks, let's go to Bihai Cangling. Gungun hasn't been there at all. He should know that's his home too."


"Sounds like a good plan, hon....", Dijun smiled and stopped halfway through 'honey' as he saw her expression. Gungun looked up, utterly confused. But both his parents were serving him food and they looked very engrossed in eating. He decided to play along and eat.

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