The White Silk Dance

Jiang Jilin liked to wear white linen robes, leaning on his sword as he danced alone beneath the moonlight, graceful as a swimming dragon.

When Ning Changqing first met Jiang Jilin, his white robes were stained with blood and mingled with the rank mud of a rainy night. He looked like a phoenix fallen into the dust, yet his eyes were like lightning in the abyss, making anyone who saw them tremble. With a teasing smile, he lifted Ning Changqing's not-quite-smooth chin. Calluses roughened the hand that had gripped a sword for years. "Young man, have you ever tried the taste of a man?"

Ning Changqing lowered his head and silently changed Jiang Jilin's bandages. Then he pinched him hard at the waist and dashed off, leaving Jiang Jilin to burst into laughter after a moment of stunned silence.

As Jiang Jilin left, he glanced back at the slender boy, his smile seeming to mean more than it said. "Young man, I might come back."

Ning Changqing waited one year, two years, three years...

When he finally left the valley to look for Jiang Jilin, that elegant young master in flowing white was holding a soft beauty in his arms, with fine wine and lovely companions always by his side.

"Where did this handsome young man come from?" Jiang Jilin raised a hand, a faint smile nearly enough to topple a city, but his drunken eyes held nothing but an icy pool.

Theme: Love is both armor and weakness