I Send the Long Wind

Complete. Paragraph comments are open, come join the fun! Please add my columns, Letters That Aren't for Me and Above the Clouds, to your favorites. Writing isn't easy, so please don't repost w.w [Marriage Before Love|Gentle Heir to a Traditional Chinese Medicine Legacy × Stern Air Force Colonel] As the ninth-generation heir to the Yuanhe Clinic, Jiang Mingxue carries the weight of her family's generations of glory. She has no interest in romance, but as she gets older, her family hounds her about marriage until they chase her right into the clinic. One day, an Air Force colonel comes to the clinic. He's broad-shouldered and powerfully built, with a cold expression and a palpable air of menace. He says he's picking up medicine for his mother, but Jiang Mingxue glances at the prescription and spots a certain ingredient: yangqi stone... She's seen plenty of patients too proud to admit what's wrong. She takes a cursory look at his name, then gets up to fetch the medicine. As the colonel is leaving, she finds herself calling out to him on impulse: “Mr. Rong, would you marry me?” -- Rong Chengzhou spends his days risking his life on the battlefield, never knowing if he'll make it home. He doesn't want to ruin some young woman's life, so there has never been a woman by his side. Even his own mother is more anxious about his marriage than he is. He never expected to find himself with a wife at thirty. She says there's one thing that makes them well suited to sharing a life together. He asks what it is, but she stammers and refuses to tell him. He's not one to pry, so they decide on the spot to register their marriage. Less than two days after they sign the papers, he leaves on a new mission. He doesn't return until a year later. When their long-delayed wedding night finally comes, she doesn't resist. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the night is as dark as ink. Her eyes are faintly red and glistening as she asks in disbelief: “Wait... aren't you impotent??” #She thought he couldn't perform, but it turns out he's exceptionally gifted. #“I'm really not interested in sex.” #“I hadn't noticed.” “I send the long wind on its way, and follow you to the azure heights.” / Note: The Air Force and traditional Chinese medicine details in this story are based on online sources, and many elements are fictionalized. Please don't take them as a reflection of reality. Advance Preview A connected story, Above the Clouds, is in the works. Here's the blurb: [Five-year age gap | Powerful man lowers his head | Female prosecutor × Scion of a powerful Beijing family] Xiang Qing first meets Pei Yichuan beneath the eaves of Peking University on a rainy day. She ducks under his umbrella. “Sir, may I borrow your umbrella to shelter from the rain?” Pei Yichuan glances at her formal attire and silently allows her bold intrusion. She uses that umbrella for the next four years. Xiang Qing isn't a bad person, but she isn't a good one, either. She's spent more than twenty years clawing her way through the mud. She's seen predators from several different hills and lived in dark, airless earthen houses. All she wants is to climb higher. No one can make her stay unless they're useful to her. The day she leaves Pei Yichuan, she turns away without hesitation and tells him frankly: “I want to stand at the very top.” Later, her career really does flourish, but her family drags her back into the mire. Rain pours down as she sits stranded on the steps by the roadside. Suddenly, the rain stops falling on a small patch above her. She looks up to see Pei Yichuan, whom she hasn't seen in ages, approaching with a black umbrella. His suit is impeccably tailored, though the shoulders are damp. His fingers are pale around the umbrella handle. For the first time, he sees her eyes redden. His expression is cool as he tilts the umbrella toward her. “I'll lend you my umbrella one more time.” / “Since I was the one who lifted her to the clouds, how could I ever let her fall?” Theme: I send the long wind on its way, and follow you to the azure heights.