The Wandering God

23 First Impressions Are Strongest 1/3

先入為主
xiān rù wéi zhǔ
The first impression takes priority.
First impressions are strongest.

She sat on the bed beside him. "Take off your shirt, little wolf," she ordered. He did as his mistress bid him.

The scars covered his back. Like bent blades of grass, they zigzagged and overlapped. They were white, as though frost had fallen upon the grass.

He felt one of her thin, delicate fingers trace along his skin, and it was all he could do not to shiver with longing at her touch.

"Lady Four Strings."

Finally her finger traced up his shoulder and along his neck. The soft finger started to follow a particularly long, hard, jagged scar down his chest. His breath came faster.

He caught her hand and stilled it. "Such things are not for your eyes, mistress."

"Why not?" she asked. Her doe-like eyes were wide, but not afraid.

"Lady Four Strings!"

"You should see only beauty. Not such ugliness." Her small hand was warm in his own. He quickly let it go.

She smiled then, and his heart constricted painfully in his chest. "What do you mean? You are beautiful. My beautiful, wild wolf." She leaned toward him—

"AO!"

I finally looked up from my book. Sanli had pulled Little Light alongside Ermi's carriage, and was looking in at me through the open window.

"We're in Lin'jing," the prince said, gesturing. "Look around you! You'll miss the city."

"I've seen Lin'jing," I said, looking back down at the book. I heard Sanli sigh.

Suddenly the book was pulled from beneath my nose. I looked up to see Sanli leaning on the carriage windowsill grinning, the book held open in his hand.

"Give me that!" I dove for the prince, but he kicked Little Light away, and I found myself hanging out the carriage window, grasping at empty air.

Sanli's eyes flicked across the page. "Hmm, let's see what you were reading.... '"Take off your shirt, little wolf," she ordered'.... oh my..."

"Give it back! I finally got to the good part!" I yelled.

"The good part, hmm? I think I'll have to read it first, to make sure it's appropriate for delicate young ladies such as yourself." Still reading the book with one hand, Sanli tugged Little Light's reins with the other and knee'd the horse's side, driving his mount toward where Kageyama rode at the front of our procession.

The churlish prince completely ignored my angry calls for him to return my book.

"Don't worry Ao-jie, I have another copy in my room in the valley," Ermi piped up from where she sat behind me in the carriage.

The princess herself had her nose buried in the second of the accursed books. The Wild Wolf and His Mistress. Ermi had handed the first volume to me as she sat down opposite me in our carriage two days ago when we had left Zhanghai.

To pass the time as we traveled to Lin'jing I had started reading... and found I could not stop.

Disgruntled, I turned and leaned out the window, viewing the capitol as Sanli had insisted.

It was early evening. Before me was the Zhang River, the same river that emptied into the bay of Zhanghai. Waterbirds swam among boats on the river, bird cries mixing with the sound of hawkers selling wares or trading with other traders along the riverbank. Willows lined the river, their long branches trailing in the water, calm and languid amid all the other activity.