Kunlun Mountain Part 4 - The Return

Chapter 42 - True Intimacy (NSFW)

For a long time they did not speak again.  The shared kisses were enough to give them both that much needed closeness they were both craving without the awkwardness.  Because it was awkward.  They had been apart for so long, that both were not yet ready to share full intimacy, it was too soon.

Now resting against each other looking upwards, Bai Qian thought on everything he had said, but there was still one question she had.  Being much older it was easier for her look back on their previous life and the decisions they both made, and one of those was the breaking of an unspoken rule.  

"Mo Yuan." she said softly and bringing him back to herself having also lost himself to his thoughts.

Looking down, his arms automatically tightened around her.  "What is it?" he asked.

"You mentioned the Brotherhood.  The relationship between Disciples and the boundary you believed should never be crossed.  This is the exact same reason why I did not choose Liang even though I loved him very much.  In the end he would always be a brother which I found to be far more important to me than a lover.  So I understand your reasoning.  But what about us Mo Yuan?  Are we too breaking that unspoken rule?" she asked.  

This was something that Mo Yuan had thought about many times over the years, and though he had found solid reasons why he was within his rights to take her, and she was free to accept him, they were in the end not fully solid reasons.  

"When you disappeared to live among the Sprites, I searched long and wide for you.  In the end, I was forced into seclusion and it was while I was there that I thought very hard about our relationship.  I thought that I had lost you because you should never have been mine in the first place."

"I thought about Honghui and Shao Wans relationship, and what I considered to be a sacrilege, I took the bond of the brother/sister hood very seriously, and when I approached your father for your hand, I also asked him to remove Liang and Xiang from the list of potential suitors because they were your brothers.  However, at the time I did not see myself as a part of that bonding.  But while in seclusion, I realized that the bond between a Disciple and the Master was the most sacred of all."

"At the time, I thought I had lost you because you were not meant for me.  I myself had broken the most sacred of bonds for a love that I had sworn an oath to forgo.  I saw your disappearance as proof that you and I were not meant for each other, and the heartbreak I was going through was punishment for having stepped over that boundary."

"But when I eventually found out where you were, I could not sit back, I had to at least go and get you.  And it was while I was there waiting for the Sprites Empress to finish talking to you, that i realized her final words were not meant just for you.  She knew I was there, and she also meant them for me.  Do you remember what she said?" he asked down at her upturned face.

 Thinking about that beautiful elder, Bai Qians eyes saddened.  She did not think they would have survived the destruction, but her kind gentle face instantly came back her and the words she had left her with, and like Mo Yuan she had held onto them closely.

"I do remember.  She said smiling sadly, " Love is the most beautiful gift we have ever been granted in this life, without it, then life becomes nothing more than a peach tree without its blossoms or being bound and forced to live the rest of your life in the Palanquin never to see what beauty lies at the end of journey. Love, is precious and rare, so when it arrives, you take it with both hands and you hold on tight."  and she also said, ""Be kind to yourself. It is not too late to take that love back and live the life you were destined for."

It was word for word.  Her ability to retain vast amounts of information, always impressed Mo Yuan, it was a gift he had learned about in her initial days, but that she could also recall conversations word for word, had him suddenly laughing.