"While you have decided to go against the Crown Prince's wishes and accompany him to the war," Hu Lijing stopped whilst folding the surgeon's clothes into a Qiankun pouch. His words drawled, contemplative cadence of them sharp in the silent hours before daybreak, "however shall you make it happen? Will you sneak in among his convoy?"
Li Xinyuan paused for a brief moment, a sigh bloomed in his chest, threatening to spill out. "What are you asking?" He watched as the nine-tailed fox spirit spun on his heels with a graceful twirl of his person. Hands fiddling with his wrist braces, the surgeon shifted from one foot to another, a familiar jitter crawling just under his skin.
It was thrilling, the old—intimately known—friend, this defiance.
He held back an irresistible urge to soothe the rampant itch dancing within him, the urge to dig and dig till he reached the deepest part of himself. The one he preferred to keep locked away.
