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After the children woke up from their artificial deaths, and after Maomao finally managed to get rid of Jinshi, she sat on the floor and watched the slumbering children.
They would be alright, would find a way to live. Shisui had made sure of it, and Maomao had done her part in giving them a chance. It gave her a bittersweet kind of feeling; the fact that they could have a second chance at life and Shishui couldn’t. Maomao knew, deep down, that they were just kids, and of course they deserved a long and happy life.
But Shishui did, too.
Maomao sighed and stood up. She was sleepy, but it was impossible to sleep again after being woken, and her thoughts were too jumbled for her to try to sleep again. Despite the cold air, she decided to take a walk, hoping it would help clear her mind.
The guards tried to stop her, saying she had to be inside and safe, but Maomao didn’t care for them. She ignored their demands and kept walking until she was far enough. Then, once the presence of people stopped in a clearing below the northern part of the fortress, she paused to look up at the sky.
And there, she thought about Shisui.
Maomao had tried to stop her, to convince her to live her life away from all this. Perhaps she knew deep down that Shisui would not listen to her, but Maomao couldn’t give up on her friend so easily. In the end, her effort had turned out to be futile. It was worth the try, though. Shisui was worth the try.
Shisui—Maomao couldn’t bring herself to call the girl Loulan, it felt wrong—would always be special for her. Maomao’s relationship with Shisui had felt deeper compared to anyone else. She felt a more profound kind of connection to Shisui; the way Shisui would ramble on about luna moths or whatever insect she found interesting that day, the way she took responsibility for something that wasn’t her duty, the way she took care of her older sister, the way she hid her true self from Lady Shenmei and pretended to be a lifeless doll in order to protect herself and the people around her, the way she told the workers in the gunpowder workshop to run before she blew it up, the way she plotted a fake-death for the children to save them from execution, the way she smiled when Maomao called her Shisui for the last time—it was all so overwhelming.
Maomao didn’t even realise she had shed a tear until she felt an unnatural coldness on her cheek. She wasn’t a common crier. Though, she supposed, if someone deserved her tears and the slight pain in her heart, it would be Shisui. The rest of the tears didn’t come.
She wiped her eyes and continued her walk. The moonlight was enough to see, so she hadn’t taken a lantern with her. If she had taken one, she wouldn’t have noticed what she noticed glinting in the moonlight.
She was far, but she saw a glow behind the bushes by the wall of the building. Maomao instantly thought about which rooms this side was supposed to have, retraced and remembered her steps inside the fortress, and came up with the answer that it was where Lady Senmei and Shishou resided.
As Maomao listened carefully, she heard a shuffling voice behind the same bush. She stopped to hear better and to not draw attention to herself. There was no possibility of it being an animal; there were none allowed inside the fortress grounds. It could be a bird, perhaps, but the possibility of a bird choosing to visit a bush glued next to a building was unlikely.
The only possibility was that there was a person hidden in that bush.
Maomao’s theory was confirmed when she stood still enough that she made no sound and instead could hear a breathing sound coming from behind the bush. And—the glinting object was moving; it disappeared and did not reflect the moonlight anymore.
As Maomao listened to the person’s breath more carefully, she realised it was strained, like they were wounded. The urge to know and to cure stirred inside her, the same way it did back inside with Jinshi’s stitches. She stepped closer to the bush despite her brain sending warnings to her body.
Just as she was about to reach out to the bush to push it aside, a person walked out. A person with a face that Maomao knew very well.
Shisui. Not dead.
Maomao wasn’t sure if she felt shock or relief at first.
“Shisui!” Maomao exclaimed, surprised.
The other girl’s eyes widened, first in panic, then in recognition. “Maomao?”
“Does coming back from the dead run in your family?” Maomao muttered, mostly to herself. Truthfully, she wasn't as surprised by this revelation as she probably should’ve been. Mostly, she was glad.
Shisui lunged forward and grabbed Maomao’s hand with her hands. “It was thanks to the hairpin, Maomao!”
Maomao stared at her, not expecting such a happy reaction. The last time Maomao had seen Shisui, she was content with willingly going to her death. Seeing her almost giddy about not being dead was, well, unexpected, but Maomao assumed any sane person would be happy to not die.
“Look,” Shisui said excitedly, and shoved something into Maomao’s hand. It was Jinshi’s hairpin, with a bullet engraved in the middle of it. Someone must’ve shot at Shisui with a feifa and caught the hairpin instead. The possibility of it, while not impossible, was impossibly low. It was a miracle Shisui was alive.
“Shisui.” Maomao looked at her carefully. “Why are you hiding?”
“If the royal guard finds me, they will execute me,” Shisui said, her excitement fading. She looked more like Loulan with that serious expression on her face.
Maomao shook her head. “I know that. Why were you hiding from me? You heard me come here. I wasn’t quiet, you could hear my steps and my breathing from behind that bush, maybe even see me from your angle. Yet for the first few moments, you didn’t come out. Almost as if you were calculating something. Why did you hide?”
Shisui smiled, but it wasn’t a happy one. It was the same sort of smile she had given Maomao before going to her demise.
“You were planning to run away,” Maomao said, connecting the dots. But there was one thing that didn’t make sense. “But why hide from me? Did you think I would tell on you? Why not say goodbye?”
“What do you think this is?” Shisui asked silently.
“I would not tell anyone.”
“I know that.”
“Then why would you—”
“I thought it would be easier,” Shisui admitted, still quiet and calm. She looked away, at the woods or the stars. “If I disappeared without seeing you again, I thought it would hurt less.”
Maomao didn’t answer; she wasn’t sure what to say in response. She couldn’t quite grasp the logic, either. Why would it hurt for Shisui to see Maomao one last time before she ran away? It was clear Shisui was going to run, because she hadn’t denied it and it was the most logical thing to do in her position. Go to a far away place, change her name, obtain a new identity and start over in life. Knowing Shisui, she could manage on her own in a scenario like that.
But then, why not seek Maomao out herself in order to say goodbye? And why did Maomao suddenly find herself caring about goodbyes? It was never that big of a deal for her. There were people in her life, in Verdigris House or the rear palace, people that she had never said goodbye to and had never seen again. She was usually content with that concept.
So why, all of a sudden, was she disappointed at Shisui for not caring to say goodbye to her?
“Maomao,” Shisui said suddenly, grabbing Maomao’s hand again. “I am leaving. Did you take care of the rest of them?”
“Yes.” Maomao didn’t let go of Shisui’s hand. She still couldn’t think of anything to say. This was a goodbye. They were saying farewell, and Maomao wasn’t sure how to say it.
Maomao felt, abruptly, an inexplicable sorrow in her heart.
Shisui raised her other hand and placed it softly on Maomao’s cheek. With her thumb, she wiped at Maomao’s one tear, and smiled her sad but happy smile. “We will not see each other again after this.”
“I know.”
“Maomao.”
Maomao looked at her. There was a look on Shisui’s face that she could not read. For some reason, Maomao felt her heart starting to beat faster. It didn’t make sense—there was nothing wrong with her physically. Was it a psychological unwellness? She knew people got physical symptoms after being sad or anxious, but her situation didn’t fit those.
Shisui leaned closer. Maomao could feel her breath on her face. Then—Shisui’s lips grazed Maomao’s lips lightly, like a ghost of a kiss. While Maomao tried to make sense of the gesture, Shisui had already pulled away and stepped back from her.
“Goodbye, Maomao,” she said. And she turned away.
Maomao’s hand shot out without control of her body and grabbed Shisui by the wrist. Shisui didn’t turn to her, but paused.
“Shisui.” Maomao stared at the back of Shisui’s hair. “My request still stands. That hairpin is important, I hope you give it back to me someday.”
Shisui nodded one, and gave a soft chuckle. “I might sell it.”
“I know.”
“I hope you have a good life, Maomao.”
Maomao watched as Shisui walked away from her. The bittersweet pang at her heart was still there, but she was happier for the closure. The fact that Shisui would get to have a life of her own, to finally live on her own terms gave Maomao a sense of happiness that nothing else could give. While she was happy for Shisui, a selfish part of her was sad for losing a friend.
Maomao could still feel the breath of the other girl’s lips on hers. Though it was faint and swift, there was also a heaviness to the gesture. She stood there for a while, and thought about an insect devouring her husband whole.
It wasn’t until a few months later that Maomao realised what that gesture was supposed to be.
And it wasn’t until at least a year later after still thinking about Shisui that Maomao realised whatever type of relationship was between them was, in fact, not friendship but something deeper.
And—it wasn’t until at least a decade later that Maomao eventually found a hairpin with a bullet impact in the middle.