Page 78 of The Scholar's Improper Wife

She watched his face first go blank with confusion, then his eyes widening as understanding dawned.

“... I had a dream.” he said.

They stared at each other in horror as the full weight of revelation came crashing down around them.

“How much,” Yun-si asked, her voice trembling at the edges, “do you remember of the dreams?”

“Everything?”

Every dream. Every moment. Everything done under the absolute certainty that there were no consequences because it was just a dream.

She felt faint thinking about the second dream—what she’d allowed, what she’d wanted, the way she’d pressed against him when the dream had made everything feel safe and secret. Her face burned scarlet.

“You,” she said. “This whole time—”

“I didn’t know you were having the same dreams,” he said quickly, the words tumbling over each other in his haste to explain. “I thought it was only me. That you weren’t—that they were my dreams—”

Yun-si opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

He wasn’t lying. Not exactly.

Neither of them had known. Both of them had been so certain the other was oblivious, that the dreams were theirs alone, private and untouchable.

Both of them had been entirely wrong.

“So you were there,” she said slowly. “For all of mine.”

“Yes.”

A pause that felt like contemplating life on the edge of a precipice.

“And I,” she said, with terrible, precise clarity, “was there. For all of yours.”

Something shifted in his expression. A different kind of stillness.

“...Yes,” he said, considerably more carefully.

“I cut you down with a sword.” she said finally.

He considered this with the gravity it deserved.

“It was very well choreographed,” he said at last. “The footwork especially.”

Despite everything, Yun-si found herself fighting back a smile. “I’ve been practicing.”

After another excruciating silence, during which Ting-zhi suspected Yun-si might want to cut him down again, she whispered, “Does it really feel like that?”

“Like what?” Ting-zhi blinked, confused by the sudden change in topic.

Yun-si bit her lips and hesitated a little before answering. “Like... the second dream, with the tail.”

“Do you...” Ting-zhi’s throat was so constricted it was hard to get the words out. “Do you want to find out?”

Yun-si’s breath came faster as she remembered the second dream, her chest rising and falling beneath the sheer silk. His gaze followed the movement, then lifted to meet hers again. She could see the desire in his eyes, this wasn’t the dream’s exaggerated fantasy—it was real, raw, and entirely for her.

She swallowed. And then, before she could change her mind, she took his hand and led him to the bed.

Ting-zhi set her down on the bed gently and braced himself over her. Her hair spread over the bed, mesmerizing him. He buried his face in the strands, inhaling the warm fragrance of her,and pressed a soft kiss to the side of her head. Then,histouch feather-light, he slid his palm down her arm and brought her wrist to his lips, kissing the place where her pulse jumped.