【英文短篇】A Year to Live （江雪）

Title: A Year to Live
Fandom: Jue Shi Shuang Jiao
Characters: Xiao Jiang, Xue Yu
Pairing: Xiao Jiang/Xue Yu
Word Count: 4,496 words
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. I don't own the plot either. So don't sue.
You sneak out at night, after Xiao Jiang has fallen asleep. He shifts; you stop, hold your breath, but he doesn't wake, so you run to the nearest crossroads you can find and bury the box.
For a second, you think that the ritual has failed, that those old stories you heard at Tian Men are nothing but stories, or maybe you've forgotten something, maybe there's something else needed besides a painting of you, graveyard dirt, a black cat bone, and yarrow.
(For a second, you're actually relieved.)
And then you turn around and you see red eyes glowing in the dark.
"You're the demon?" you ask.
He is.
354.
You have one year to live.
(Ten years. Give me ten years, and then you can have my soul.
No.)
Of course you don't tell Xiao Jiang.
350.
"It's a miracle," Chang Chun exclaims, eyes wide with disbelief. "I hardly dare believe it, and I have no idea what happened, but you're cured."
Xiao Jiang looks stunned, and when he looks at you, you see joy come to life in his eyes.
You can't be the one take that away.
(What would Lover Boy say if he knew?
He won't.)
340.
You realize that you'll take it away anyway when you die, and you will die.
(The deal's off if you try anything. He rots and you come downstairs with me anyway.
I won't.)
You should probably tell him, prepare him mentally, but you're selfish and you want to see him smile.
You don't want him to hate you.
339.
Anyway, Xiao Jiang is as stubborn as a bull, and if he knew, he'd do everything he could to get you out of the deal, and then he'd end up dead.
And where would that leave you?
Besides, you don't want to spend what's left of your time hunting for solutions. You don't want what's left of your days to be glares, tears, and fruitless searches.
You want to live.
310.
Xiao Jiang looks at you suspiciously when you tell him that you want to explore the country. Hike across the mountains. Swim in the rivers. See the ocean. Lie in golden fields and watch the sun roll by.
"I'm not saying no," he says, eyebrow lifted, "but you've never been a fan of nature."
"It's not too late to start," you say, shrugging.
(What color is Hell? you asked, ten and curious.
Gray, the old man said. And red for blood and fire.)
308.
The sun is just rising when Xiao Jiang takes you out into the ocean, and its rays hit the waters just so, merging the sky and ocean into one.


"Do you like it?" he asks, and for the first time you can remember, his smile looks shy.
You look at the waters that glisten like a sea of jewels, look at the colors they're dyed (red, pink, orange, and yellow), and you see fire.
"It's beautiful," you manage to say, but he knows something is wrong anyway, and his smile falters.
"Is something wrong?" he asks, concerned.
"No," you say, and you smile this time, a fake smile, but he hasn't seen enough of your smiles to distinguish a fake one from a real one so you're safe. "I'm just really, really happy."
You think you might be really, really afraid, but it doesn't matter.
(One year for your gutter soul. You killed innocents, sweetheart, without a second thought - did you really think you would have gone to heaven? No, you will come to hell anyway, even if you don't make the deal.)
300.
A lot can happen in three hundred days. Maybe you can get your happy ending after all.
294.
You've rode on a horse before, but this is your first time riding with Xiao Jiang. His breath tickles you as he whispers in your ear, his arms encircle you and hold you tightly, his chest is pressed to your back and you can feel his warmth, his heartbeat.
The steady heartbeat you fought so hard to preserve — it's the sweetest music to your ears.
286.
Zi Yan and Shuang Shuang want to take you on a shopping spree. You politely decline, but they insist. "Come on," they cajole, laughing, "what girl doesn't like shopping?"
"I'm not your typical girl," you remind them.
"We're not either," they say, and then Shuang Shuang says, "Don't you want to look pretty for Xiao Jiang?"
You're sure that he'll love you no matter how you look, and anyway, you'll be gone in less than a year. You don't need more dresses, jewelry. But the girls are looking at you with something that you recognize as concern, and you realize that they're worried for you. That they might know something is wrong with you. And you don't want to worry anybody, not now at least, so you relent and go with them.
Nothing there catches your eye, but you notice the girls sneaking looks at you, so you buy a sheet of white silk long enough to sew into a dress. It'll make a nice burial shroud, you think morosely, except your body will be so torn up by the hellhounds that no amount of silk will make you beautiful again.
When you go home, you toss the package on the table, and you note the look of relief on Xiao Jiang's face.
You realize that he's the one who put them up to this, so you look at him and lift an eyebrow. "You asked them to drag me out?" you ask drily.
He grins boyishly. "I was worried. You were acting…strange."
There's suspicion flickering in his eyes, so you smile and lie to soothe him.
It works. You hope it'll keep working.


260.
You have your first fight with Xiao Jiang in months.
"I don't get what's wrong with you," he says, and you can hear the frustration in his words, and if you didn't know better, you'd think it was funny that the unflappable Xiao Jiang has finally lost his cool.
You tell him that there's nothing wrong with you, insist that he's paranoid, and he finally loses his temper and shouts, "Why won't you tell me what's wrong? What are you not telling me?"
He has no moral high ground for accusing you of keeping secrets, considering that he's kept so many things from you that you're pretty sure the number is in the high hundreds, and you're about to remind him of that, but you remember a time when he couldn't shout and suddenly, you're laughing and crying at the same time.
253.
There's a nightmare you keep having.
Xiao Jiang is coughing, coughing so hard that his gaunt body won't stop shaking, and red blood gushes from his lips like a river until it soaks his sheets, your dress, your hands, and he raises a bloody hand to your face and mouths the words "I'm sorry."
He never finishes the word "sorry" before his hand falls limply to the side.
"No!" you cry, and a voice laughs behind you, says, "Too late. I told you not
to try anything."
You turn around and there's a pair of red eyes smiling cruelly at you, and you—
You wake up with a cry on your lips and he's at your side, worried dark eyes fixed on your face. He's warm, alive, and you're so happy to see him that you burst into tears.
"What's wrong?" he asks.
"Nothing," you say, wiping your eyes, "nothing."
233.
Apparently Xiao Jiang remembers what you said about hiking mountains, so he takes you up to the mountains today and laughs himself silly when he watches you hike up the trail.
"Very mature," you say, sniffing primly, before you collapse onto a ledge, and you glare at him from the ground.
He snickers some more but he sprawls next to you, one arm tucked under his head, one arm flung out toward you. His eyes close; you look at him and you think he looks so young, like a child almost, now that the twin burdens of revenge and illness have been lifted off his shoulders.
There's a slight tug at your scalp, and you open your eyes to look at him. He's playing with your hair, fingering the black spread underneath you as one would finger spun gold, and when you look up to meet his eyes, you can see the pure love in his eyes.
He grins. "Your hair is two times longer than mine."
"Really?"
He holds up a piece of your hair. "I measured it." And then he squints a little and frowns. "This piece is white."
This is what stress can do, you think wryly, but you're not particularly perturbed. There are more pressing things to worry about other than going gray early, and besides, you only have seven more months left, so you can't go completely gray.


"I can take care of myself."
"No you can't," he says heatedly. "You never carry enough money, you don't know how to cook, you never dress enough in the winter, you can't tell if your tea's been poisoned or not, and you can barely hold your own in a swordfight against ten men or more."
If Ming Yue were here, she'd let this chauvinistic pig have it, but seeing that she isn't, you just give him the frostiest look you can muster and make sure your words drip ice: "It's wonderful to know that I'm a bumbling fool in your eyes. Are you finished demolishing my self-confidence?"
Silence.
You turn to him and see that he's smiling, smiling at you with none of the faint resentment that was lingering between you two when you left, looking at you with the same adoration that was always in his eyes before.
"That's not what I meant," he says lightly. "But you see, I need to know that there's someone watching your back."
"Uh-huh. I'll start the job interviews tomorrow, since you're so concerned."
You jump down the roof, but he follows you and spins you into his arms. "I was wondering if you would give me the job," he breathes.
You remain silent.
"You see," he says, "I have ten years of experience. Admittedly, I did a poor job the past month, but I can make that up to you. Please give me the chance."
And then he whispers, "Forgive me. I shouldn’t have treated you that way. I shouldn't have pressured you."
Something inside you shatters. You turn around, try to tell him, "It's not that," but he seals your lips with a kiss, and you drown in the kiss, his scent, him, and for the first time in months you're able to forget everything.
You're able to forget that you're going to hell.
(Except you don't, because the crossroad demon was the exact same height as Xiao Jiang, and when he bent down and sealed your deal with a kiss, you thought for a moment that you were kissing Xiao Jiang.)
And so you keep your silence.
87.
You go on a shopping spree of your own volition, but you don't buy much. Just a slender hair pin, and not a fancy one either, but you fall in love with it at first sight, because it simply screams your name — the beads dangling from the
handle are shaped as snowflakes and raindrops.
"You never use hair pins," Xiao Jiang says, amused.
You don't tell him that the hair pin isn't for you.
It's for him, when you're gone.
69.
You start recording everything in a book. Your past that is closely entwined with his. Your first encounter. The fights you had. How you trained together. The missions, the times you had fun, the times you fell in love with him but never admitted it. The times you discovered his secret (because he is a lousy liar) and never reported him.
"What are you writing?" he asks more than once, but you always cover the book before he can see.
"Nothing," you say. "Just a diary."
He respects your privacy enough that he keeps away, never even looks at it anymore, but there will come a day when you place the book on his pillow with a note saying that it's for him.
It is, after all, a memento of you.
That's how you are selfish.


43.
Time is running out, so you suggest that you visit your old friends. He remarks wryly that he thought you never liked his friends, but the truth is that you never had friends and they're the closest you have to a family.
Zi Yan and Shuang Shuang are delighted to see you again, and even Xiao Yu and Wu Ji look profoundly relieved.
"I thought you had dumped his miserable ass for another guy," Xiao Yu says, big eyes twinkling. "I mean, sunrises and sunsets get old after a while, right, and a pretty girl like you should be able to find a better guy anytime."
Wu Ji is much more serious, and he tells you when they're alone that Xiao Jiang searched frantically for you after you left. "He combed the entire countryside for you."
You feel a flicker of pleasure.
And then you remember why you came, and you say, "I had something I needed to do. I didn't know if I was going to see him again."
It's the closest you've come to telling the truth.
Wu Ji surveys you worriedly. "What happened? Do you need—"
"No," you say, cutting him off. "But if something really happened, you would have looked after him, right?"
"Of course," he says, nonplussed and a bit suspicious. "Xue Yu, is there something—"
"No," you say again. "Just…watch his back if he's alone, okay? And don't tell him about this conversation, please. I don't want him to worry. Let this be our secret."
26.
The nightmares have come back.
This time, you don't dream of Xiao Jiang dying. You dream of hellhounds with red eyes tearing into your flesh. Sometimes, Xiao Jiang is there, yelling your name, and you try to call back, but you choke on your blood. Sometimes, they drag you all the way down to hell, where the demon lays you out on a rack, not unlike the ones they had at Tian Men, and cuts into your stomach, and you're screaming Xiao Jiang's name but he never comes, and one day, the demon takes you off the rack and shows you Xiao Jiang, and he's married to another girl, younger and prettier than you are.
You wake up and you tell yourself that that's the best you can hope for and you would be glad if he lived out his life to its fullest, but you're sobbing so hard that Xiao Jiang's shaking you and asking frantically, "What's wrong? What's wrong?"
"Everything," you say, "everything." And you cry into his shoulders and let your tears seep through his shirt, so that you might have left some imprint on him, however temporary, even if he does forget you eventually.
Later, when he asks cautiously if you're all right, you tell him that it was just a bad dream.
17.
Xiao Jiang builds you a tree house.
"Why?" you ask from the ground, utterly bemused, because you have never expressed the urge to live in a tree. You're not even sure where he got the inspiration.


嘻嘻.....怎么会忘记你呢？看过很多你的江雪文呀很不错呀。不过英文可难倒我了呀，我几乎忘记了呀，呜.....

呃...原本是想写中文的，无奈很久没练笔，写的实在...很差。

记得楼主，但这文看不懂

如果有空的话，我会把这篇翻译成中文的。
这是大致内容：小江病入膏肓，眼看没几天可活了，雪雨情急下在十字路口召唤了一个十字路口红眼恶魔，用灵魂交换小江的命。十字路口恶魔给了她一年的时间。她选择一直瞒着小江，和他一起过这最后的一年。

膜拜一下~`嘿嘿

太有才了~~~~居然是英文的，这设定很新鲜
就是江雪这俩人可怜的

谢谢楼上三位的支持！至于有才，实在是不敢当。用英文写是因为我是美国华裔，写起来英文比较上手...即使这样，里面也犯了两个typos.
江雪俩人是很可怜。不知道为什么，大家都喜欢虐他俩...以后试试写甜文。