rocky41_7

As if spilling some hard-won secret into the closeness between them, he [Zhu] said, low, "Learn to want something for yourself, Ma Xiuying. Not what someone says you should want. Not what you think you should want. Don't go through life only thinking of duty. When all we have are these brief spans between our nonexistences, why not make the most of the life you're living now? The price is worth it."
...
But in the same instant she saw the raw truth of him, she realized that was all it was: something that was true for him. A man could want anything the world offered and have a chance, no matter how small, of achieving it.
...
She rose to leave. "Maybe all your suffering is worth whatever it is you want to achieve," she said bitterly. "But mine wouldn't be."

It couldn't have been real--it was absurd to think a man could feel for a woman--but somehow it was enough to dissolve her anger in a tide of pain. It hurt so much she gasped with it. Stop doing this to me, she thought, anguished, as she turned and fled. Don't make me want to want.

Zhu spoke calmly, but beneath the surface Ma sensed a shivering horror. "Ma Xiuying. Do you see something here you want?"
...
With a sensation of vertiginous terror, Ma felt the rigid pattern of her future falling away, until all that was left was the blankness of pure possibility. She took Zhu's small, calloused hand and felt its warmth flow into her until the hollow space of her chest blazed with everything she'd never let herself feel. She was yielding to it, being consumed by it, and it was the most beautiful and frightening thing she'd ever felt. She wanted. She wanted everything Zhu was offering with that promise of difference.
... 
She said, "Yes."

[Zhu] groped at Ma's waist for the tie that held her dress closed. It would only take a tug to undo, even for an awkwardly left-handed person. "You know, Yingzi," she said huskily. "I know how the business of rain and clouds works well enough, but I've never actually done it. I suppose we could figure it out together, if you wanted."

In answer, Ma put her hand over Zhu's and pulled, and her dress fell open. Underneath she was gorgeous and glowing and sweating, and as she helped Zhu work her dress over her shoulders she said, smiling, "I want it."