Sep. 9th, 2022 at 2:08 PM
As the moon hung in the middle of the sky, not long after Zhongli Zixi had fallen asleep, Ye Jun quietly turned over on the bed and got up. But Zhongli Zixi was immediately woken by his soft movement. When Ye Jun sensed that he was awake, he went back to lying down.
Seeing that nothing was wrong, Zhongli Zixi relaxed and went to sleep, but he had only been asleep for a short time when Ye Jun sneakily got up again, and he was roused once again. He was about to ask him what was wrong, but Ye Jun rolled back to sleep.
This was thus repeated three or four times, and Zhongli Zixi’s patience was wearing thin. He waited until Ye Jun to once again tried to quietly get down from the bed, and grabbed him by the wrist, pushing down his anger as he asked: “What on earth are you doing?”
Ye Jun answered: “This subordinate doesn’t deserve to sleep in the same bed as Young Master, so naturally I will go to the place this subordinate should go.”
Ye Jun’s custom was to not use honorifics when the time wasn’t serious. There was nothing major going on at present, but he was being so unfamiliar, so Zhongli Zixi knew something that he couldn’t solve was gnawing at him.
“Just recuperate in peace, don’t care about those things.” Zhongli Zixi spoke impatiently.
Ye Jun agreed and obediently stopped moving. Zhongli Zixi had been bothered by him for half the night, so now that there was finally some peace and quiet, he fell into a deep sleep.
When he woke up the next day, Ye Jun’s spot was already empty.
Zhongli Zixi remembered that he was still injured, yet he didn’t know what was good for him, and felt a few traces of anger in his heart.
He didn’t have much time to delay, and was urged by a servant girl to go and help Master Fang Si expel his gu. When he finished the process, a group of Fang Si’s brothers crowded in. The ten people that came lined up and waited for him to treat them, and he was busy until noon, when he finally found the time to go to the rear courtyard and take a break.
Zhongli Zixi personally finished making the medicine, shook the pills in his hand, and called out: “Ye Jun.”
Ye Jun answered by kneeling in front of him, but he was knocked off balance when he landed. He immediately straightened his body and respectfully knelt down straight.
It had been a long time since Zhongli Zixi last saw Ye Jun kneel in such a disciplined manner. Ye Jun actually very rarely made mistakes, and he was rarely punished. The last time he was punished had already been several years ago, and the reason had been that Ye Jun had reported to him the Eldest Young Master’s movements without permission.
He didn’t want to hear a single word about news like who the Eldest Young Master had spent a spring night with.
Actually, it wasn’t that Ye Jun had done wrong, but the Second Young Master didn’t need a reason to take his anger out on someone.
“Don’t meddle in things you shouldn’t care about, and don’t watch people you shouldn’t watch.” This had been his warning at that time, so later regardless of what the Eldest Young Master did, Ye Jun wouldn’t bring it up to him again.
While the matter of the Eldest Young Master contacting outsiders to rebel against Zhongli Court had blindsided him, it hadn’t surprised Ye Jun, so he must have known about it beforehand.
What was Ye Jun thinking as he just looked on unfeelingly while he headed towards destruction, and watched while his sincerity was trampled underfoot by the Eldest Young Master?
He must have found it funny, right?
The anger that had welled up in Zhongli Zixi just a moment ago suddenly cooled, and he felt a bit exhausted. He held the medicine bowl and asked: “Did you just remember the difference between a superior and a subordinate today?”
“This subordinate knows he was wrong.” Ye Jun lowered his head.
Zhongli Zixi handed him the bowl of medicine. Ye Jun took it with both hands and downed it in one gulp, then retreated a step and said: “Thank you, Young Master, this subordinate will leave.”
“Wait!” Zhongli Zixi blurted out.
“Does the Young Master still have something to say?” Ye Jun stopped walking, and turned his head to ask.
The man stayed, but he also didn’t know what to say. Ye Jun tilted his head and waited for orders without saying a word. In the past, it was Ye Jun who talked a lot, he had never worried about this, but now that Ye Jun was silent, it was very awkward for a moment.
Both sides were in a wordless deadlock for a short time, and Zhongli Zixi was forced to wave his hand and say: “Forget it, you can go back.”
For the next few days, Zhongli Zixi could barely catch a glimpse of Ye Jun’s figure.
When he was forcefully called over, he didn’t say a single word and just stood there blankly.
Zhongli Zixi was sullen for a few days, feeling like something was not quite right.
Clearly Ye Jun was the one splitting hairs over his own mistake, so why did it feel like the person being left out in the cold was actually Zhongli Zixi?
Could it be that he wants me to get off my high horse and go coax him? Wouldn’t I be the one losing out, then?
Ye Jun stubbornly and rigorously stuck to the rules. Zhongli Zixi tried to vent his anger, but it was like he was hitting cotton, and he hated it so much it made his teeth itch a little.
Zhongli Zixi gnashed his teeth as he boiled the medicine, then shouted for Ye Jun to come drink.
Seeing Ye Jun kneeling in front of him with his head lowered, he couldn’t help but mutter: After recovering for these few days, his injuries should have already gotten better, so why has his complexion still not improved?
He lifted his hand, wanting to reach out and check his pulse, but in an extremely rare move Ye Jun leaned away to avoid him.
Zhongli Zixi frowned: “Don’t avoid me.”
Ye Jun: “Yes.”
Zhongli Zixi checked his wrist, and felt it was a little hot, he then turned to check his forehead and sure enough, his temperature was extremely high.
“…..You have a fever.” Zhongli Zixi said.
Ye Jun didn’t answer, he seemed to be clearly aware of his own condition.
Zhongli Zixi asked again: “How long?”
Ye Jun spoke: “Three days.”
Three days, if he counted the time, then he’d had a fever from the day after he saw Ze Que. The nameless fire in the bottom of Zhongli Zixi’s heart came back again, and he spoke in annoyance: “Ye Jun, you have never mistakenly guessed my thoughts. You should very well know that what I want now is for you to behave and lie down on the bed to recuperate, not for you to run around and act out respectful etiquette like this.”
Ye Jun lowered his head even deeper while kneeling: “This subordinate understands.”
“Then what were you trying to do these past few days when you weren’t eating or resting properly?” Zhongli Zixi grabbed him by the roots of the hair and forced him to lift his head and meet his gaze, gritting his teeth, “Were you acting spoiled with me?”
Ye Jun blinked his eyes while looking at him, in a bit of a momentary daze. Zhongli Zixi suddenly felt that he seemed to have been too cruel, he clearly didn’t want to punish nor reproach Ye Jun, and he shouldn’t create even more misunderstandings while he was feeling down, but then he heard Ye Jun speak in shock: “Young Master, are you flirting with this subordinate?”
How did he arrive at this conclusion?! The fire of Zhongli Zixi’s anger had oil poured over it, and he angrily said: “Is there something wrong with you? Of course I——”
Ye Jun immediately lowered his head and kowtowed: “This subordinate was wrong, please punish me, Young Master.”
Zhongli Zixi quickly changed his tune, and the tail end of his words rose lightly: “Of course I’m flirting with you.”
Zhongli Zixi had already exploded with anger, but he still kept smiling——These were the first words Ye Jun had spoken in his previous style since a few days ago, and he absolutely couldn’t scare him. Although the words had been truly outrageous, he really missed that outrageous Ye Jun to the point of tears.
Ye Jun was genuinely scared by this.
The matter of Ze Que escaping his net had really frustrated him. Unlike ordinary people he didn’t rely on one’s skin-deep, external appearance to distinguish people, but rather on their breath and the flow of their veins, so it was absolutely impossible for him to have made a mistake and gotten the wrong person, and it was impossible for him to have killed some other person who changed their appearance to become Ze Que and die in his stead. Aside from Ze Que really having died and then come back to life, he really couldn’t find another explanation.
But this fact was unimaginable and completely shook his three views. In addition to that, he had recently fought with Ye Xiao, and he also couldn’t accurately assess Ye Xiao’s strength. As a result, now Ye Jun was questioning his own judgement ability more and more, and he didn’t dare confidently set up a trap and watch the Second Young Master fall for it as he had done before.
Ye Jun had already lost the Second Young Master’s trust, so he didn’t dare have those improper, line-crossing thoughts anymore. He just wanted to properly keep his life in the future and spend his life silently watching over the Second Young Master, that was all.
How could he have imagined that, in these few short days, the outwardly quiet and unmoved Second Young Master would suddenly speak such an ambiguous sentence to him, like thunderclap breaking through the sky.
Ye Jun sadly thought: As expected, I don’t even understand a single thing about this world.
Zhongli Zixi ordered someone to help him back to bed, and he also sent the medicine back, changed the prescription, and decocted it again.
After finishing giving out instructions, he returned to the room. Seeing Ye Jun stiffly laying on the bed, he sat down on the side of the bed and asked: “You understand what you need to do now, right? You don’t need me to tell you again?”
Ye Jun spoke in a low voice: “This subordinate has betrayed the Young Master’s hopes, I don’t dare to speculate on Master’s intentions.”
Zhongli Zixi sighed faintly, and his heart hurt for a moment. Ye Jun being so fearful and avoidant of this was ultimately due to Zhongli Zixi’s own previous unpredictable temperament.
He also didn’t know how to appease Ye Jun, and saying something like “Don’t mind what happened with Ze Que, just treat it as if nothing happened” was just a superficial consolation, even he himself wouldn’t believe those words, so he changed the topic and asked: “What about you, then? What do you want?”
“To kiss Young Master.” Ye Jun blurted out.
Zhongli Zixi’s face kept smiling as he thought: You’re fucking addicted, aren’t you?
Ye Jun regretted speaking, immediately turning over and getting up, keeling as he begged for forgiveness: “This subordinate should die.”
“Don’t move.” After a fierce ideological struggle, Zhongli Zixi held Ye Jun and moved close, then lightly touched Ye Jun’s cheek with the tip of his nose. As far as he was concerned, this was already a pure kiss.
Ye Jun was originally muddle-headed form the fever, but found that the temperature of his cheek could actually still continue to rise a bit.
He suspected that he’d gone delirious from the fever, to the extent that hallucinations began appearing before his eyes.
“I’m afraid you won’t believe me if I just say it…..” Zhongli Zixi forced himself to appear calm, sitting up straight with a tense and expressionless face, “I just want to let you know….. it’s actually not as terrible as you think.”
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