Sep. 18th, 2022 at 3:13 PM
With the first rays of the morning sun, a servant girl came to ask Young Master Yan for the medicine, and Zhongli Zixi agreed and followed after her. Ye Jun was in a much better condition today, so he got out of bed to see the Young Master out the door.
As he stepped out of the threshold, he discovered that annoying Ze Que in the trees outside of the courtyard.
Ye Jun was in a bad mood for no reason.
“Go back to rest first, you don’t need to send me out.” Zhongli Zixi turned his head to tell him.
“Young Master.” Ye Jun suddenly leaned close to him, quietly whispering next to his ear, “Help me see if my fever has gone down or not.”
When Zhongli Zixi heard this, he lifted his hand and extended his knuckles, pressing them against the centre of his brow, “Oh, it seems like it’s already gone down…..”
Ye Jun shook his head: “Young Master, human fingers are more rough than other parts of the body, sometimes they can’t make out differences in temperature.”
Zhongli Zixi doubted: “Really?”
Ye Jun said: “You need to use your forehead to see.”
That method indeed existed as well, so Zhongli Zixi didn’t doubt him. He lifted his hand to push aside the strands of hair on Ye Jun’s forehead, and placed his other hand on the back of his head to push down on the person that was slightly taller than himself, then lightly pressed against his forehead. He paused for a moment, then concluded: “It’s really gone down.”
At this moment, the two people were standing under the veranda, and Ye Jun had his back to the courtyard. To someone looking from the outside, it would seem as though the Second Young Master had actively sought a kiss from Ye Jun.
Soon after, a satisfied Ye Jun heard a “thump” from the tree branches outside of the courtyard as something fell to the ground.
Hearing this sound, the Second Young Master looked at Ye Jun’s crafty, wicked smile again and immediately realised what was going on.
“You…..” The Second Young Master sighed helplessly, “You’re really getting pettier by the day.”
As the season entered into early summer, it was the time for prolonged, light showers of rain. Recently, Ye Jun had gradually been paying the price for the schemes he’d played to trap the Second Young Master.
Ye Jun had been astonishingly lucky since he was a child, as if heaven itself was caring for him. Even during those days at the Nightrunner where he waited for dawn with his head resting on a spear1 he’d hardly ever been injured. Afterwards, when he followed the Second Young Master, every time he encountered a fight, the vast majority of the time it was facing an enemy that was so weak it was as easy as cutting vegetables, there were only one or two times where the opponent was too strong, so it was not his turn to struggle. He was used to living like a prince, so now he couldn’t take a beating at all.
Nowadays, these deep scars on his chest would ache incessantly on rainy days. On the first few days of that sharp pain, he would grit his teeth and endure, thinking it would pass, but how could he know he would have endless days of suffering in the future?
Ye Jun didn’t want to bother his Master, but the pain became truly terrible at midnight, and he couldn’t help but put his hands over his chest and curl into a ball. Zhongli Zixi had always been a light sleeper, so he woke up when he heard the abnormally heavy breathing of the person next to him, and when he saw his pale face with the help of the cold moonlight, he hurriedly asked: “Are your wounds hurting again?”
Ye Jun weakly confirmed it.
Zhongli Zixi was very familiar with the situation, so he turned over and got up: “It’ll be like that on cloudy and rainy days, I will boil some hot water and apply it for you, it will feel much better.”
Ye Jun had been enduring for many days, and his reactions were already a little sluggish, so he didn’t have time to reply before he left. He lay in a daze for a while before coming to his senses and getting up: No, how could I let the Young Master wait on me?
Ye Jun got down on the ground, tried to straighten up, and groped about the wall as he searched for the way out. He had only walked a few steps when he overtook his Master, who was leaning on his crutches as he limped his way to the kitchen.
It had really taken him a very long time to walk such a tiny distance.
Ye Jun suddenly realised how much the Young Master’s arm and leg hindered him now, and his heart suddenly felt a little sore.
“Young Master.” Ye Jun called out.
Ye Jun had always moved quietly, and the sudden sound in the quiet of the deep night scared Zhongli Zixi and caused his feet to slip. Ye Jun softly held him up by the waist, steadying him, and then couldn’t help but take advantage of the situation and drew him into his own embrace.
Zhongli Zixi bumped into his chest and immediately tensed up: “Did I hit your wounds? Are you alright?”
Ye Jun didn’t answer those questions, but asked him in a low voice: “Young Master….. Aren’t you hurting?”
“What?” Zhongli Zixi didn’t understand.
Zhongli Zixi was only wearing a light unlined garment, so when Ye Jun wrapped his arms around him and lightly stroked his back, he could clearly feel the criss-crossing wounds through the clothes. These scars were all left behind during the ten years the Young Master spent at the Wangsheng Palace, where he experienced almost all of the torture and punishments in the world. From childhood to his early twenties, the most carefree period of time for others, his Young Master had instead gone through all kinds of cruel tortures.
Ye Jun still remembered that the most shocking, ghastly thing for him was seeing the circle of scars all along the Young Master’s cheeks, as if someone had cut his face and stitched it back together. This had only happened because, at Wangsheng Palace, the Second Hall’s Yama Chu Jiangjun’s daughter, Chu Yan, had inadvertently praised him, saying he was born good-looking, and Chu Jiangjun blamed him for trying to charm the master, so he wanted to have his skin peeled off. Afterwards, it was only thanks to Chu Yan’s various pleas that he was luckily able to escape this calamity.
When he finally crawled out of that mudpit, he paid a huge price to climb to the top, but when he was merely a step away from seizing power over the whole country he was still inexplicably, ruthlessly pushed into the abyss by the only person he truly loved from the bottom of his heart.
Ye Jun held his knuckles and stroked upwards. Those fingers exposed by the cuff of his shirt were still normal, if a little pale, but from the palm down to the wrist the bones inside had been crushed and shattered, then carelessly healed, so now they were deformed and ugly, making one afraid when seeing them.
That was his most important right hand, which once held a sword and wrote the most beautiful calligraphy script.
Ye Jun didn’t dare to think about how much suffering he had actually endured, he didn’t even understand how he had managed to survive.
Oh, my Young Master, maybe you really don’t resent, hate, get angry, or go mad.
But don’t tell me it doesn’t hurt?
Ye Jun tightened the hand hugging Zhongli Zixi’s waist more and more, lowering his head and burying it in his neck, and lightly covered the Young Master’s right wrist with his other hand, wrapping up those scars which were unbearable to look at: “Young Master, here….. doesn’t it hurt?”
Zhongli Zixi knew what he meant, and smiled calmly: “How could it not hurt?”
The pain from these scars, healed and unhealed, had penetrated into his bones and torn open his heart, how could he possibly get used to it?
He recovered and spoke softly again: “But what is there to this small pain?”
Ye Jun silently hugged the Young Master’s thin body, finding he was actually so powerless, so helpless, like his hands were tied but he couldn’t do anything about it.
Zhongli Zixi lightly patted his head, as if he was the one who should receive consolation.
“Ye Jun, ah.” Zhongli Zixi was a little nervous, and couldn’t help but ask about the doubt that had been gnawing at his heart, “The matter of my brother deserting and betraying me, you knew about it beforehand, right? What were you thinking at the time?”
Ye Jun replied without thinking: “It would be good it if were me.”
Zhongli Zixi was stunned.
Ye Jun’s voice was muffled as he spoke, buried in his Young Master’s neck: “It would be good if the most important place in your heart wasn’t the Eldest Young Master, but rather me. It would be good if you could give me a little bit of your tenderness. If it were me, you would never have to experience this suffering, but unfortunately I met you too late, and you are a very single-minded person.”
Zhongli Zixi was silent for a long time.
The shadow guard should already be used to this endless waiting, but Ye Jun suddenly couldn’t wait anymore: “Young Master?”
“….. yeah, I realised long ago, he is my weak spot, but you are my armour.” Zhongli Zixi lifted his hands and hugged Ye Jun back, cautiously asking: “If I didn’t have a weak spot, and only had armour, would I….. not have to get hurt again?”
Ye Jun suddenly lifted his head, pleasantly surprised: “Ai, Young Master, are you confessing to me?”
“……” Zhongli Zixi got a little angry, you could just agree, why do you insist on saying this? So he defended himself, “Clearly it was you who confessed first.”
“I was talking about loyalty, where did your mind go to?” Ye Jun grinned wickedly, leaning closer and interrogating him, “So, what you said was really a confession?”
Zhongli Zixi woud not easily give in: “Of course not!”
Ye Jun sighed and sniffed: “Sigh, I was the one who thought my love was being reciprocated, I also feel like the Young Master definitely doesn’t like me, so I will stay farther away from the Young Master in the future.”
“……” Zhongli Zixi held back a hundred thousand profanities in his mind, gritting his teeth, “Then it’s a confession, okay! If you don’t want to….. then I’ll be too ashamed, so you better kill yourself. I’ll just take Ze Que as my new guard, he’ll surely be very happy.”
Ye Jun couldn’t laugh any more: “Young Master, how could you do that? You actually put in another man’s name when confessing, are you really angry at me?”
Zhongli Zixi was very innocent, and if he looked too much at Ye Jun’s constant, easy-going smile he always felt like he was being set-up. It was a rare opportunity for him to find that recently, Ye Jun had really been fussing over every minor thing concerning Ze Que, so wouldn’t he be at a loss if he didn’t take advantage of that?
Surprisingly, the result had been so outstanding, so he’ll continue using it next time.
Ye Jun was indignant as he thought, this Ze Que is really in the way, why hasn’t that stupid prick Eldest Young Master come to pick up this mentally challenged person already?
Tomorrow he would just bundle him up and directly send him away.
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