Warm, slightly rough fingertips landed against his neck. Gu Yun’s skin flared with burning pain, hot and stinging.
He wanted to step back again.
Lin Yue withdrew his hand, rubbing the dried blood he had scraped off between two fingers. The blood crumbled into red powder and drifted soundlessly to the ground.
“Are you hurt, wife?” he asked.
Gu Yun replied, “I… yes.”
Lin Yue said, “You’ve always hated making me worry. That temper of yours…” He let out a long breath, his expression deeply helpless.
Jailer Feng remarked, “The young lady simply doesn’t understand these things. Just explain it to her properly. You mustn’t be too harsh.”
Lin Yue cupped his hands politely. “Many thanks for the reminder, Jailer Feng.”
Only then did Jailer Feng leave with his men.
Lin Yue turned to Gu Yun. “Let’s go back.”
The lights gradually dimmed from bright to dark. The sound of the curfew gong rang out. By the time the two of them had fully left the county town along the main road, curfew had begun.
The old city gates were pushed shut by two gate guards working together.
With a thunderous clang, the surrounding wilderness fell deathly silent. Birds startled into flight, and the distant barking of dogs became especially clear against the quiet.
Gu Yun held his breath and listened to the sound of Lin Yue’s footsteps.
Steady. Calm.
Gu Yun was certain the other man had guessed something, yet he asked nothing. It felt as though a sword hung suspended above his head, leaving him trembling with fear, terrified that at any moment it would come crashing down and skewer him from crown to toe.
He hated this feeling of oppression.
Licking his cracked lips, he wanted to grab hold of Lin Yue and demand to know exactly what he had guessed. His hand stretched out, but just before touching him, his fingers curled slightly, and he withdrew it once more.
Even if he asked and received an answer, what then?
What was he supposed to do afterwards?
He ought to prepare responses for whatever suspicions Lin Yue might have formed.
Dead men could not speak. So long as there were no flaws in his explanation, Lin Yue would never know that he had killed Zhao Shuilai.
Hitting someone could be admitted. Killing someone could not.
The severity of those two acts was entirely different. Not everyone could accept a criminal, especially one so calm after committing murder.
Gu Yun understood all too clearly just how much he needed Lin Yue. Precisely because of that, he could not allow the other man to cast him aside over this matter.
Lost in thought all the way back, he failed to notice they had already arrived and walked straight into Lin Yue.
Lin Yue let out a muffled grunt. Turning around, he caught hold of Gu Yun’s shoulder.
“What are you daydreaming about?”
Without the cover of trees or shadows, the bright moonlight fell clearly across him.
Gu Yun lifted his head and could see Lin Yue’s expression perfectly well.
As calm as ever.
Gu Yun had more or less prepared his responses already. He had settled on a plan in his heart: unless Lin Yue directly questioned him, he would continue pretending to be an innocent fool completely unaware that the other man had already guessed something, and he would absolutely never speak first.
So, hearing the question, he simply shook his head. “I was wondering whether that Zhao Shuilai might come trouble us again.”
Lin Yue released him. “I asked Jailer Feng to warn him. Logically speaking, he shouldn’t come looking for trouble again.”
Gu Yun nodded. “That’s good.”
Lin Yue said, “Give me my inner robe. I’m going to bathe in the pool. I’m covered in sweat.”
After a pause, he added, “You’re coming with me.”
Gu Yun untied Lin Yue’s inner robe and handed it over, then slowly followed him to the pool. Lin Yue removed his clothes and bathed by the water’s edge.
Meanwhile, Gu Yun washed his hands, feet, and face, then chewed on a willow twig to rinse his mouth. Afterwards, he carried Lin Yue’s discarded clothes over to the place where people usually washed laundry and carefully began scrubbing them.
He had no tools for washing clothes, nor any wood ash, soap pods, or similar things. He could only rub them clean by hand. It did not matter if the stains remained; as long as the sweat and dust were washed away, it was enough.
Lin Yue liked cleanliness. Even though he worked manual labour, his clothes were not especially filthy.
After washing them, Gu Yun wrung the clothes dry and folded them neatly one by one.
The outer trousers and straight-crotch trousers had not been washed. Only the outside was dirty, while the inside had not been soaked with sweat, so they could still be worn for now. Once the inner trousers dried after the next bath, they could then be alternated and washed.
Fortunately, the weather had already begun cooling, and both the inner and outer trousers were long. Otherwise, he would have been forced to wear only the outer trousers the whole time, which would have been terribly inconvenient.
The water was far too cold.
By the time he finished, Gu Yun’s hands had gone numb. From fingertips to knuckles, even his palms and the backs of his hands had turned red.
In contrast, however, the burns left by the candle wax had turned pale white. Perhaps because of the cold, they did not hurt.
He stood up, clasped his hands together, rubbing them while softly breathing warm air against them.
Nearby, the sound of water ceased.
Turning his head, Gu Yun saw that Lin Yue had finished bathing. His long wet hair hung loose, dripping water that flowed down the lines of his young, upright body.
Lin Yue wrung as much water from his hair as he could, biting down on the hair tie between his teeth. His shoulders and back stretched open as his fingers acted like a comb, gathering and smoothing his hair before tying it up in a few swift motions.
Once he was certain his hair would no longer interfere with dressing, he bent down to pick up his clothes.
Throughout the entire process, Gu Yun could clearly see the man’s excessively striking masculine features, as well as the muscles shifting beneath his skin with every movement.
From top to bottom, Lin Yue possessed muscle everywhere a man ought to have muscle, each line smooth and beautifully proportioned. In modern times, with even the slightest suggestive display, he would have become an absurdly famous streamer overnight.
When he bent over, he resembled a mountain, casting a broad shadow across the weed-covered ground.
As another man, Gu Yun felt an overwhelming sense of pressure. Lowering his head to look at himself, he seriously suspected that if he ever fought Lin Yue head-on, he would be beaten to death within a minute.
Would Lin Yue really not beat him to death if he discovered the truth?
The thought burst into Gu Yun’s mind so suddenly that cold sweat broke out all over him.
He had already been very obedient around Lin Yue before. Now he became even more obedient, meek as a quail.
After dressing himself, Lin Yue untied his hair tie once more and strode over on long legs, carrying with him the damp scent of water.
“Husband…” Gu Yun called weakly, almost instinctively.
Lin Yue’s gaze swept once across Gu Yun’s reddened hands and the freshly washed clothes. Picking up the clothes, he turned and walked away.
Gu Yun hurried after him.
After walking for some distance, just as they were nearing their sleeping place, Lin Yue suddenly stuffed the clothes back into Gu Yun’s arms.
“You go back first.”
Gu Yun asked, “Where are you going?”
“I’ll be back soon.”
Having said that, Lin Yue left swiftly.
Gu Yun had no choice but to return alone to the space beneath the bridge and wait for him.
Yet before long, restlessness began to gnaw at him. He climbed onto the bridge, rose onto his toes, and peered into the distance in every direction.
Empty. There was nobody there.
Gu Yun tugged unconsciously at his sleeves.
The cool night wind blew through the thin inner robe and clung tightly to his skin, chilling his whole body.
Unable to bear it, he wrapped his arms around himself and crouched down. Curling himself smaller reduced the loss of warmth, and gradually his body began to heat up again.
He shifted slightly, wanting to warm himself faster, but at that very moment, his knee pressed against his chest, and sharp pain instantly spread from the point of contact.
Gu Yun sucked in a breath and straightened abruptly, pressing a hand against the painful area.
Only then did he belatedly remember that Zhao Shuilai had punched him in the chest several times.
Earlier, all his focus had been on disposing of the corpse, causing him to completely overlook the injury.
What did it look like now?
Had it bruised purple? Or blackened?
Since he could still move around normally, he probably had not injured any internal organs or broken any bones.
Gu Yun tugged open his collar, intending to inspect the wound.
Yet just as he pulled it open, before he could even lower his eyes to look, Lin Yue returned.
And he had brought back an enormous bundle of dry firewood.
Gu Yun hurriedly closed his clothes and went over to him. “Where did you gather so much firewood? There’s loads of it!”
As he spoke, he pulled away the thin dry branches trailing against the ground and threatening to fall loose.
Lin Yue replied, “Bought it.”
“What?!”
“Bought it from a nearby farming household.”
Gu Yun very nearly lost his temper on the spot.
Just look at us. Are we people who can afford to spend money on this sort of thing?
Firewood was not exactly scattered all over the mountains, but if one searched carefully and avoided people, it could always be found. Besides, even without it, it was not as though the weather was particularly cold yet.
Among the seven necessities of life, firewood ranked first precisely because everything depended on it: burning, roasting, cooking, boiling.
Yet in the Xuan Dynasty, much like certain dynasties of ancient China, trees could not be chopped down at will. One needed official permission to cut firewood. Ordinary people survived by gathering fallen branches in the mountains, supplemented with grain stalks and root remnants from farming to use as fuel.
Gu Yun had no idea how much a bundle of firewood cost, but judging by its weight of at least twenty or thirty jin, there was no way it could be cheaper than a bowl of porridge or a flatbread.
Suppressing his irritation, he asked painfully, “How much did it cost?”
Lin Yue merely shook his head lightly. “We’ll earn it back.”
Gu Yun stared at him. “You spent your entire day’s wages on this?”
Carrying the firewood beneath the bridge, Lin Yue stacked it neatly, then took out a handful of dried leaves and a fire striker before building a fire.
The flames crackled and leapt high into the air. Lin Yue gestured for Gu Yun to sit down, then picked out several clean, sturdy branches, drove them into the mud, shook out the damp clothes, and hung them up one by one beside the fire to dry.
Still displeased that he had not answered him, Gu Yun sat as told, his eyes following every one of Lin Yue’s movements.
Once Lin Yue had finished and sat down beside him, Gu Yun slowly edged closer and lightly nudged his foot.
“Aren’t you going to answer me?”
Lin Yue drew a folded green leaf from his sleeve. The inner robe he was wearing had no sleeve pocket, and Gu Yun had no idea how he had tucked the leaf inside.
He unfolded it. Inside was a lump of crushed green herb paste, sticky and carrying a faint bitter fragrance.
“Hand,” Lin Yue said.
“What’s this?” Gu Yun asked.
“Bitter grass.”
Bitter grass?
Gu Yun sniffed it and looked closer, eventually recognising it as mugwort. So bitter grass was simply another name for mugwort.
Lin Yue said, “The family selling the firewood planted some bitter grass. They harvested one crop during summer, but now, at the end of autumn, some fresh shoots have sprouted again. I asked them for a little together with the firewood. Ten wen altogether.”
Gu Yun’s lips trembled.
“I know we’re spending more than we earn right now. Don’t worry, I already have a way to deal with it. If I can settle Jailer Feng’s matter, we should even be able to get a decent sum out of it and rent a cheap room. We won’t need to sleep rough anymore.”
Lin Yue caught hold of his wrist and pulled both hands over. Using his fingertips, he spread the bitter grass paste gently across the burns.
The instant it touched the wounds, Gu Yun hissed.
“Bear with it,” Lin Yue said, continuing to apply the medicine. There was only a small amount of the herb paste, but he used it carefully, just enough to cover the wounds evenly.
Gu Yun raised his hands and sniffed them. The mugwort smell was so strong it assaulted his nose. With visible distaste, he tucked his hands behind his back.
Lin Yue laughed softly.
Gu Yun realised the gesture had been somewhat childish and awkwardly brought his hands back out again.
Lin Yue’s laughter deepened, sounding openly amused.
Gu Yun glared at him. “About Jailer Feng replacing that prisoner. Do you really have a solution?”
“Yes.”
“He said the prisoner only committed some minor offence. Do you believe him?”
“What difference does believing him make?” Lin Yue replied. “Whether it’s true or not, I still need to come up with an idea. He lacks ideas, we lack money. Everybody wins.”
Gu Yun hesitated for a moment. “But…”
“You were perfectly capable of dealing with Zhao Shuilai. Why hesitate over this?”
Gu Yun looked at him in near horror.
“Did I say something wrong?” Warm breath brushed against his ear. Lin Yue leaned sideways, lowering his head until he was extremely close as he spoke.
Gooseflesh erupted all over Gu Yun’s body. He inhaled sharply and tried to lean further away, turning his head aside as well.
But he had forgotten he was not holding a ruler this time. Even after retreating, the distance was still too short. As he turned, his nose brushed directly against Lin Yue’s.
Those dark phoenix eyes seemed to sink straight into his heart, dragging every hidden shadow within him out into the open.
At last, the probing had come.
Gu Yun forced himself calm and whispered, “I never even touched Zhao Shuilai. With my strength, if I’d really gone against him, I’d have been the one dead. How could I possibly attack him?”
“Then where did the injuries and blood come from?” Lin Yue asked.
“When you told me to find somewhere to hide, things were chaotic. I knocked into someone and their lantern broke. Wax dripped onto my hands. The blood probably got onto me then, when my skin split.”
“Really?”
They were too close. Their breaths tangled together, warm and humid.
Gu Yun blinked hard, squeezing out a few tears with enormous effort. “Husband… you don’t believe me?”
Lin Yue did not answer.
Tears dampened Gu Yun’s cheeks. He leaned closer still, pressing his cheek lightly against the tip of Lin Yue’s nose.
“Husband, please believe me…”
His eyes widened suddenly, the final syllable shooting sharply upwards.
Lin Yue tilted his head slightly and kissed him.
