On the wedding bed, Jian Ru quietly grabbed a small handful of dried fruits scattered by the bedside: red dates, peanuts, and the like. The bed curtains had been drawn low, but the red candles were still burning, and through the dim light he could vaguely see the two wedding robes hanging on the clothes rack outside.
It was late at night, very quiet. Occasionally, a few barks of dogs could be heard in the distance, quickly fading away again. The person lying beside him was also quiet. Only the faint sound of breathing could be heard.
Their shoulders weren’t touching, but the distance between them was close, so close that Jian Ru could feel the other person’s body heat seeping through the thin inner garments.
A faint, lingering fragrance drifted into his nose, the same incense he had smelled that day in the estate when he first met the Second Young Master.
Jian Ru’s gaze moved from the two wedding robes to the red candle on the other side. He stared at the flame, thinking he should probably get up and extinguish it, so he quietly loosened the things he had been holding; just as he was about to sit up, the person beside him shifted. Jian Ru sensed it immediately and instinctively tensed up.
But the Second Young Master only tugged the blanket and pulled it up slightly.
“Are you hot?” he asked. “My room is usually kept quite warm, and the quilt is thick.”
Jian Ru could feel the other’s gaze on him, but he was too shy to turn his head. Still staring straight at the canopy above, he answered softly, “It’s fine. I like it a bit warm.”
“That’s good,” the Second Young Master said.
After that exchange, the stiff atmosphere inside the bed curtains eased considerably.
“Did you eat? Are you hungry?” the Second Young Master asked again.
“I’m not hungry,” Jian Ru replied. “Aunt Jin already brought me food.”
“You’ve been busy all day. You must be tired.”
“I’m not tired. I look after seven mu of farmland at home. During the busy season, I leave before dawn and don’t come back until sunset. I just eat flatbread when I’m hungry and drink stream water when I’m thirsty… I’m used to it.”
At that, the Second Young Master said admiringly, “You’re very capable. I also have farmland, but my elder sister rents it out for me. I’ve never personally worked the fields even once.”
“You’re not the same as me,” Jian Ru answered. “You can read, and you know medicine. Farming isn’t something you should be doing.”
“There’s no such thing as what someone is or isn’t supposed to do,” the Second Young Master replied. “My mother said I was very mischievous when I was young, not as patient as my elder brother and sisters when it came to studying medicine. If I hadn’t been so often sick and unable to go out, so I had nothing to do but read medical books, maybe I would’ve become a very capable farmer by now.”
Hearing this, Jian Ru instinctively imagined the Second Young Master, fair-skinned and refined, standing under the blazing sun, sweating as he held a hoe and worked the fields.
No matter how he pictured it, it felt completely out of place, so he couldn’t help but laugh.
His laughter made the Second Young Master laugh as well, and Jian Ru finally turned to look at him. Inside the bed curtains, the light was hazy and soft. The Second Young Master’s smile was truly beautiful, his eyes curved, his lips slightly red, his teeth white. It almost made Jian Ru stare blankly.
He even felt the urge to reach out and touch the corner of that smile, but the moment he lifted his hand, he quickly came back to his senses and pulled it back.
The Second Young Master looked at him as well. His gaze briefly passed over the bright red sleeve of Jian Ru’s robe, as if remembering something.
“Back in the mountain cave,” he asked, “I wasn’t fully conscious from my illness, but I vaguely remember… you were wearing a wedding robe?”
At this, Jian Ru’s expression dimmed. He turned his face away and lowered his eyes, saying nothing.
The Second Young Master waited patiently. After a while, Jian Ru finally spoke.
“There was flooding in the village… I was thrown into the river to be offered as a bride to the River God.”
“I thought…” the Second Young Master was stunned, “you had fallen into the water like me…”
Jian Ru shook his head and sighed, then slowly, carefully explained everything about being forced into the river as a sacrifice, from the beginning to the end, including what happened after he returned to the estate. However, he did not mention that he had once liked Jiang Maocai.
Partly because he felt that given their current relationship, it was not appropriate to bring it up in front of the Second Young Master. And partly because he found it too embarrassing.
After hearing everything, the Second Young Master said angrily, “How utterly unjust! Instead of finding a way to control the floods, they harm innocent children from their own villages!”
He was so upset that he even coughed twice. Jian Ru was about to get up and pour him some water, but the Second Young Master instead asked, “Do you know where those two who ran away are now?”
“I don’t know,” Jian Ru replied, but…” he let out a cold laugh, “they’ll come back sooner or later.”
“Zhang Jiao’s family may be poor, but he never truly suffered. They don’t have much money, so just living outside and paying for meals three times a day will already give him enough trouble. And Zhang Jiao gets sick easily; every time he does, he needs a doctor and medicine. He also clings to people. No matter how capable Jiang Maocai is, he can’t possibly afford to keep supporting that.”
Without realizing it, Jian Ru spoke his true thoughts. There was a faint satisfaction in his tone as he said it, but after finishing, he suddenly realized he might have sounded unkind. He worried the Second Young Master might think badly of him, so he glanced carefully at his new husband’s expression, but… there was no sign of dislike, only a quiet sigh of relief.
“They will face the consequences of their actions sooner or later,” the Second Young Master said softly. “It’s fortunate that you survived such a great calamity. You will surely have good fortune in the future.”
Hearing that the Second Young Master didn’t mind his earlier words, Jian Ru quietly relaxed, as the young man spoke slowly again.
“Aunt Jin said you cried on the way from the village to the estate. Was it… because you couldn’t bear to leave?”
Jian Ru wasn’t sure if the Second Young Master had sensed something in his words, or what exactly “couldn’t bear to leave” referred to.
“I… I…” He stammered. At that moment, the blanket beside him rustled. With soft shuffling sounds, the warm body beside him turned over. Jian Ru turned to look and saw the Second Young Master lying on his side, facing him.
“From now on…” he said, “I will treat you well.”
The hand resting on the bedding was gently taken, clasped in the palm of a young man’s hand.
“Do you know my name?” The man beside him asked softly.
Jian Ru kept his eyes on the flickering candlelight outside the bed curtains and nodded. “You… you’re called Li Jintong.”
The Second Young Master asked again, “Then what should you call me?”
Jian Ru bit his lip, still unaccustomed to it. “Jin… Jintong.”
The Second Young Master seemed to smile. “That’ll do,” he said, though he still didn’t seem entirely satisfied. After a pause, he added, “And?”
Jian Ru wasn’t slow… he understood, so he called out, “Hu… husband.”
“Mm.” The Second Young Master responded.
Jian Ru shyly bit his lip. Just as he felt the hand holding his loosen, a faint emptiness rose in his chest, but in the next moment, the young man had already propped himself up on an elbow and leaned over him.
Jian Ru hurriedly pressed a hand against his chest, mumbling, “I… I’ll go extinguish the candle first…”
But the elbow supporting the Second Young Master didn’t seem to press very hard. Half his weight was already on Jian Ru, and Jian Ru couldn’t move at all.
At a moment like this, Jian Ru’s mind was in complete chaos. On one hand, he was still thinking about the candle that hadn’t been put out; on the other, all the things Aunt Jin had taught him during the day… so-called positions and embarrassing methods, all flashed messily through his mind.
He trembled slightly all over from nervousness, so mortified he felt close to tears.
The Second Young Master’s face was buried in the crook of his neck, his hot breath brushing against Jian Ru’s skin.
“Sorry,” his voice was a little hoarser than usual.
Jian Ru’s eyes, fixed on the candle flame, shifted slightly. He didn’t understand why the other suddenly apologized, but Li Jintong continued, “Tonight was supposed to…”
And with that, he stopped halfway through.
Unable to hold back any longer, Jian Ru turned his head slightly, trying to look at him, but the Second Young Master leaned close to his ear and said, “Go call someone…”
“…What?” Jian Ru still hadn’t understood when he suddenly felt the weight on him increase. Li Jintong went completely limp, collapsing onto him.
Jian Ru froze for a moment. Then, realizing what had happened, he hurriedly struggled to push him aside and lay him back down on the bed.
Only then did he see it clearly: Li Jintong, the Second Young Master, had his eyes tightly closed, his face flushed an abnormal red.
Once more, he had already fainted.
T.N: My poor boy is cockblocking himself :))
T.N: If you like his novel, you can read up to chapter 18 on my Patreon, with new updates coming every week!
Leave a Reply