Chapter 17

Gu Xiaodeng really wanted to know what had happened between Gu Jinyu and Gu Pinghan, but Gu Jinyu only said it was a “small friction.” Unable to make sense of it, Gu Xiaodeng simply sat down beside him to keep watch.

Gu Jinyu, seeming annoyed by his questions, turned the tables and asked about something Gu Xiaodeng was unclear on: “Have you gone to see that private school under construction?”

“How could I? Mother Consort only said I’d be going there to study next year too. I’m just as puzzled—so many things are murky and unclear.” Gu Xiaodeng scooted his chair even closer. “Jinyu, I’m so glad you came to find me. With you here, it’s like I have eyes, ears, and even wings now.”

Though injured, Gu Jinyu still sat with perfect posture. Hearing this, he finally looked down at Gu Xiaodeng and gave a soft laugh.

Gu Xiaodeng had a stomach full of things to say, but seeing his face made his heart uneasy: “I won’t bother you anymore. You should rest. You look so tired.”

“Not tired, and not bothered. Xiaodeng, you only need to ask for whatever you want. I will always help you.” Gu Jinyu leaned close to his ear and whispered, “I carry your life, and I also owe you my life. Even if they don’t acknowledge you, I will. Helping you is my lifelong duty.”

An isolated, helpless youth is easily moved. Reassurance comes with a single sentence; trust is built over a span of time. Gu Xiaodeng, caught within his circle, felt both tenderness and heartache: “What are you talking about? Look at you now, a wreck of a man, all broken and withered—you should be worrying about yourself! Do you need to sleep? Do you want to eat?”

“…That idiom ‘broken and withered’ isn’t used that way.”

Gu Xiaodeng wanted nothing more than to make him rest properly, so he tugged at his sleeve, half-herding, half-coaxing him to lie down flat: “Fine, fine, you’re the learned one, Young Master Big Scholar. Once you’re better, you can study with me again. When that happens, I’ll bombard you with questions until your mouth runs dry.”

He guided Gu Jinyu onto the bed boards, crouched at the head of the bed, and reached out to massage his temples, applying the same set of techniques he used to care for his adoptive father. His adoptive father often praised his hand strength and technique, saying a good massage during times of illness and pain helped him fall asleep early in comfort.

Gu Jinyu’s composure cracked: “Xiaodeng, what are you doing?”

Gu Xiaodeng was completely open: “Taking care of you. Let me rub it for you; I guarantee the bruises on your face will heal faster. In a few days, you’ll be a radiant, pristine snow lotus on a high peak again.”

“Why a lotus?” Gu Jinyu suspected he was being insulted.

“It’s just a feeling. You’re cold and beautiful.” Gu Xiaodeng pressed down his resisting right hand and spoke freely. “The first time I saw you, I thought you were good-looking, with a strong presence. No matter how amiable you were, you were still high and cold. Later, when I fished you out of the pool, you emerging from the water was like… like a lotus blossom rising from the water. It was breathtakingly stirring.”

Gu Xiaodeng, having finally waited for someone he could actually talk to, let his chatty nature erupt, pouring out words in a great, babbling torrent.

Gu Jinyu’s resistance crumbled amidst all that light chatter. He lay with his eyes open, watching him quietly, his ears filled with Deng’s chatter.

It seemed that, for him, everyone had a personified image. Zhu Mi was the stern Iron Door God. Ge Dongchen was sticky-sweet Sticky Candy. Guan Yunji was the sour-faced, arrogant Big Goose. Su Mingya was a Peerless Painting that stirred the heart and soul…

All the earlier comparisons were quite childish; only the last one grated on his ears: “Why is he a painting?”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s just my feeling. Just because you like paintings yourself doesn’t mean I can’t compare someone else to one.” Gu Xiaodeng huffed. “Now close your eyes, withered flower. Let me rub the space between your brows.”

Gu Jinyu frowned but cooperated with a smile: “Can I not be a flower? Xiaodeng, think of something else.”

“Oh!” Gu Xiaodeng thought about it seriously, and an idea flashed in his head. “Then do you want to be a big mountain or a big forest?”

Gu Jinyu opened his eyes. Gu Xiaodeng’s hand rested on his brow; his fingertip swept, his finger pad lightly brushing over his eyelashes. In that tiny, subtle detail, wild waves surged, imperceptibly stirring a great undercurrent.

Gu Xiaodeng sensed nothing and held nothing back, naturally and plainly piercing the hidden longing deep within his heart: “You prefer forests, right? Then from now on, Jinyu can be a forest. A forest is safe and vast, giving people a mysterious feeling of freedom, yet it’s also a little dangerous. Every tree grows so tall and big because of sunlight. But once the trees connect into a forest, the branches and leaves are so lush, so dense and tight, that sunlight can’t really shine through anymore. A forest can hide many things.”

Gu Jinyu’s mind went blank for a moment. He thought that Gu Xiaodeng, simply by having seen the paintings in his study, had confirmed his preferences without the slightest hesitation. What others couldn’t see through, he somehow perceived the essence behind the appearance.

For him, the forest was a symbol of freedom, with no knowing when it might be attained, and also a symbol of an indelible dark shadow. It was a private thing he kept hidden. He didn’t understand why someone, relying on some so-called feeling, could repeatedly strike straight at a person’s soul. He didn’t want to be seen through so effortlessly. The sudden surge of emotion in the depths of his heart was thus entirely dismissed as aversion.

Gu Xiaodeng’s little mouth was still chattering away enthusiastically when Gu Jinyu pushed him away and resolutely got up, his arm in a sling, ready to head outside and leave.

“Did I upset you? Did you just remember something you need to go back and handle?” Gu Xiaodeng hopped around beside him, darting left and right, unwilling to let him leave.

Gu Jinyu thought to himself, aren’t you quite perceptive? How can you not feel my displeasure and irritation right now? But he believed his own performance was a subtle, slow-burning thing. So he forced himself to think of something else to suppress the fluctuations in his heart and went to sit down in the chair.

Gu Xiaodeng immediately brightened up again, sitting down beside him to give him an out: “Forest Kid, hurt like this, do you still have to go back to the Imperial Palace tomorrow?”

The new nickname was hard to say whether it was pleasing or annoying. Gu Jinyu only felt increasingly strange inside: “…Yes.”

Gu Xiaodeng pitied him a little: “Your left hand, this tree branch here is all bent and hung up in a sling. And you still have to go work like an ox or a horse like that?”

Gu Jinyu took a deep breath and unconsciously accepted this premise: “Isn’t the tree branch on my right perfectly fine? To be a study companion, one tree branch is enough.”

After a string of chatter, Gu Xiaodeng asked about Gu Pinghan’s Autumn Examination. Gu Jinyu narrowed his eyes and said with a hint of mockery: “Third Brother won’t do poorly on the exam. It’s just that he has his own focus. I merely gave him a push, and that provoked his anger. He doesn’t even understand how he could get that angry.”

He looked at Gu Xiaodeng. Gu Xiaodeng didn’t know the truth of things outside, didn’t know what had happened to the Sworn Brother he worried about so much, and this only made Gu Jinyu feel more satisfaction: “Xiaodeng, you don’t know. Third Brother lectured me over a mere servant. A mere servant! And he completely forgot all the cultivated refinement he’d forged over many years. I’m indifferent to it, but Royal Father was angered. I suppose His Highness thought he’d finally hammered and tempered him into the perfect heir, only to find he could let the mud on the ground soil his own nature and spirit… I thought he was unassailable, but it turns out he’s not.”

Gu Xiaodeng seized on a key point: “He made Royal Father angry? Is he being punished right now?”

“Even if punished, it’s still under control. Why are you so nervous?” Gu Jinyu laughed lightly. “You’re not asking about anything else?”

“It feels like you wouldn’t tell me.” Gu Xiaodeng rubbed the back of his head. “But Forest Kid, don’t gloat too much. Who knows, one day you might lose your temper recklessly just like Third Brother. And seriously, what’s with your brotherly bond being so twisted? Brother Dengqing and I are much simpler than you guys.”

Gu Jinyu laughed for a while, then shifted the topic to tell him the full details of the private school, from beginning to end, giving him a foundation to work from. From the identity of the high-ranking children and the civil and martial teachers, down to the finer points of the curriculum, he knew it all inside and out.

Gu Xiaodeng listened for a long stretch, stunned and baffled. He asked what he cared about most: “You know all this so well. What about Su Mingya? Will he come? Not just to study, but also to live here?”

“He won’t come.”

Gu Xiaodeng was so disappointed he wilted on the spot.

“Stay away from that Sick Painting.” Gu Jinyu’s face was expressionless; he unconsciously adopted Gu Xiaodeng’s earlier phrasing. “And stay away from that Sticky Candy too. Big Goose Guan is someone you can get a bit closer to.”

Gu Xiaodeng was only focused on his own heartbreak: “Oh.”

Gu Xiaodeng believed his words without a shred of doubt, truly swallowing the lie that Su Mingya wouldn’t come to the Gu family.

The monotonous, busy days passed quickly. Two months later, in November, as light snow flurried down, the Autumn Examination results were posted and the rankings revealed. Gu Pinghan was naturally on the list, but unlike the top ranking everyone expected, Gu Pinghan’s literary exam ranking was low, while his martial exam ranking was high. Averaged together, he was only in the middle, not achieving the stunning success of his Tanhua uncle, An Zhenwen, back in the day.

At the same time, just as Gu Jinyu had shared with Gu Xiaodeng in that secret confidence, late November was the anniversary of the An family’s destruction. An Ruoyi indeed fell ill at this time, so severely that she was bedridden.

Gu Xiaodeng was beside himself with worry. After endless pleading, Feng’en finally agreed to take him to West Prosperity Garden to visit An Ruoyi.

When he set out, the light snow was swirling wildly in the sky like down feathers. Gu Xiaodeng walked quickly, his face smacked full of winter’s cold air. It wasn’t until he entered An Ruoyi’s private courtyard and saw a Gongzi wrapped in white fox fur under the eaves that he stopped in his tracks. His little face, pale from the cold, instantly flushed red like an autumn maple.

This time, he wasn’t as rash as before, but in his excitement, his voice trembled inevitably: “Young Master Su!”

Su Mingya, who had been gazing absently at the heavens under the eaves, was startled. Lowering his eyes, he saw a young teenager in somewhat thin clothes flying towards him across the snowy ground, unafraid of the frosty cold, healthy and bright, rushing right up to the steps. He was so fast that the servants holding an umbrella behind him couldn’t keep up, and his head and shoulders were dusted with snow.

“Young Master Su.” He was clumsy. “Are you cold, Young Master Su? Aren’t you going inside?”

Su Mingya was dressed two or three times more thickly than him. Who was cold was a question he should be asking. He remembered this strange fellow who had offered him a flower upon their first meeting. This time, the boy seemed to have some sense of propriety, knowing to stop at the bottom of the steps. But from this angle looking down, those eyes of his shone even brighter.

“Are you that Cousin Young Master?” He pretended not to remember him.

“Yes, just call me Xiaodeng!”

Su Mingya mouthed the name silently, then gave him a warm, gentle smile: “Not cold. I just came out from inside. I came with Second Brother-in-law to visit the Princess Consort, and now it’s time for us to head back.”

Gu Xiaodeng let out an “Ah,” and as the servants behind him caught up and tried to pull him back, he hurriedly climbed the two steps in his urgency, hopping right up in front of Su Mingya—only to be immediately blocked by the Su family’s servants.

“Young Master Su, I… well…” Gu Xiaodeng was so flustered he looked utterly dumb. “I wanted to be so bold as to ask: is it true you won’t be coming to the Gu family’s private school next year?”

Su Mingya had come this time with An Zhenwen precisely for this matter, and the outcome was already decided. He didn’t know what impulse moved him, but he answered: “Yes.”

And then he saw the person before him wilt visibly. His fingertip twitched, and he said softly: “It is I who will come. When the time comes, I’ll be troubling the Gu family and putting you all out.”

He watched as Gu Xiaodeng instantly brightened again, his smile overflowing, dispelling the winter chill in a single moment.

Su Mingya’s expression softened as well.

Footsteps sounded from the inner room. Su Mingya knew it was An Zhenwen coming out: “I must leave now. We’ll meet again some other day.”

He heard Gu Xiaodeng’s nonsensical muttering: “That tree branch lied to me. I’ll settle the score with him next time… Peerless Painting—no, Young Master Su, see you in the spring!”

Su Mingya nodded slightly, turned, and descended the steps, letting out a soft laugh without realizing it.

See you in the spring.

Three rather lovely words to the ear.