Chapter 26 Part 2

Had he followed Gu Jinyu’s advice and, with no other choice, gone to ask Guan Yunji for help, Big Goose Guan probably would have sheltered him for Gu Jinyu’s sake, but would have certainly mocked him viciously.

How could it be as comfortable as this — being close to the sick beauty and watching others be put in their place.

Hmph hmph.

With that exultant, gleeful expression, he met Ge Dongchen.

For some reason today, everyone in the academy had arrived early. The Bamboo Courtyard, being the closest and most convenient to the academy, had Su Mingya always arriving leisurely right on time. But today, to accompany him, Su Mingya had set out early. Who knew that despite leaving so much earlier, when they arrived at the academy, they were still the last… the last pair to arrive.

And Ge Dongchen was inexplicably sitting in his seat in the very last row, casually leaning on his elbow and looking out the window.

Gu Xiaodeng only realized his spot had been usurped when Su Mingya reminded him. “Xiaodeng, Dongchen is looking for you.”

“Huh?” Gu Xiaodeng had been watching Su Mingya most of the way. At his words, he turned his head and met Ge Dongchen’s gaze through the window.

Ge Dongchen was no different from usual — still laughing in that open, genial way. But from a few steps away, Gu Xiaodeng could still sense the thick displeasure on him.

Gu Xiaodeng hopped over and looked him up and down. “Young Master Ge? Why are you sitting in my seat?”

In front of others, he wouldn’t call him “Brother Dongchen,” to avoid impropriety.

Ge Dongchen swept his eyes from head to toe, his gaze stopping on the Su family sachet at his waist. With a faint, ambiguous smile, he stood up. The shadow cast by his figure nearly swallowed Gu Xiaodeng whole.

“It’s nothing. I just thought the last row had a special view.” Ge Dongchen looked toward Su Mingya with smiling eyes. “Wouldn’t you say so, Mingya?”

Su Mingya smiled slightly. “Indeed. The view is very good.”

In the early morning of high summer, Gu Xiaodeng inexplicably felt a chill at that moment. He blankly rubbed his arms, not understanding why these two young masters both had smiles on their faces yet seemed to be actually quarreling.

Just as he was racking his brains, the familiar irate tone of Eldest Young Master Guan came from behind him. “No matter how good the view, it’s still the last row! Dongchen, let’s go. You don’t belong here anyway!”

Gu Xiaodeng turned to look at Guan Yunji, who had appeared from who knows where, and received a deadly, fierce glare. This Eldest Young Master Guan again had that slightly dark, under-eye look of an all-nighter, his temper even worse than before.

So Gu Xiaodeng simply didn’t greet him, to avoid inviting bad luck.

Guan Yunji stopped close to him for a moment. Seeing himself ignored, he grew even more irritable. He strode past Gu Xiaodeng and stormed to the front door, nearly knocking Gu Xiaodeng staggering.

Su Mingya reached out to steady Gu Xiaodeng, patting his shoulder and gently advising, “Your left foot is inconvenient. Bear with it in the morning and come back to the Bamboo Courtyard in the afternoon.”

Gu Xiaodeng vaguely sensed that Su Mingya was openly backing him up. He quickly nodded and agreed.

But as soon as that agreement fell, Ge Dongchen’s mood plummeted. Like Guan Yunji, he left with robes and sleeves snapping in the breeze.

Gu Xiaodeng was utterly baffled. “??”

He scratched his head, not understanding why the normally good-tempered Brother Dongchen was angry. After thinking, he figured it was Big Goose Guan who had been a bad influence.

Inexplicable as it was, Gu Xiaodeng still endured the pain and focused on the lecture. But today, unlike before, he couldn’t concentrate. He kept looking at Su Mingya in the front row. In the end, he picked up his brush and recorded in his little notebook:

“Tianming 13th Year, first day of the sixth month. I stayed overnight in the Bamboo Courtyard, clinging to an immortal from heaven, a painting from the mortal world. From shamelessness and incompetence, I gained joy and delight.”

“Young Master Su Mingya — like a bright, pale moon; like a gentle, fresh breeze. Same age as me, yet we are as far apart as clouds and mud.”

Gu Xiaodeng’s foot was out of commission for over half a month. Su Mingya, using the excuse that the Bamboo Courtyard was closest to the academy, on the fourth day of the sixth month had Gu Xiaodeng come directly to stay there, so as to prevent any other mishaps from worsening his injury.

Gu Xiaodeng didn’t manage to refuse for even a quarter-hour before Su Mingya’s servants carried him on their backs and, without any room for argument, brought him to the Bamboo Courtyard.

Feng’en made no move to hold him back. He only stood behind him, properly and solemnly saying, “Cousin Young Master, then this servant will come pick you up once your foot injury has healed.”

Gu Xiaodeng could have wracked his brains and never imagined he would “gain fortune from misfortune” — that various strange events could catalyze the wondrous good turn of “cohabiting with Su Mingya.”

He didn’t know if he would laugh in his dreams or not. But on that fourth day when he had just moved into the Bamboo Courtyard, he dozed off beneath the Moon Jellyfish and then woke to the lingering sound of Su Mingya’s flute. He felt the present world was unlike reality, more like an illusion and a dream.

He talked with Su Mingya a great, great many things. Most of the time, he was the chattering one at the side, and Su Mingya would respond a few times, never perfunctorily, always laughing lightly with pleasure.

In the beginning, Gu Xiaodeng asked many times: “Young Master Su, I’ve just plopped myself right under your nose like this. Don’t you really find me disruptive, troublesome?”

Su Mingya always said no. “Little one, you are not disruptive, nor have you brought me trouble. On the contrary, you’ve brought me much amusement.”

Every time Gu Xiaodeng heard him call him “little one,” a string in his heart seemed to be plucked. Su Mingya would smile lightly and casually, and that heartstring would crackle into firecrackers, one string clattering into the effect of a grand ensemble.

As Gu Xiaodeng’s foot gradually healed, boundaries gradually blurred. He drew closer step by step to Su Mingya. Not only was his chatterbox nature fully on display, but his long-suppressed clinginess also erupted.

On the evening of the thirteenth day of the sixth month, Su Mingya was painting by the window — a painting of the setting sun like blood, the bamboo grove like billows, and a bird in flight holding a cicada in its beak.

Gu Xiaodeng squatted by his side, watching eagerly. Now and then he helped by mixing pigments or grinding ink on the inkstone. The light in his eyes was about to materialize into stars and scatter onto the painting to add color.

Su Mingya, who usually painted with total concentration, was uncharacteristically distracted this time. As his brush traced the paper, when a bit of color was left, he would dot Gu Xiaodeng’s hand. Gu Xiaodeng didn’t mind. When the brush came, he simply flipped his hand mischievously. “Is it better to paint the palm or the back of the hand?”

Both were good. Both got painted on.

When the painting was finished, Su Mingya gently took Gu Xiaodeng’s hand, rolled up his sleeve, and from the back of his hand, like a dragon in flight, painted down to his wrist — a single stroke, yet that single stroke outlined a sprig of fallen flowers.

He lowered his gaze, painting with concentration until finished. The fallen flower Gu Xiaodeng had offered at their first meeting, Su Mingya hadn’t caught then. Now, he received it.

With the painting done and his mind relaxed, he lowered his head and coughed. Gu Xiaodeng immediately moved closer, familiarly pressing along his acupoints, rubbing with such focused attention. When Su Mingya stopped coughing and took Gu Xiaodeng’s hand to look, that sprig of fallen flowers had already smeared because of Gu Xiaodeng’s clumsy paws.

But Gu Xiaodeng still cradled his own hand and lavished great praise. “Young Master Su paints so well! If you become a painter in the future, one painting will certainly be worth a thousand gold!”

Su Mingya smiled. “How would I become a painter? Only amusement for the mood — not worth taking seriously.”

Those words made Gu Xiaodeng think of Gu Jinyu. Gu Jinyu truly liked painting, but his talent wasn’t as peerless as Su Mingya’s. Besides, the Gu family probably classed elegant pursuits as frivolous distractions. So he had given it up.

He wondered whether Gu Jinyu had gotten out of confinement yet.

Just as he stood in a daze thinking about it, Su Mingya asked him, “Xiaodeng, if you could choose, what would you want to do in the future?”

The word “peddler” flashed through Gu Xiaodeng’s mind. He almost blurted it out, but fearing his vulgar aspirations would make Su Mingya laugh, he bashfully gave his second ideal. “Be a physician. I dare not say saving the dying, but helping the injured should be within my power.”

“A physician…” Su Mingya laughed wryly. “Since I can remember, the people I’ve disliked seeing the most have been physicians.”

Gu Xiaodeng immediately felt apologetic. For the sickly, the time spent seeing physicians was probably longer than time spent with family. His careless words had touched the sick beauty’s painful memories. He murmured, “I’m sorry. Do you still dislike them now, Young Master Su?”

“Now… I can tolerate them.” Su Mingya smiled, speaking idly of a few things. “When I was five, the physicians at my residence declared I would not live past seven. When I was seven, the imperial physicians in the palace declared I would not survive past ten.”

Gu Xiaodeng’s brow twitched fiercely. “Those were all quacks.”