Chapter 27 Part 2

Once done, Su Mingya released him. Whether due to illness or emotion, his earlobes reddened for the first time.

“It really is quite freezing…” Gu Xiaodeng curled the ice block in his mouth dazedly. Waiting for it to melt was too slow, so he simply swallowed it whole.

He shivered from the chill, hissing and hawing as he leaned closer to Su Mingya, looking at him hotly and chuckling: “Young Master Su kissed me.”

Su Mingya remained silent. Gu Xiaodeng kept leaning in, whining: “Is the dignified Eldest Young Master Su going to deny it?”

He pestered for a long time. Su Mingya smiled lightly and looked down at him: “You clung to me first.”

“Yes, I was the one pestering shamelessly first, but Young Master Su has always indulged me.” Gu Xiaodeng rubbed his Adam’s apple with the tip of his nose and asked bluntly: “Does Young Master Su like me?”

Su Mingya’s eyelid twitched. He was speechless for a moment.

The word ‘like’ was very private, so private it was almost vulgar and barbaric. Hearing it, he instantly felt as if he had been dragged into a field furrow.

Gu Xiaodeng asked him persistently. He looked into Gu Xiaodeng’s vibrant eyes and thought to himself after a long while: He didn’t like him. It was fundamentally impossible for him to like him.

But he did want to play with him. Play casually, lightly, without taking it too seriously.

Anyway, with his eighteenth-rate body, who knew how many tomorrows he had. If he wanted to play today, then he would debauch today.

Su Mingya nodded lightly.

Gu Xiaodeng first froze, then his whole face flushed red. It took him a long while to speak in a voice like a mosquito’s buzz.

Su Mingya didn’t hear clearly: “What?”

“I said…” Gu Xiaodeng gathered his courage and shouted as if making a declaration: “I want to kiss you again!”

Su Mingya: “…”

He couldn’t help but laugh: “Alright.”

Gu Xiaodeng then leaned in inch by inch, lifted his head, and swiftly gave him a peck on the cheek.

Su Mingya’s heartbeat thundered in his ears. He suppressed the upward curve of his lips and gently pointed to his own lips: “Here.”

Gu Xiaodeng stared at him dumbly for a long time: “I-I can? Th-this is what you said. I-I-I’m coming.”

Feigning a burst of animalistic fervor, he rubbed his hands, carefully leaned in again, looked up, and kissed him. Saying it was a kiss, it was really just a press of lips.

Su Mingya let him rub with his lip bead. Just as he was about to shyly pull away, Su Mingya reached out and wrapped his arms around his waist and back, pulling him into an embrace. He lowered his head and pressed down on him, his burning tongue sweeping in. Gu Xiaodeng was dumbstruck, his teeth opening for him. A pure kiss was thus greenly led by Su Mingya into an infatuated, entangled deep kiss.

After the kiss, Gu Xiaodeng burrowed into his arms like a little crab, raising two index fingers and gesturing like waving little pincers: “…One year anniversary.”

Su Mingya slowly tightened his embrace, his voice low and hoarse: “What?”

“Last year today, my first day entering the Gu Family, I met you on the road.” The little thing in his arms described earnestly. “I was supposed to keep my head down, but I looked at you curiously, and then I just kept staring at you…”

Gu Xiaodeng meticulously displayed his love at first sight, every word simple and unadorned. But Su Mingya somehow found it exceedingly lewd. He pulled him out of his arms, lowered his head, and sealed that chattering mouth which threw him into complete disarray.

He kept warning himself it was just play. But somehow, the more he kissed, the more endless it became. The more he held, the more reluctant he was to let go. It was as if this game had pulled him into a long, beautiful dream.

After the seventh of July, it quickly came to the third of the eighth month, the Birthday of Second Young Lady Gu Ruhui. The fourth of the eighth month was Gu Pinghan’s birthday, but this year he had gone to the Outer State and couldn’t return. The birthday banquet thus had only Gu Ruhui as the main figure.

This year, because of Su Mingya, Gu Xiaodeng could attend this Second Sister’s birthday banquet.

He first asked Feng’en, receiving the expected polite refusal. When he later chattered in front of Su Mingya, mixing this one sentence into a hundred, Su Mingya took note.

The result was, on the night of the second of the eighth month, Su Mingya played with Gu Xiaodeng’s five fingers, then suddenly said: “Little one, tomorrow, I’ll take you to Second Sister Gu’s birthday banquet. Want to go see?”

Gu Xiaodeng was utterly stunned: “Ah? I want to, but can I really go? This, this, the Prince and Princess Consort probably don’t want me there to embarrass them. How did you manage it?”

Su Mingya’s slightly cold hand stroked from his crown to his cheek, carrying an indescribable attachment and rewarding meaning: “If I want to do it, I can.”

Gu Xiaodeng’s eyes were round. He could only give him a thumbs up: “Is this the power of authority?”

Su Mingya laughed, his thumb rubbing Gu Xiaodeng’s cheek, index and middle fingers toying with his earlobe: “Little one, don’t worry about that. Come to the Bamboo Courtyard tonight, and go with me tomorrow morning. Before going, take off one set of your ear beads. Two sets are too eye-catching. However, Second Sister Gu’s birthday banquet might not be as fun as you imagine. You can either go sit at the children’s table, or let a servant simply disguise you, so you can follow behind me. Does Xiaodeng want to go to the children’s table, or follow me more?”

Gu Xiaodeng originally wanted to say the children’s table. Since entering the Gu Family, he hadn’t seen innocent human cubs anymore.

But before he could say it, Su Mingya chuckled lightly: “However, the noble family children I speak of, most of them are children in body, but not necessarily in mind.”

Yikes! Gu Xiaodeng shivered and immediately rejected the children’s table proposal: “Alright, then I’ll follow you. Just to see the excitement. If you leave early, just take me along.”

“Good boy.” Su Mingya lowered his head and slowly kissed him.

The next day, Gu Xiaodeng got up early in high spirits, stretching with extra vigor.

Going to see his blood sister’s birthday banquet this time, he saw it as fulfilling last year’s regret.

Su Mingya’s skilled servant disguised him. After a round of fiddling, Gu Xiaodeng went to the mirror, repeatedly exclaiming “Good, good, good.”

In the mirror, his features were skillfully altered. Best of all, his skin tone was semi-dark. Gu Xiaodeng hadn’t seen himself tanned to a healthy wheat color for a long time. Now, he felt this disguised “fake self” was actually his “real self.”

Su Mingya, changed into his formal attire, came to see him. He smiled instantly upon one look, called him over, and pinched his face all over. Stroking his ear beads, he feigned surprise to scare him: “It doesn’t rub off. What if this disguise can’t be washed off?”

Gu Xiaodeng was ecstatic: “There’s such a good thing!?”

Su Mingya: “…”

He always couldn’t understand Gu Xiaodeng’s magical train of thought, though he never needed to.

Gu Xiaodeng pretended to be his little page. Wearing the disguise, he felt so free he could fly. He couldn’t help smiling as he walked along the road. Su Mingya looked back several times, finding him beaming with joy each time. He felt both helpless and pleased.

Gu Ruhui’s birthday banquet would last from noon until nightfall. The entire time was socializing among the old, young, men, and women of the high families in Changle. It was truly not fun, without the slightest festive cheer of a birthday celebration, filled only with polite, affected social graces.

Gu Xiaodeng didn’t see the Gu family members. Gu Yan and An Ruoyi were probably elsewhere. He accompanied Su Mingya around two halls and heard dozens of young people come to chat with Su Mingya. It was quite boring and dull, utterly dousing Gu Xiaodeng’s initial high spirits.

He thought of the fifteenth of May, Gu Jinyu’s birthday—and also his own birthday—perhaps celebrated in this very same way.

Soon it was noon. Arriving guests were all assigned seats. Su Mingya sat at a table with fewer than eight people, all old acquaintances.

As the book page, Gu Xiaodeng naturally could only stand not far away. But this didn’t stop him from secretly observing everyone, perking up his ears to eavesdrop.

Among them, seeing some people felt like an eternity had passed.

He saw Ge Dongchen and Guan Yunji, who had changed out of their scholar’s white robes into elaborate formal attire, sitting with a youth in dark clothing. Between Guan Yunji’s fingers, a shimmering silver light was spinning rapidly. When his fingers stopped, Gu Xiaodeng realized in shock that the silver light was actually a slender Butterfly Wing Blade.

Gu Xiaodeng didn’t know if the knife was blunted. He hoped it was, otherwise, the way Guan Yunji was playing with it just now, he worried he might slice off a finger in a moment of carelessness.

But after spinning, Guan Yunji used that Butterfly Wing Blade to pick up a glistening bunch of grapes from the table and presented them to the tall youth beside him.

The knife was sharpened and quite sharp.

Gu Xiaodeng gasped softly, his heart pounding with fear. His ten fingers felt a phantom pain. He felt both admiration for and worry about Guan Yunji’s knife-wielding skill.

Soon he wondered again. What identity did the person next to Guan Yunji hold, to make the usually arrogant Eldest Young Master Guan attend him humbly with soft words and even perform with a little knife?

Ge Dongchen was there too. The tall youth spun his wine cup and spoke to him: “Xiaochen, how is our esteemed teacher lately? If he has free time someday, he should instruct me in swordsmanship again.”

Ge Dongchen smiled, proactively pouring wine in a toast, his roguish demeanor perfectly measured: “Dongchen thanks Your Highness for your concern. You know, my father is always buried in the three main Military Camps. He’s so busy he even leaves his own biological son to be raised wild. I don’t even know if he’s well or busy. If Changle drew up a wild list of unfilial sons, I’m afraid I’d be first.”

Laughter came. Gu Xiaodeng’s pupils constricted, and a named fire ignited in his heart.

He knew who that tall youth was.

The Second Prince, the Second Prince born of Imperial Noble Consort Guan, Gao Mingqian, who was just a hair’s breadth from forming a marriage alliance with Gu Ruhui.

The only connection Gu Xiaodeng had with him was that, because of this Gao family imperial scion, on this very day last year, his Sworn Brother Zhang Dengqing was expelled from the Gu Family overnight and sent nearly a thousand miles away to enlist in the military.

Gu Xiaodeng’s ten fingers curled up.

At that moment, the host of this birthday banquet, Gu Ruhui, arrived. She wore a gown the color of bright cinnabar. The color was extremely vibrant, her aura extremely cool and aloof. It was this very contrast that gave her a unique charm.

Seeing her, the Second Prince Gao Mingqian proactively stood up and walked over. Being tall, he lowered his head, smiling as he spoke to her.

Gu Xiaodeng was just burning with anger. But when he looked up, he abruptly met the gaze of a newly arrived person.

Gu Jinyu was still dressed in his dark patterned, vermilion-ink colored formal clothes. His hair was a bit longer now. Beside him was a young girl in a masculine black martial outfit. She looked to be in her teens, with handsome brows and fine eyes, carrying an inherent noble air.