Zhu Mi acknowledged the order but paused, looking at him. “Fourth Young Master, please do not forget the matter you promised me years ago.”
“I remember,” Gu Jinyu said, his expression as usual. “You’ve worked hard for me in the Gu family for so many years. I will not forget what I promised you back then. Now that you’re here, we can plan slowly.”
Zhu Mi nodded. “Then please take care of yourself. I hope you won’t suddenly die before fulfilling that promise.”
Soon after, the commanders outside all entered. First, they sincerely inquired about his injuries. Gu Jinyu merely said he was fine. But before long, the officers all grew agitated.
Half demanded he come out and single-handedly challenge the other ill-intentioned commanders. Half demanded he abandon the turtle-retreat defensive strategy. They firmly believed that with the Jin army’s current numbers, they could scatter the Northern Rong just by charging headlong. As for the casualties caused by the Rong’s sinister poison troops and toxic mists, those were costs worth paying. At least they could fight to their heart’s content and shorten the garrison time. How could they earn merit without battle? Why had they come if not to achieve merit?
These men had all been deliberately selected and promoted by Gu Jinyu. They valued loyalty and duty over power plays, prized martial capability over scheming. Gu Jinyu had instinctively followed the strengths he saw in Gu Xiaodeng to identify and employ people in the outside world.
Gu Jinyu had demonstrated decisive, harsh authority many times in the past. Now, after several brushes with death, with a bowl of steaming bitter medicine before his desk, it was the perfect moment to soften and appease.
When the argument between defense and offense reached a fever pitch, he coughed and stopped them. “Defending the borders of the realm is loyalty. But exhausting resources on war is calamity. No one collects the white bones by Azure Lake from ancient times. What good is war? Commanders achieve fame and glory, while ten thousand soldiers die with no intact corpses. If the nation’s strength can endure a war of attrition, then let it drag on. Isn’t winning through peace better than blood flowing like rivers?”
“I brought you all to the border. When I return to the Imperial Capital in days to come, my greatest achievement will not be victory or defeat, but sending every soldier home, as few missing as possible. I am half an orphan without a family. You all have nine clans and entire households. A few dozen rounds of wind and snow at the border is enough. Since there is a peaceful path, do not seek a horsehide shroud. Listen to me. Though I’ve lived fewer years than any seated here, in these four or five years, have I ever misled you in your careers or harmed a single hair on your heads?”
The commanders’ heightened emotions were gradually soothed by Gu Jinyu’s relentless, emotional words and his coughing. Their lust for battle was eclipsed by homesickness, their hostility slowly fading.
Only some bachelors still argued. “But General, these past four or five years, you’ve always fought with desperate resolve. Whenever there was a mission with military merit, you fought for it more fearlessly than anyone. This time, you’re fighting wrong! Before, you were always radical and crazy. Now, at the Northern Border, you’re timid and quiet. Don’t blame your brothers for misunderstanding and thinking you’re afraid. We just worry you might be young—fearing the vast skies and earth of this foreign tribe above, and the great might and strictness of your old man below.”
Gu Jinyu raised his hand to cover the little medicine bottle hanging around his neck. Touching it was like touching Gu Xiaodeng’s body heat. There was only this little left.
If he were poisoned again, gravely wounded again, and used the last three pills, even if he survived, the most precious physical thing Gu Xiaodeng had left him would be gone.
“The might of heaven and earth is nothing. I do not fear them.” His voice grew hoarse. “Before, I did not fear death. Now, I am afraid to die. There is a person, a hawk, and a dog waiting for me. I must return to Changluo alive… I must also live a long life, to a hundred years. Otherwise, how can I protect my family?”
Far away from the tent, Zhang Dengqing was solemnly processing the medicinal residue, his ears perked up like a rabbit’s. Having possessed the Wind-Listening Ear skill since childhood, he was now even more adept. He successfully listened to the entire conversation in the tent before withdrawing his inner power.
He had no interest in military affairs. He just always felt Gu Jinyu was somewhat unhinged, and worried that after just recovering from a severe injury, Gu Jinyu wouldn’t be able to control the situation. Now that he knew the little scoundrel had a clear sense of things, that was enough.
But the more capable Gu Jinyu proved, the more displeased he felt.
Possessing so much ability, yet unable to protect Xiaodeng. Truly a bastard.
As he was grieving, Gu Pinghan appeared from some unknown corner, holding a small black and white dog on a leash. “Divine Physician, you haven’t met him yet. This is Xiaodeng’s dog. He’s called Xiao Pei.”
Zhang Dengqing froze. He took the leash. Xiao Pei didn’t even reach his knees. Meeting him for the first time, he enthusiastically circled him, wagging his tail and sticking close. He bent down, and Xiao Pei excitedly licked him, his bright, sparkling eyes making Zhang Dengqing hallucinate Gu Xiaodeng.
Zhang Dengqing stared at the little dog for a long time. Suddenly, his eyes grew moist. “His gaze is a little like Xiaodeng’s. Yesterday, while treating Gu Jinyu, for a moment I seemed to feel the same kind of gaze he’s giving me now. As if in that instant, Xiaodeng was behind me… I haven’t seen him for years. Do you think, if he appeared before me now, would he still be able to recognize me?”
Gu Pinghan crouched beside him. “Of course. Even I could recognize you. How could he not?”
Time flew by swiftly. Gu Jinyu’s obsessive fantasies and devilish fixations swelled along with the scale of the war.
Later, when he looked back on his two-year career at the Northern Border, those prolonged brushes with death, the mixtures of wounds and poisons, all condensed into a few faint impressions, insipidly leaving a shadow in his memory. Instead, it was those ethereal, fleeting, semi-lucid feelings that carved themselves into his very marrow.
Those feelings concerning Gu Xiaodeng, inch by inch, sutured together his fragmented soul. Gu Xiaodeng completed his spirit, yet tore an ever-widening wound across the sea of his affections.
Time rolled on to midsummer, the Fifth Month of the Second Year of Hongxi. During the day, Gu Jinyu was as usual, wielding power with increasing ease. At night, when he briefly returned to the command tent, he would close his eyes for a moment to calm himself. When he opened them again, the ferocious soldier’s mask would fade, and he would become a bewildered, lovesick patient—Gu Xiaodeng’s illusion was three feet away.
Gu Jinyu stared at him dazedly, blood rushing through his body. Only in these moments could he deeply feel that he was alive.
“Xiaodeng,” he called to it. He wasn’t afraid of disturbing it and making it disappear. He knew this was his own illusion. He had learned to control his illusions.
The illusory Gu Xiaodeng wore the plain white student uniform of Vast Marsh Academy, lively and spirited, sitting at the head of the bed and swinging his legs. He smiled at him. “Hey, I’m right here.”
“Today is our birthday.”
“Ah, I know.”
“I’m turning nineteen. You’re still seventeen.”
“Then Senqing is older than me now.”
Gu Jinyu’s vision blurred. “Changluo sends me regular dispatches. You still haven’t come back.”
“I’m right here.” The illusion smiled, clapping his hands. “Don’t cry, Senqing. Listen, I’m flowing right inside your body.”
Gu Jinyu grasped the pulse at his wrist. “Then doesn’t Su Mingya have even more of you flowing inside his body? Don’t go to his place anymore, okay? You like that he’s sickly, love that he’s gentle. I can be that too. I can surpass him.”
“But there are always things you can’t achieve. Painting, for example. Limited by talent, you can never paint famous works as lifelike and marvelous as Young Master Su’s. You’re more valorous than him, but lose in elegance. You are completely different people. You can’t become him, nor surpass him.”
Gu Jinyu was speechless, only knowing how to shed tears.
Love and sickness grew together. But letting his nighttime self sink into ever-deeper waters, finding pleasure in the suffocation—that was a beautiful thing.
“I like you.” He lowered his head, murmuring repeatedly. “I want to become the person you like. I want to become a better Su Mingya for you.”
“But I do like you,” the illusion said, following the logic of Gu Xiaodeng’s Record of Observations to placate him. “Senqing is my one and only brother. What destiny we share. In my heart, you’re second in importance only to Brother Qing.”
“But now, I only want to be your lover.” Gu Jinyu’s back bent lower and lower, his voice growing hoarser. “Born on the same day as you, I want to die on the same day as you. I want our hair to turn white together, to share a bed in life and a grave in death.”
The illusion was momentarily unable to make a sound.
Because Gu Jinyu didn’t know what new reaction Gu Xiaodeng would have upon hearing these words.
After a moment, the illusion smiled sheepishly. “This isn’t right, Senqing. You said so from the very beginning. You said you couldn’t let me stain your reputation, couldn’t let me hinder your future marriage negotiations. You should finish what you started well.”
Gu Jinyu shook his head incessantly, protesting one statement after another, but the illusion did not change his words.
He had no way.
He remembered that Gu Xiaodeng had spoken to him like this the night before Su Mingya’s last birthday. Gu Xiaodeng had never developed feelings for him beyond familial affection.
He gave his romantic love to Su Mingya, his friendship to Ge Dongchen and Guan Yunji, and even to Zhu Mi, Feng’en, Feng Huan, Su Xiaoyuan, and others. And in his familial love, there was not only Gu Jinyu, but the Gu family members, even Xiao Pei.
And that portion of familial love Gu Xiaodeng had uniquely given him, already cut into several pieces, had perhaps turned to nothing the moment he learned of Gu Jinyu’s deception.
This was his envisioned reality, a cycle of self-abasement and self-isolation.
Resolute, yet utterly desolate.
“I like you.”
“I don’t like you that way.”
