Chapter 71 Part 2

It was a shame he wouldn’t live to see it.

Liu Yuanxun exhaled slowly, curving his lips in a smile. “You’ve got medicinal water on you too. It might not feel good unless you rinse off. You should wash up as well.”

But Gu Lianzhao didn’t move. His dark gaze bore down from above, that familiar pressure returning and unsettling Liu Yuanxun. “You’re unhappy now. Why?”

Such sharp intuition!

Liu Yuanxun didn’t consider himself the type to wear his emotions on his sleeve. Besides, that bit of disappointment had only flickered through his heart for an instant. Yet Gu Lianzhao had caught it anyway.

He didn’t really want to talk about it, so he pursed his lips, trying to mask it. “I’m not upset. You should go take your bath.”

Gu Lianzhao didn’t budge, relentless until he got what he wanted. “You said it yourself—we’re friends.”

Liu Yuanxun had a soft temperament and folded easily under pressure. He could only let out a gentle sigh. “Change the water first, and I’ll tell you bit by bit.”

This time, Gu Lianzhao finally moved. But instead of fetching fresh water, he slipped off his clothes from the side and stepped straight into the old bathwater Liu Yuanxun had just used.

To avoid any impropriety, Liu Yuanxun hadn’t been watching. It was only at the sound of someone entering the water that he glanced up in haste and couldn’t help letting out a soft cry. “That’s dirty!”

Gu Lianzhao replied, “The water in the prince’s mansion is far cleaner than any river outside. I don’t fuss over things like that.”

With that, he immediately pressed on. “Why are you upset?”

Liu Yuanxun didn’t want to say, so he hemmed and hawed. “I just feel like… you’ll probably end up taller than me someday.”

Gu Lianzhao furrowed his brow. “Just because of that?”

Liu Yuanxun had started to nod when Gu Lianzhao followed up. “Does it bother you if I’m taller than you?”

“Huh?” Liu Yuanxun blinked in surprise. “No, not at all.”

The conversation looped right back. “Then why are you upset?”

Liu Yuanxun lowered his gaze and murmured, “I just suddenly realized I might not live to see you grow tall.”

He added right away, “Don’t try to comfort me.”

Gu Lianzhao fired back without missing a beat. “Wasn’t planning to.”

Liu Yuanxun choked on the response, stunned for a moment before bursting into laughter. “I’m not long for this world anyway, and here you are being so ruthless—not even considering a word of comfort for me?”

Gu Lianzhao ladled water up to his shoulders and fell silent for a moment before offering some rare honest words. “A person’s fate lies in their own hands. If there’s a chance to fight for it, then fight. If not, accept it. Both are valid ways to live. Just don’t complain about the bitterness if you choose to fight, and don’t wallow in self-pity if you accept.”

He looked at Liu Yuanxun. “I always thought that if you accepted your fate, you wouldn’t indulge in self-pity.”

Those words made Liu Yuanxun close his eyes. When he opened them again, the look in them was as gentle as lake water under spring sunlight. “No wonder I feel like you understand me. You’re the fighter, and I’m the accepter, aren’t you?”

Gu Lianzhao equivocated. “Perhaps.”

He wasn’t as clear-sighted as Liu Yuanxun. He refused to accept fate, so he fought—but in fighting, he hated. He hated the Heavenly Dao for its injustice, fate for its cruel twists, and heaven for granting him Liu Yuanxun only to erect one insurmountable barrier after another.

If he had been born a ger in Gu Mingyuan’s rear courtyard, of noble birth and upright character, he never would have sunk to deceiving Liu Yuanxun. If the emperor had still decreed their marriage, if he didn’t have to trade one life for another, then he could simply have loved him. With his own abilities and Liu Yuanxun’s nature, how could things have come to this…

“I truly don’t want anyone’s comfort,” Liu Yuanxun said, oblivious to Gu Lianzhao’s shift. He tilted his head to study the floral patterns on the ear room’s ceiling and spoke softly. “You know, A’Qiao, for someone on the verge of death, comfort is just a burden—because I know it’s false.”

Gu Lianzhao asked in a low voice, “What do you want to hear, then?”

What did he want to hear? Liu Yuanxun pondered deeply before answering slowly. “I want to hear about the meaning of my existence so far—what I’ve brought to others by being alive, what I’ve done, who I’ve met, what I’ve eaten, what kind of life I’ve lived… I want to hear those things. And I want the people I care about to tell me that after I’m gone, they’ll have their own plans, that they’ll live well and not give me cause to worry.”

For someone without a future, talk of the future was meaningless. Lines like “after you recover, we’ll do such-and-such” were nothing but cruel reminders with every utterance: these were things he would never experience.

So he wanted to know what he had already accomplished. He wanted others to assure him: You’ve lived a full life. You’ve seen and done so much. You can go in peace. You don’t need to trouble yourself over us anymore.

With Ling Ting and Ling Qing just on the other side of the wall, his voice dropped to a whisper, audible only to Gu Lianzhao. “But I can’t be that cruel. Once I’m gone, all sensation ends for me. It’s the living who must carry the grief forever. If dreaming of the future postpones their pain even a little, then let them dream.”

He felt no sadness in saying this. On the contrary, voicing what had long been bottled up inside brought him a measure of relief.

Yet every word pierced Gu Lianzhao’s ears, drawing his brows together tight. He couldn’t help pressing a hand to his chest.

He felt miserable.

He wanted Liu Yuanxun to stop talking.

Others might cry when they hurt, but his pain ignited a blaze of fury, a urge to smash and rend whatever lay at hand. No outlet would turn it to tears.

That would be too feeble—a form of surrender.

Liu Yuanxun smiled, a trace of contentment softening his voice. “That’s why I can only say these things to you, A’Qiao. If Ling Qing were sitting here right now, she might already be in tears.”

…

After the medicinal bath, most of Liu Yuanxun’s wind chill had dissipated, and his spirits lifted considerably. That night, he even managed more than half a bowl of plain congee.

Sated and having drunk his medicine, he sank into deep slumber.

Gu Lianzhao remained at his bedside to tend him, as always.

But tonight, he added no incense and made no move toward him.

Liu Yuanxun’s words from the ear room lingered in his mind. For the first time, the reality struck him clearly: the man crowding against his side for warmth was dying.

Something seemed to boil in the depths of his heart, now smothered beneath layers of dampened rice paper—like the suffocating press of that ancient torture. It choked in his chest.

Gu Lianzhao refused to confront his emotions, not at least until he had settled his debts. He wouldn’t let them cloud his judgment. He even renounced the lust that had once set his blood aflame and stripped him of reason.

Thus, he neither touched Liu Yuanxun nor drew him into an embrace.

“Like” had crashed over him without reason or mercy, eroding his rationality like dripping water forming an abyss, beyond all control. But he was ruthless. It arrived uncontrollably; it departed cleanly—like severing a limb with a blade. He could discard anything.

Even when Liu Yuanxun mumbled in his sleep and inched closer for warmth, Gu Lianzhao held firm to his corner of the bed, refusing to raise his arm and pull the other man in.

Only his ears pricked up in the quiet, straining for Liu Yuanxun’s garbled murmurs.

He listened for ages, hearing nothing, nearly giving up—until a single word slipped out: “Cold…”

If he was cold, he needed warmth.

Had it been anything else, Liu Yuanxun wouldn’t have edged nearer, rubbing occasionally against Gu Lianzhao’s arm—like a cat headbutting the quilt overhead, desperate to nudge open a gap and slip inside.

Gu Lianzhao hesitated.

He had no intention of doing anything to Liu Yuanxun. But since this was repayment of a debt, providing that warmth himself felt like fitting recompense.

He seldom hesitated, so even this small one made him cautious.

Yet it was only a trivial matter.

Before he could decide, however, the frustrated cat grew irritated after fruitless rubbing. With a sudden flip, it huffed to the far side of the bed.

A heated flue ran beneath the bed, warming the whole frame. Newly asleep, one wouldn’t feel the cold yet.

But bedboard heat was nothing like the warmth of a body. The former was dry and harsh—even its scald was rigid. Skin pressed to the bed grew fever-hot; the rest stayed chilled to the bone, especially hands and feet, icy and impossible to warm.

Liu Yuanxun sensed there must be some warmer, more soothing source of heat, though he couldn’t name it. He furrowed his brow, shifting restlessly on the bed this way and that, unable to settle into comfort. His growing annoyance finally bubbled over in a clear mutter: “So annoying.”

Ever since the flip, Gu Lianzhao had been watching him sidelong—noting the uneasy writhing, the knitted brows. He had still been wavering when that “so annoying” escaped, prompting a stifled chuckle.

What was there to hesitate over?

The laugh banished all doubt.

Gu Lianzhao sighed and reached for Liu Yuanxun’s waist. Finding it, he tugged the man into his arms with a firm pull, molding Liu Yuanxun’s back to his chest. His hand settled naturally on Liu Yuanxun’s lower belly, channeling a thread of True Qi to ease the Dantian.

Liu Yuanxun had stewed in irritation for so long that the comfort came as bliss—but it emanated from behind him. Instinctively, he swatted away the hand spanning his waist and abdomen, then twisted around.

Too close.

They were pressed too tightly.

So near that, in the instant of turning, Liu Yuanxun’s soft lips grazed the tender skin beneath Gu Lianzhao’s eye.

Gu Lianzhao blinked in a daze, reaction suspended.

The sleeper knew nothing of it, still battling flickers of annoyance—brows pinched, lips pressed thin in unaccustomed ferocity. His head nudged insistently at Gu Lianzhao’s neck, questing for a familiar nestle.

Gu Lianzhao remained bemused, but half a month of bedding the man down had ingrained the motions in him too. Two rubs, and he tilted his head obligingly, allowing Liu Yuanxun to burrow into the crook of his neck.