Chapter 84#
Ji Yang had completely forgotten that he was actually capable of resisting.
But he didn’t.
It was as if even this kind of boundary-crossing, tinged with a slight sting, the closeness and the sensations—because he knew who this person was, he could accept it all without reservation. That was a subconscious sense of security, a willingness to offer trust.
For Ji Yang, this was actually quite a hard thing to do.
Even he himself was surprised.
So when Nie Xu released him, he turned his head in astonishment.
“You—”
Before he could speak, someone emerged from the small path between the banana plants in front of the building.
The old lady probably still carried habits from her days serving the main household—she kept her head slightly bowed out of habit as she approached. Because of her age, she walked quite slowly, her cloth shoes making almost no sound on the path.
Seeing the two of them standing so close together by the door, her expression remained perfectly calm.
It was Ji Yang who instinctively pushed Nie Xu away.
“Grandma,” Ji Yang greeted her with a smile, stepping down to meet her. “What brings you here?”
The old lady let him link his arm through hers, a hint of a smile on her face, and said, “I came to check on you. That boy You Li said you took some medicine that caused internal heat, and he was worried there might be a problem with the way you’ve been decocting it.”
Ji Yang felt a flash of embarrassment.
He didn’t want to tell her that the medicine had been brought over, but he hadn’t allowed Nie Xu to brew any today, so the whole parcel was still sitting in a cloth bundle in the kitchen.
“I’m all better now,” Ji Yang said, supporting the old lady as they walked up the wooden steps. “Careful.”
The old lady turned her head to glance at him and said, “Your health is still too poor, and you have external injuries—you still need to rest and recover. Last time you came, I already thought you were too thin. If you’re not too busy this time, stay a few more days. I’ll have You Li’s father go to the bamboo grove behind the house and get some bamboo fungus for soup. The bamboo fungus around the end of October has the best texture.”
“How wonderful,” Ji Yang teased with a smile. “Last time when I first arrived, you barely acknowledged me.”
As he said this, Ji Yang deliberately glanced at Nie Xu.
The old lady walked up to Nie Xu and addressed him: “Young Master.”
“It’s been so many years, you don’t need to call me that.” Nie Xu stepped aside slightly and said, “Come in and sit.”
The old lady waved her hand. “I won’t sit.”
She took out the wooden box she had been carrying in her hand ever since she arrived and handed it to Nie Xu.
She spoke: “Besides the instructions for decocting the medicine being in here, I came for another matter. Back when the Nie family had their troubles, Steward Lu arranged for me to return to Zhouling first. I waited here for so long without any news from you, and at that time I thought…” The old lady sighed, then smiled. “What’s inside the box is something I kept for myself as a memento. When I was young, I was originally a domestic helper for the Shen family, and later I went to the Nie family with your mother. I watched her grow up, go abroad for her studies, return, get married, have children, and have you. And now,” the old lady glanced at Ji Yang beside them, then turned back to Nie Xu and said, “I’m just an old woman who doesn’t understand the affairs of young people, but I can see that you’re more settled than in past years. Even if I go into the ground, I can rest easier. Having someone to care about is a good thing in this life—so leave these little things for the two of you.”
Nie Xu took the box in his hands and looked at it. “This chest is still made with the old Shen family craftsmanship.”
“Yes,” the old lady said. “It was part of your mother’s dowry. You can’t find things of this quality anymore.”
The atmosphere grew somewhat heavy for a moment.
Ji Yang chimed in from the side: “A dowry, huh? If there’s any jewelry or something in there, he doesn’t even have a girl to give it to, Grandma.”
The old lady shot him a disapproving look. “You think I’m senile? I’m not senile. I’ve never liked people surnamed Ji, but you’re a good child, so I won’t say more.”
As she spoke, her gaze moved back and forth between the two of them.
In the end, she chose to remind Nie Xu: “You chose this person yourself. He’s not accustomed to your kind of rigorous training life. If you want this marriage to work, don’t go treating him like you do with You Li.”
Ji Yang beside them: “…”
Nie Xu glanced at Ji Yang and nodded: “Understood. Don’t worry.”
It took a great deal of effort to finally see the old lady off.
Ji Yang: “What exactly did she mean by all that?”
“Didn’t you catch on?” Nie Xu asked.
Ji Yang shook his head: “Not exactly. I mean, what made her suddenly so formal? Didn’t you explain things clearly to her?”
Nie Xu turned and walked back inside with the box. “Explain what?”
“We’re not living together,” Ji Yang muttered as he followed Nie Xu inside. “First there was Old Peng, and now the old lady too. Did something happen last night after we arrived in Zhouling while I was asleep that I don’t know about?”
Nie Xu set the box on the table and examined the lock clasp on the side.
“Last night?” Nie Xu repeated. “If you mean Jiang Lei having the entire You household, whose lights were already out, climb out of bed in the middle of the night—whenever anyone asked what was going on, he just said, ‘My wife fainted and is about to die’—then yes, that did happen.”
Ji Yang was speechless: “…Jiang Lei is a complete fabricator!”
Nie Xu: “You were too exhausted at the time, basically half-fainted. Now you’ve moved into the small building, and the You family has already accepted that identity by default.”
Ji Yang circled around to the opposite side of the table.
“Then why didn’t you clarify?”
“Why would I?” Nie Xu looked up at him. “Do you think me kissing you, taking you back to Berman, chasing you all the way to South Island—was all because I was your bodyguard?”
Ji Yang was left speechless by those words.
At this moment, Nie Xu braced one hand on the table, leaning in as he bent down.
His gaze swept across Ji Yang’s face and settled on the tip of his nose, his voice soft: “Besides, now I’m not even a bodyguard anymore.”
Ji Yang swallowed nervously under his gaze.
Involuntably led astray by his words, he asked: “Then what do you want to be?”
“What do you think?” Nie Xu threw the question back at him—not to force an answer, but merely to remind him: “There’s never such a thing as unconditional kindness in this world. I’m just like any normal man—there’s a price and interest. It’s just a matter of when you pay.”
Ji Yang was provoked: “How do I pay? With myself? And what’s the deadline? You can’t be a profiteer, can you?”
“Well, you’ve seriously misjudged me,” Nie Xu said, clicking open the lid of the box with a soft click as he spoke: “I’m exclusively in the profiteering business. Compensation has no upper limit. As for the deadline—well, that’s also up to me.”
Ji Yang had just been about to say no wonder he could get rich.
He noticed that Nie Xu was staring at the contents of the box without moving.
Ji Yang didn’t lean over to look. Thinking it must be something related to his family, he sensibly kept quiet, stood up, and prepared to leave, giving him some private space.
Before he could take a step, he was grabbed.
“Where are you going?” Nie Xu asked.
Ji Yang pointed outside. “I was just going to take a walk around.”
Nie Xu saw through him and said, “It’s fine. There’s nothing you can’t see.”
As he said this, he turned the box around.
Ji Yang lowered his eyes and glanced at it.
Indeed.
They were all small, scattered keepsakes. Ji Yang even found a rattle drum inside—the same one held by the child standing between the young couple in the old photograph at the very top.
“Is this you?” Ji Yang picked up the photograph and asked.
Nie Xu gave an “mm.” “Yes.”
Ji Yang found it quite fascinating. The photograph was very old, but because it had been laminated, it was well preserved.
The man and woman in the photo—the man was tall and broad with an air of refinement, the woman had long hair, her qipao accentuating her graceful figure, giving an impression of gentle strength.
Looking at them, Ji Yang didn’t even feel they were strangers. Fragmentary memories resurfaced—the woman placing him on a boat, speaking softly in tender farewell. Not the frozen moment captured in the photograph, but vivid, as if right before his eyes.
The Nie Xu in the photograph looked even younger than in his memories.
Probably only two or three years old.
He couldn’t even show much childishness at that age—a small face serious and taut, frowning at the camera.
Ji Yang felt like laughing.
He couldn’t believe that the person in this photograph had one day transformed into the man standing beside him.
Ji Yang looked him over.
Nie Xu held another photograph in his hand, head tilted as he studied it.
It was deep autumn weather—Ji Yang had already put on a sweater, but Nie Xu was still in a short-sleeved shirt. It had just been through a summer, and Ji Yang felt he looked different from the day he’d first transmigrated. His skin was a shade darker, the stubble on his head making his frowning expression even more severe. The back of his hand still bore scabbed-over scrapes from yesterday’s injury. Standing in this wooden building, he seemed so tall the roof felt like it was pressing down.
Nie Xu didn’t even look up: “If you have something to ask, just ask. Don’t keep staring at me.”
Ji Yang muttered: “Eyes on top of your head, huh.”
“You forgot what I do for a living?” Nie Xu looked at him.
Ji Yang put the photograph back and said, “Nothing to ask. I just noticed you look quite like your uncle—oh, and your eyes look like your aunt’s.” Seeing Nie Xu’s unrelenting stare, Ji Yang added: “Your eyes are good-looking, pure black. It’s just that when you stare at people with them without saying anything on your body, it can scare you to death.”
Not wanting to appear as though he was just criticizing, Ji Yang followed up with a question of his own: “What are you looking at? You’ve been staring at it for so long.”
Nie Xu handed him the photograph from his hand.
Ji Yang reached out and took it.
The moment he got it, Ji Yang froze.
This photograph was even older than the one he’d just held. Without lamination, the colors had faded, and the edges were worn and whitened.
In the photograph were two young girls.
One of them Ji Yang had just seen—Nie Xu’s mother, Shen Yueqing. The other, Ji Yang did not recognize.
It was a young girl with short hair.
An oval face, a beautiful smile, and a small dimple on her cheek.
The background of the photograph looked like a foreign building—nothing distinctive, just a red brick structure. Outside an arched doorway, a flowerbed with a water feature, and half of a sculpture was framed in the shot.
He didn’t know her, yet Ji Yang was drawn in the moment he laid eyes on her.
He stared at the person in the photograph for a long time.
His mind went completely blank.
He heard himself asking Nie Xu: “The person next to your mother—do you know her?”
“I don’t know her,” Nie Xu said. He still had several more photographs in his hand. “These are all photos my mother took with classmates while studying abroad. Only the one in your hands—only the two of them.”
Ji Yang’s throat was dry. He looked up and asked: “You were staring at this photograph for so long just now—why?”
Nie Xu looked at him.
He set everything in his hands down and walked up to Ji Yang.
“For the same reason as you—she looks very much like you.” Nie Xu reached out and tried to take the photograph from him, but because Ji Yang was gripping it so tightly, he couldn’t pull it free.
Nie Xu already knew clearly which direction the investigation needed to take. He let out a soft sigh, cradled the back of Ji Yang’s head, pressed him against his shoulder, and coaxed gently: “Let go first. You’re too tense.”