Chapter 39 - 3#

Jingzhe decided to give up asking.

The moment he stopped, Shi Li felt his heart slowly return to something resembling calm.

His back was drenched — the inner robe beneath his clothes had gone completely wet with cold sweat.

He still couldn’t figure out what had come over him. The Emperor had instructed them to be easy with the person in this room, to answer whatever was asked — but murder?

How had that answer come out of his mouth?

Even if that was genuinely what he’d been thinking, you simply could not say that aloud.

The instant the word had left him, Shi Li had been certain his life was over.

As for the second answer — that had only become “animal fighting” because Shi Li had wrestled down the urge at the last second. What he’d originally been about to say was watching people tear each other apart. He was fairly sure that would have frightened the young gentleman considerably.

Though the answer he’d actually given had already been enough to produce a prolonged silence.

He didn’t understand why, but in front of Jingzhe, Shi Li found it nearly impossible to conceal what was actually on his mind.

He just answered. Whatever was asked.

It was like standing before the Emperor himself — some wordless, unconscious compulsion that made withholding feel impossible. Even when Jingzhe had repeatedly invited him to sit, Shi Li couldn’t bring himself to do it.

His back stayed straight, his fingers rested on the hilt of his blade — the natural, unthinking posture of a man standing guard beside his sovereign. He only ever held himself like this when he was at his lord’s side.

Jingzhe didn’t know him well enough to notice, and Shi Li didn’t catch his own habit, so the moment passed without remark.

It was only when a colleague outside called through the door to say the birds had mostly dispersed that Jingzhe and Shi Li both let out a breath at almost exactly the same time.

For Jingzhe, it was relief at no longer having to figure out how to ask questions without getting terrifying answers — answers that did nothing to help the image he was trying to preserve of Rong Jiu… though admittedly, those grim and vivid memories weren’t going anywhere regardless.

For Shi Li, it was pure self-preservation instinct. He bowed to Jingzhe and slipped out through the gap in the door before anything else could go wrong.

“…Am I frightening?” Jingzhe found himself asking the system.

Shi Li had looked, by all accounts, like a man fleeing for his life.

[It’s possible that under the current buff, the host presents a rather intimidating image.]

The system’s reply was carefully worded.

Jingzhe sighed. Fine. He’d better deal with his hair first — it was a complete disaster, and every time he ran his hand through it he came away with a fistful.

*

Outside, Shi Li’s colleague — designated Guard Two — regarded him in silence.

Shi Li ignored him and descended the steps.

The courtyard was thick with animals. Quite a few pairs of eyes were fixed on the door.

The strange pull that young gentleman seemed to exert was genuinely unsettling.

“You let your real name slip,” Guard Two said, his tone flat.

He fell into step beside Shi Li.

“If I’d answered to Guard One, wouldn’t that have given everything away anyway?” Shi Li said. Guard One, Guard Two — anyone could tell those were designations, not names. How was he supposed to pretend otherwise?

He should have made up a false name on the spot. Somehow the real one had just come out.

“Still a violation of orders.”

“I’ll report myself for punishment when we’re back.”

Guard Two nodded. He studied the faint sheen of sweat on Shi Li’s forehead. “That person in there — is he really that alarming?”

Shi Li reached up automatically and found, with some surprise, that his forehead was indeed damp. He shot Guard Two a sideways look. The man’s hearing was exceptional — he’d probably caught most of what was said inside.

“Then why didn’t you come in?”

They’d been assigned to guard Jingzhe; Guard Two had every reason to enter the room. Instead he’d chosen to stay outside and face down a courtyard full of birds rather than step through that door. Why?

Guard Two, under Shi Li’s stare, rubbed his nose and had the decency to look slightly abashed.

He’d had a rather inexplicable reluctance himself.

The young gentleman looked entirely gentle and approachable — warm, even. And yet simply having those eyes on you produced the sudden, overwhelming urge to lower your head and not look up again. To sit near him felt unthinkable; to meet his gaze directly, worse.

Guard Two would never admit that when he’d heard Jingzhe invite Shi Li to sit down, Shi Li had nearly bolted out the door.

Terrifying. Genuinely terrifying.

Inside the room and out, Jingzhe and his two guards had arrived at the same conclusion through entirely different means.

Having finally removed the last of the feathers from his hair, Jingzhe addressed the empty air with something approaching despair: “If you had fur, I would pull every last strand off you.”

Bad enough that Rong Jiu was unpredictable — now he couldn’t even step out the door without that flock of birds watching him from the eaves like sentinels.

He found himself actively grateful there were no ants in the room. If a colony spotted him, he’d be waking up in the middle of the night surrounded by a dense, crawling mass of them. The image arrived fully-formed and Jingzhe suppressed it with some effort, not wanting to spend the rest of the evening unable to sleep.

*

When he finally emerged, hair presentable, he found Rong Jiu seated at the table, unhurriedly pouring tea.

His clothes were different from what he’d been wearing when he left that morning — far more refined than the guard’s uniform, rich and precisely cut, carrying a deep fragrance that was close to, though not quite the same as, the incense Jingzhe had grown used to.

“Were there more gu insects?” Jingzhe asked.

“In Qianming Palace.”

“Only found now?”

“There are cracked tiles in the forecourt of Qianming Palace. Someone used the gaps. They were all hidden underneath.”

Jingzhe shuddered involuntarily and wrapped his arms around himself.

What a bleak image.

“If there are insects like that hidden in other places as well…”

“There aren’t.” Rong Jiu said it without inflection. “These gu insects are fewer in number than the last ones — more vicious, with some resistance to the scent — but not much.”

The harder a strain was to cultivate, the smaller the quantity that could be produced. They would only be placed where they mattered most.

Jingzhe’s expression sobered. He’d clearly arrived at the same thought.

He walked over and sat beside Rong Jiu, picked up the half-finished cup of tea, and drained it in several gulps while exhaling heavily.

“Didn’t I tell you not to go out?” The chill in Rong Jiu’s voice would have unsettled most people, but Jingzhe just tilted his head and gave him a small, sideways look.

“I didn’t mean to.” He said it quietly, a little sheepish. “I only opened the window.”

Who could have predicted that what seemed like one small bird would turn into a frightening, surging mass of them?

One bird chirping was charming.

A great many birds chirping was a threat.

Rong Jiu said, with no particular expression, “Do you prefer a blade, or a chain?”

Jingzhe chose his words carefully. “I’m not particularly fond of either.”

Both sounded dangerous in ways he preferred not to think about.

“A blade lets you kill everything within your line of sight. A chain keeps you somewhere safe, where nothing can reach you.”

Said so plainly — and yet somehow each word carried the weight of something genuinely alarming.

Jingzhe picked up the teapot and filled Rong Jiu’s nearly empty cup, then pushed it back toward him. “I choose neither,” he said.

He emphasized it, just in case Rong Jiu might be tempted to pretend he hadn’t heard — and leaned on his shoulder to say it directly:

“Neither one. I choose neither.”

Why should anyone nearby be killed simply for being in his line of sight? What kind of logic was that? They’d just be people who happened to be in the wrong place. Completely unlucky.

He knew Rong Jiu tended toward the extreme. He hadn’t realized quite how extreme.

“My ears.” Rong Jiu didn’t pull away from the contact. He turned his head slightly. “Lower your voice.”

Jingzhe muttered, “That wouldn’t have been forceful enough.”

Rong Jiu had form for locking people up. Jingzhe was afraid that anything less than emphatic would result in the ankle restraint reappearing. He’d survived most of two days — if he could just hold out until morning, that would be the full stretch done. He was not going to undermine himself now.

“You’re too easy to like.” Rong Jiu said it in a tone that made it sound like he was explaining something reasonable. “Two choices. Different outcomes.”

“Different in that one harms others and one harms me. Why would I want either?” Jingzhe said. “I don’t want to trap myself, and I don’t want people dying on my account.”

And besides — where had this idea that he was ’easy to like’ come from?

That was the buff. Not him.

“Wait — the two guards today. They’re still alive, aren’t they?”

Rong Jiu’s mood had been off from the start. He wouldn’t have had them quietly dealt with just because they’d spent time in the same room as Jingzhe — would he?

Rong Jiu looked at him with ice in his eyes. Jingzhe looked back, indignant.

“They’re not dead.” Rong Jiu exhaled, with the restraint of a man exercising considerable patience. “What kind of murderous lunatic do you think I am?”

Jingzhe thought privately: well, your own subordinates think your favorite hobby is killing people, so the jury might still be out on that.

He reached out and rested his hand on Rong Jiu’s shoulder. They were sitting close enough that the air between them had almost no distance left in it.

Jingzhe leaned in a little more, and lifted both hands to cup the man’s face.

The coolness of the skin beneath his palms still surprised him somehow — it always inspired a faint, involuntary awe. How could a person run this cold? He felt less like a person than a finely carved stone figure come to rest.

“Rong Jiu,” Jingzhe said softly, “I only have eyes for you. No matter how many people are in front of me, I’ll only ever be looking at you.”

One hand moved from his face and settled over his heart.

And then, almost imperceptibly, that slow and steady heartbeat seemed to stutter — one brief, faster pulse.

“Do you really think I’m going to fall for someone else?”

Even that one question was enough to draw something strange and shadowed into the depths of Rong Jiu’s eyes. “It doesn’t appear so,” he said coldly.

His arm came around Jingzhe’s waist and pulled him off-balance, until Jingzhe was sitting on his lap.

“What do you mean, ‘doesn’t appear’?” Jingzhe protested. Did Rong Jiu genuinely suspect him of being inconstant?

“You like many things. You’re fond of many people.” Rong Jiu’s voice was even. “You like clear days. You like small animals. You like sweet food. You like making friends. You’re fond of Mingyu, Zheng Hong, Huiping, Gusheng—”

He hadn’t finished the list before Jingzhe, embarrassed and exasperated, clamped a hand over his mouth.

“That’s completely different and you know it.”

Rong Jiu had a habit of mixing everything together like this. This was not the first time.

“I would never be this close with any of them,” Jingzhe said.

He yelped — Rong Jiu had bitten his palm, not hard, just enough to feel.

And yet it left a strange, lingering warmth.

Rong Jiu said, in his unhurried way, “Close in which sense?”

Jingzhe wavered, casting about, and then lowered his head and pressed a light kiss to the tip of Rong Jiu’s nose.

Then he pulled back slightly. “That kind of close,” he said quietly.

“Don’t always think so much,” Jingzhe murmured. “Unless you turn out to be someone so far above me I could never reach you, or unless you already have a wife and children somewhere — I’m not going anywhere.”

…As long as Rong Jiu wasn’t lying to him.

He just wanted to live quietly. That was all.

He’d thought that would be enough to settle things. But when he looked up, that beautiful face wore a smile that sent a chill through him — while the eyes beneath it held something suppressed and volatile, dark and churning.

“…Maybe I should just lock you up after all.” The low, quiet voice carried the particular stillness that comes before something breaks.

How had they ended up back here?

Jingzhe had a very strong urge to grab Rong Jiu by the shoulders and shake him until all the frightening thoughts rattled loose.

“Is there nothing else you want?” Jingzhe tried. “Something other than — this. Something for yourself. A higher rank, maybe. A command position. More money. Or—”

“None of that means anything.” The voice was smooth and unhurried, and somehow colder for it. “If you don’t want it, it’s worthless.”

Jingzhe’s breath came a little unevenly. He let it out slowly. “You can’t make me the measure of everything. You should have things you want for your own sake—”

Rong Jiu’s grip tightened on his waist and pulled him closer.

“If they can’t bring you joy, they’re useless.” A pause, barely perceptible — and yet the same syllables seemed to mean something entirely different in what followed. Rong Jiu’s voice turned soft in a way that was more unsettling than anger. “If they can bring you joy — then they should be destroyed. Anything that makes you happy, other than me, has no right to exist.”

The strange, feverish intensity in it left no room for doubt that he meant every word.

…How could someone’s love be so violent? So completely unbeholden to anything ordinary?

There was no tenderness in it. Only pure, uncut ferocity.

Jingzhe had never thought of love as something capable of this. Love was supposed to be soft, glad, gentle. But in Rong Jiu it manifested as nothing but a warped and suffocating obsession.

This was dangerous.

And yet — knowing it was dangerous, choosing to stay anyway—

Perhaps he’d also gone a little mad.

“I don’t think this is right, and I’ll probably keep pushing back for as long as we’re together.” A trace of fear was moving through Jingzhe now, threading through his blood, and his voice, when it came, was not entirely steady. “…But if this is how you love someone… I’ll try. I’ll keep trying.”

There were times when Rong Jiu’s thinking and his own seemed separated by an unbridgeable distance — most of what lay on the other side of that gap, Jingzhe couldn’t accept.

But just as he’d always made choices that were, perhaps, a little reckless.

He couldn’t accept those things.

But he would — accept Rong Jiu.