Chapter 38#

“But this is the gift I truly wanted.” Chapter Number: 727261y#

After several spring rains, each day grew warmer than the last.

In early May, when the servants in the courtyard had all changed into lighter, more breathable summer clothes, Rong Yu finally received Granny Qin’s permission to shed his heavy garments and change into thinner spring wear.

His collar remained securely fastened, covering a small section of his slender neck. A white jade belt cinched his waist so tightly that it appeared slim and straight, like a willow branch, making his figure seem all the more lean and tall.

At this moment he sat in his wheelchair, watching Chu Tan practice with a spear in the courtyard.

In just one month, the man’s fractured arm had completely healed—thoroughly rewriting Rong Yu’s medical knowledge. If this were modern times, a fracture of this degree would require at least six weeks before the splint could be removed. As for a full recovery, three months at minimum.

But looking at Chu Tan now—full of vigor and vitality—he didn’t seem like someone who had ever broken a bone.

He gripped the spear shaft with both hands, veins bulging on the backs of his hands from the strain. His rolled-up sleeves revealed taut forearms, and even his broad, solid shoulders and back flexed with undulating lines. From beneath the thin fabric emanated a surging sense of power.

He wielded the long spear with formidable force, the sharp tip carving through the air with powerful whooshing sounds wherever it pointed. The red tassel at the spearhead danced in the wind, blazing and dazzling like flames under the sunlight.

Yet even more striking than the red tassel were his narrow, pitch-black eyes. Focused, cold, sharp and piercing like a falcon’s—murderous intent and sinister gloom churning in the depths of his pupils.

As the spear form reached its finale, he twisted his powerful waist, holding the spear with one hand, its tip pointing directly at Rong Yu’s brow. The spear trembled slightly, emitting a resonant hum, reflecting a chilling metallic gleam.

Rong Yu didn’t flinch in the slightest. His fair fingers gently stroked the kitten in his arms as he calmly met Chu Tan’s gaze. He watched as the coldness and killing intent in those dark eyes melted away like snow and ice, replaced by traces of smiling warmth.

Chu Tan withdrew his spear and strode toward Rong Yu, his body slick with sweat.

Mo Shu rolled his eyes in disgust.

Chu Tan crouched in front of Rong Yu, smiling as he asked, “Has the young master decided what reward to give me?”

Chu Tan had asked this once this morning, when Rong Yu had still been somewhat confused. It wasn’t until after breakfast that he heard Rong Yue—who had been shut indoors for a month—rushing hastily to the General’s residence.

Rong Yu knew then that Gu Yueze must have run into some new misfortune.

A month had passed since Gu Yueze’s head had been shaved. His injuries had mostly healed, and just as his guard had begun to relax, the second punishment arrived.

Two of his fingers had been severed while he slept—and he hadn’t felt a thing. Only when he woke in the morning and touched the sticky wetness, when searing pain suddenly erupted, did he discover that his left thumb and right index finger were gone.

Since the founding of this dynasty, there had been a rule: those with physical disabilities could not enter official service.

Gu Yueze’s career was now thoroughly destroyed.

He went mad at home, smashing everything in sight. Blood from his severed fingers splattered everywhere while he screamed and refused to let any physician tend to his wounds.

When Rong Yue arrived, he nearly took a flying vase to the head.

He expended great effort to calm Gu Yueze down, then summoned a physician to bandage his wounds, and dismissed everyone else.

Gu Yueze slumped against Rong Yue’s shoulder. The pain of severed fingers connected to the heart twisted his features. In his eyes was nothing but rage and boundless despair.

“I’m finished. I can never enter official service again.” Gu Yueze wept in agony, his voice trembling. “Just two more months—the emperor said he’d have me serve before him once I turned nineteen.”

Only two months remained until his nineteenth birthday, when he would have joined the Dianqian Division, becoming an imperial guard in the emperor’s personal retinue. He was the son of the Zhenyuan General, had been to war and earned military merit—he possessed both the family background and the ability.

A smooth and glorious path should have awaited him, but now it had all vanished like smoke.

Rong Yue’s heart ached as he hugged Gu Yueze tightly, comforting him, “I know. I know.”

Gu Yueze suddenly shoved Rong Yue away, screaming hysterically, “It was Chu Tan! Chu Tan did this! It must be him!”

His white underclothes were dotted with blood. His wig hung askew, and his eyes were bloodshot, like a madman possessed. “Rong Yu made him take revenge on me—he cut off my thumb and index finger so I could never draw a bow again. He’s avenging himself for when I forced him off the cliff with my arrows. My hair was his doing too—it’s him, it’s him!”

“I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him!” Gu Yueze doubled over, clutching his head and wailing. The wig slipped halfway off under all the thrashing, revealing the half-grown stubble on his scalp.

Seeing Gu Yueze like this, Rong Yue’s expression grew complicated. What surfaced in his mind instead was the image of the young general from his previous life, perpetually spirited and proud. That was his beloved—the companion he had spent half a lifetime with.

Not this madman before him with the ridiculous hairstyle and missing fingers.

Rong Yue naturally knew that Gu Yueze had provoked Rong Yu for his sake. In his previous life, Rong Yu had never gone to the hunting grounds, but he had still been frequently mocked and ridiculed.

But that Rong Yu had always worn every emotion on his face, throwing tantrums whenever and wherever he pleased, earning himself a reputation for viciousness and eccentricity that repelled others.

The Rong Yu of today had changed too much—completely unrecognizable to him, and impossible to see through. He also couldn’t understand why Chu Tan would help Rong Yu. In the previous life, the two had been at each other’s throats, and in the end Rong Yu had died horribly at Chu Tan’s hands.

How had everything changed in this life?

Rong Yue looked at Gu Yueze, feeling both lost and afraid. The fear wasn’t directed at Gu Yueze, but at Chu Tan.

Perhaps he should call him by his other name—Wei Jingtan.

That was a true demon.

One so terrifying that even after being reborn, Rong Yue still dared not face him. For a month now, nightmares had plagued him every night. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw the cold, crazed visage of that devil.

——

“Master, here.” Mo Shu handed a box to Rong Yu.

Rong Yu took it and passed it to Chu Tan in front of him, tilting his chin in a gesture for him to open it.

Lifting the lid, there lay on the velvet lining a section of silver-black spearhead. The spearhead was about a chi and eight cun long, its base carved with intricate patterns like a gorgeous, spreading phoenix tail, connecting to the blood groove that extended down from the tip.

The point was razor-sharp, its frigid outline seeming to split the very air around it.

Chu Tan picked it up and weighed it in his hand. It was substantial, cold to the touch—yet it set his blood ablaze.

It was as if an invisible thread connected him to this spearhead. He could sense that the material used to forge it was no ordinary substance—far sharper and sturdier than any spear he had ever wielded, incomparable even to the Shuohan Spear his father the prince had left him.

Chu Tan’s eyes gleamed slightly. “This is the young master’s gift to me?”

Rong Yu lowered his gaze to stroke the kitten, asking casually, “Do you like it?”

Months ago, during a manic episode, he had written down methods for smelting metals in his excitement. Later, finding it on his desk one day, curiosity had led him to send people to scour for some rare and unusual metals.

Now this spearhead had been forged from the alloy produced at the end of his experiments—unimaginably hard, and incomparably sharp. With the current technological level of this world, it could never have been made otherwise. There could be no better reward for Chu Tan.

Chu Tan placed the spearhead back in the box with great reverence, gazing at Rong Yu with deep intensity. “I like it very much.”

Rong Yu curled his lips in a light hum. The laugh was soft, as though he didn’t particularly care about Chu Tan’s answer.

Yet a faint trace of pride and smugness slipped through his brows and eyes. After all, in this world, no one else could ever forge such a weapon for Chu Tan.

This was Rong Yu’s confidence in himself—and beneath that confidence hid a joy and satisfaction he himself had never noticed.

But Chu Tan noticed. His chest burned, his heart hammered wildly—not because he’d obtained a fine weapon, but entirely because of the person before him, in every expression and every smile.

He grasped the armrest of the wheelchair, leaning forward in a half-embracing posture, tilting his head slightly upward to press a kiss to Rong Yu’s lips.

No lingering, no deepening—just a light press before pulling away. Yet it was offered with twelve parts of devotion and sincerity.

Sunlight spilled across Chu Tan’s handsome features, gilding him in a radiant glow.

Rong Yu gazed into his deep dark eyes and heard his voice, tender and lingering.

“But this is the gift I truly wanted.”

【Author’s Note:】

I’ve been struggling so badly with writer’s block, I’m so sorry wooooo