Chapter 13#

Red Turns to Jade#

Outside the window, a fierce shout suddenly rang out: “Thief, halt!” Feng Bing recognized the voice—it was old Wu Bo, the servant of Pei Dan’s household. Then came the intermittent clash of metal on metal, as if a struggle was winding through the rear courtyard of the estate.

Pei Dan was not unconscious, but neither did he seem fully awake. Moonlight filtered through the window, falling across his pale face and those dark, deep-set eyes, staring straight at Feng Bing.

Feng Bing reached out to feel his back, then quickly pulled away—his hand was covered in blood, still warm, an eerie crimson under the glow of the fire.

He lifted Pei Dan’s body onto his own, holding him in an embrace, so he could tend to the wound on his back. But Pei Dan turned his head uneasily, his chin brushing against Feng Bing’s hair, and called out again: “Fourth brother.”

Feng Bing ignored him. With one hand he pressed a cloth against the wound, and with the other he gripped the arrow’s fletching. He closed his eyes and yanked hard.

Pei Dan jerked like a fish leaping, then went limp, gasping in huge, ragged breaths. Blood surged out at once, yet Pei Dan held him even tighter. Feng Bing couldn’t free a hand to reach for medicine; the cloth was quickly soaked through, shifting from bright crimson to deep red.

“My lord!” Chunshi stumbled in. “Wu Bo sent me to—” He saw the scene in the room—especially his master drenched in blood—and his legs nearly gave way.

“I’m fine,” Feng Bing said coolly. “Bring me my medicine chest.”

Chunshi himself was bruised and battered, limping, injured by who knew what. He fumbled about, dragging out the medicine chest and rummaging for the hemostatic wound powder. Feng Bing carefully tore open the clothing around Pei Dan’s wound, revealing a gash so deep the bone was visible. He let out a breath of relief: “No poison.”

Chunshi’s hands were shaking, and the powder scattered unevenly. Feng Bing simply took it from him and used up three or four packets of the wound powder before finally stemming the near-catastrophic flow of blood. Chunshi hastily handed over white gauze bandages.

“You hold him,” Feng Bing told Chunshi, then frowned at Pei Dan. “Let go of me.”

Pei Dan said: “I won’t.”

Feng Bing was silent for a moment. Rather than arguing with him, he worked from their current position and, with great difficulty, began removing Pei Dan’s clothes from within his embrace. The crimson outer robe fell away, revealing a white undergarment drenched in blood, even stuck to the wound. Feng Bing gritted his teeth and pulled further. He didn’t want to look at Pei Dan’s body; he wound the gauze from back to chest and around again, tying it tightly three times, his gaze fixed solely on the three shadows on the wall.

But after all, what his hand touched was warm flesh and muscle. All sounds had fallen silent; the lamplight flickered. After all, there was a heart—silent and restrained—beating beneath his palm.

It had been a long time since Feng Bing had been this close to anyone. Pei Dan’s breath brushed across his hair, incongruous, unsettling. He wanted to shrink back, but was afraid of dropping Pei Dan. As he bandaged, he awkwardly reached for a topic of conversation: “You saved my life… Thank you.”

Pei Dan seemed surprised. He lifted his eyes slightly, then let them fall again, as though that one “thank you” had left him feeling somehow lonely.

Feng Bing shut his mouth.

As Feng Bing and Chunshi were preparing to carry Pei Dan to the bed, Wu Bo returned and gave them a hand, positioning Pei Dan to lie on his side. Pei Dan closed his eyes—whether asleep or awake, no one could tell. Wu Bo gently tugged at Feng Bing’s sleeve and led him out to the main hall.

On the hall floor lay a body dressed in black.

“This one is incompetent,” Wu Bo said, head bowed, brows knitted with worry. “I meant to wring a few words out of him, but before I knew it, he’d taken poison and killed himself…”

As he spoke, Wu Bo removed the mask from the black-clad man’s face. He was a young man in his early twenties; the poison had given his skin a deathly greenish cast, and his eyes bulged grotesquely. Feng Bing took one glance, then turned his head away. “I know him.”

Wu Bo was surprised. “Who is he?”

Feng Bing’s voice trembled ever so slightly: “He is… Feng Cheng’s companion—Feng Cheng’s son.”

Wu Bo was silent for a moment, then pulled open the dead man’s black clothing. “He’s covered in wounds. Otherwise he could have at least escaped.”

The dozens of tribute envoys from Jiannan Circuit had all been thrown into the imperial prison because of Feng Cheng. This young man had likely been among them—only heaven knew when he had been released.

Feng Bing said quietly: “Imprisonment by direct imperial command—there are countless methods of extracting confessions…”

It seemed Feng Cheng was surely doomed. The young man had been gravely wounded, resolved to die, and had come to kill him the moment he left prison—to avenge his father. But was Feng Bing truly his enemy?

Wu Bo carried the body away. The lamplight wavered. Feng Bing returned to the bedroom and saw that Pei Dan’s eyes were still closed, which gave him momentary relief. He sat on the edge of the bed and fell into a daze.

For a while it seemed as though a thousand thoughts had crossed his mind; for a while, as though he’d only been listening to Pei Dan’s faint, distant breathing.

Chunshi crouched in front of him and gently touched his hand.

Feng Bing looked at him and smiled faintly: “You want to say this is your fault again?”

Chunshi bit his lip, saying nothing.

“On the contrary, I think this whole setup was likely orchestrated long ago,” Feng Bing said. “But the man is dead… Let’s rest.”

Chunshi glanced at Pei Dan on the bed and asked in a small voice: “But he’s taken the bed—where will the master sleep?”

Feng Bing was troubled by this too. “I’ll go to the outer room. We can sleep together.”

He was about to rise when Pei Dan seized his hand.

He turned back.

Pei Dan at this moment seemed truly beyond knowing whether he was lucious or delirious. He appeared not to have heard any of the conversation in between, only gripping Feng Bing’s wrist tightly with all five fingers, stubbornly repeating: “I won’t let go.”

In that instant, Feng Bing was drained in body and spirit. “Pei Dan, can you be reasonable? I need to sleep too.”

But Pei Dan said nothing. He awkwardly shifted his body toward the inside of the bed, clearing a space the width of one person.

Feng Bing steeled himself to pry his hand open, only to hear Pei Dan murmur: “It’s my birthday today. Just… stay with me, won’t you?”

His voice was as faint as the last breath of air. The dim, guttering candlelight seemed to pull his words down into some dark underwater place, stirring up cold, mournful ripples.

Feng Bing said nothing. Pei Dan’s injuries were severe, his tone so pleading. In the deep, dark night, Feng Bing’s weariness felt like an unreasonable thing.

Perhaps this silence finally frightened Pei Dan, for he added: “Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll definitely let you go. Won’t that be all right?”

A moment later, the edge of the bed dipped slightly—Feng Bing had finally lain down, fully clothed, with his back turned. After the candle was blown out, the bed curtain was drawn softly shut, swaying gently in the still air.

The hand released its grip, but the person stayed. Pei Dan moved a little closer. His hand, resting beneath the pillow, was only a hair’s breadth from the tips of Feng Bing’s hair. He gently scratched at the silk surface of the bed, but never truly reached out to touch.

The pain in his wound had reached its peak and turned numb—like having drunk too much wine, unable to find solid footing beneath his feet.

“I… I wrote you a letter.” Pei Dan’s voice was like a gust of air that dissipated the moment it left his lips, tinged with a faint bitterness. “Did you…”

Silence.

The charcoal fire had gone out. Everything was hushed and still. Feng Bing’s slender silhouette curved in the darkness like the ridgeline of a mountain swallowed by night.

After a long time, he thought: Feng Bing must have fallen asleep.

He had never expected to share a bed with Feng Bing again, but even less had he expected to sustain such grave injuries—so much so that anything he said now felt like a form of coercion.

It was as if he were at times floating among clouds, at times sinking into an abyss. Neither the tenderness nor the happiness he grasped at could be held; the spirit within his body was slowly being drawn away, thread by thread. In the end, he never heard Feng Bing’s answer. He simply fell into a dead sleep.

This was his twenty-fifth birthday.

Chunshi straightened his own little bed, only to turn around and find that the master’s bedroom had already been extinguished—the lamps out, the curtains drawn.

Chunshi wasn’t surprised. Master Pei had taken such a terrible wound for his lord, had bled so much. Perhaps he truly needed someone to tend to him. And the master was not the sort to accept such debts lightly.

But Chunshi himself had also been punched by an assassin, and it hurt quite a bit! Hugging his small quilt, he still muttered indignantly: “Little enchantress! Shameless!”

Today is also the author’s birthday! (Looks at everyone with expectant eyes) Hahaha, thank you all for your support!