“Then just keep running your mouth.” Yi Xuan was so angry his teeth itched.
Ning Xuan’s entire arm was frighteningly sensitive. The slightest touch made him grimace in pain. The bloodstained undergarment could no longer be worn, and even if he wanted to wash it, his current condition made that inconvenient. Fortunately, Yi Xuan was there. Although his mouth was usually a little poisonous, and his eyes were just as sharp when judging people, his heart was actually rather good. At a time like this, Ning Xuan would already have been overjoyed if someone merely treated him like a stranger and did not kick him while he was down, let alone offered help like charcoal sent in a snowstorm. Ning Xuan was instantly so moved that his eyes grew watery, like an abandoned puppy that had finally found the warm embrace of its owner. Blinking his bright eyes, he looked at Yi Xuan with a pitiful face full of hope.
Yi Xuan shuddered and nearly threw the bloodstained undergarment straight out the door as though he had picked up some scalding-hot potato. “Can you put away those expressive eyes and stop disgusting me?”
The beautiful friendship and warm atmosphere were immediately ruined to the extreme by Yi Xuan’s single sentence. Ning Xuan was wrapped from top to bottom, inside and out, like a mummy. The reason was that since his arm had been burned, putting on clothes was inconvenient, and in the depths of winter, sitting in this icehouse of a room without even an undergarment was practically slow suicide, and the kind with an especially painful and torturous process. Fortunately, Yi Xuan was not only fully equipped, but had also brought quite a generous amount. In the end, he simply wrapped Ning Xuan’s entire upper body tightly in bandages as well, calling it “self-reliance brings ample clothing and food,” while Yi Xuan unceremoniously rewarded Ning Xuan’s great and enterprising idea with a massive eye roll.
Only after a long round of fussing did things finally settle down. Ning Xuan had just cheerfully thought of taking a few sips of water to replenish the moisture lost during his “strenuous exercise” when Yi Xuan seized the empty moment and went straight to the point. “I told you before. You have to know how to cherish your blessings, and you have to know how to be content. Do you still remember?”
Ning Xuan had not expected that after all his interruptions, distractions, and random nonsense, Yi Xuan would still remember the topic they had left halfway through earlier. And now he even looked as though he could not be bothered to beat around the bush anymore. Ning Xuan was so startled that he nearly failed to react in time and spat out the mouthful of water.
He forced himself to swallow that mouthful of water. His eyes opened wide and round, not from surprise, but because he had choked. In an instant, he deflated. The earlier posture of “I’m back again” vanished like smoke, and he hunched his back with a defeated expression. “No way. So that line was waiting for me here all along…”
“A master is a master. Regardless of right or wrong, to us servants, everything the master says is right. Anything that does not accord with the master’s wishes is wrong. I know you don’t want to hear this, and I also know I can’t force anything into your head, but what I can tell you is that you need to take care of yourself. Your current situation isn’t that bad yet. At least you’re still in the main courtyard. Although many messy things are unavoidable, this is already much better than it could be. If you can’t even endure this, then no one can help you.”
“Some truths are useless no matter how much we say them. You have to understand them yourself…” Yi Xuan glanced at Ning Xuan’s arm. “Looking at you now, it won’t be convenient for you to serve in front for the next few days. You should rest for a while. I’ll report to the steward for you and say a few good words on your behalf, but it probably won’t be possible for you to be completely idle. I can only try to get you some lighter work. Take this time to think things over properly.”
Watching Yi Xuan speak so smoothly, as though he were reciting lines, Ning Xuan was even more surprised by Yi Xuan’s expression and ability to organize his words than by the content itself. Although they had spent quite some time together, Ning Xuan had never known that true experts really did not reveal themselves. Yi Xuan actually had quite the talent for psychological counseling and acting as a caring older brother.
He watched Yi Xuan leave in stunned silence. Even after the door closed and not a hair of the man could be seen anymore, Ning Xuan still looked as though his jaw had dislocated and refused to return to place. Scratching his head, he had always thought this prince’s manor was filthy, chaotic, and full of cold human relations that could change overnight. Yet who would have expected that although going out today had brought him nothing good, he had also witnessed an “enemy” steward transform into a nameless hero who acted bravely for justice, and a sharp-tongued “superior” transform into a caring older brother who provided free psychological counseling? Everything had happened too quickly. Ning Xuan truly could not keep up.
After changing into a fresh set of clothes, aside from the burning pain and heat in his right hand, Ning Xuan felt as though his whole body was cold enough to freeze. He quickly shrank under the blanket, curling himself into a ball in the corner and doing his best to reduce the surface area exposed to the air so as to lessen heat loss. Inevitably, his movements tugged at the bandages and brushed his arm, making him bare his teeth in pain.
Nearly half a year had passed since he transmigrated here. From the initial period of cursing heaven and earth over how impossible it was to adapt, to now, when he suddenly had nothing to do and instead felt unsettled as though something were missing, Ning Xuan cursed himself for being cheap. Thinking back to his former shut-in life, he had slept until he woke naturally, eaten and drunk as he pleased, lain on his bed bored out of his mind yet unwilling to move. Even eating had felt troublesome because he had to go downstairs to buy food, and unless he was so hungry he had only one breath left, he absolutely refused to surrender. Yet now, despite severe lack of sleep and the layered oppression of his spirit, heart, outlook on life, sense of time, and values, he was clearly exhausted but could not sleep no matter what. His eyes were so dry that even blinking felt like dragging a saw back and forth. It was rare for the ancient yet ever-effective method of counting sheep to brew even a little drowsiness, but the intermittent throbbing pain in his arm jolted him awake with renewed energy each time. Ning Xuan wore a miserable expression, unable to voice his suffering.
He did not know whether his mind had finally reached its limit, or whether the god of sleep had taken pity on him and granted him a little drowsiness that even pain could not dispel. His head began to grow dizzy and muddled, and even his body temperature seemed to rise without his noticing. Warm and hazy, though the wooden bed was a little hard, it was still enough to make him think of a king-size Simmons mattress. Drowsiness blurred over him, and even the pain in his arm went numb.
He slept very deeply, yet somehow not peacefully. In his dreams, he heard sounds, vague and indistinct. They seemed very far away, yet also very near. It felt as though someone was stroking his head again and again, not with much force, even gently. Unused to having a rare good sleep disturbed, he wanted to see who was so tactless as to refuse him even a peaceful rest, but after struggling for a long time, he still could not open his eyes. In the end, he could only give up in frustration. Those eyelids, supposedly the thinnest pieces of skin on the human body, were fighting him like they had been filled with lead. If he had not been so terribly sleepy, he would not have minded using external force to pry them open and verify whether they really had been filled with lead. In his daze, he thought that his luck had truly been terrible lately, with all his misfortunes piling together. When he had time, he really ought to go offer a stick of incense. Although he was an atheist, now that he had arrived on someone else’s turf, he should follow the local customs, shouldn’t he?
Although it was somewhat annoying, at least the repeated movement had a rhythm to it. If he worked hard enough to sink back into sleep, he could more or less pretend it did not exist. And so he let it be.
The scene shifted. The bed had softened somewhat, but it did not feel like the Simmons mattress at home. There were iron railings beside the bed, and its width was only ninety centimeters, just enough for him to turn over. If this was not standard dormitory configuration, what else could it be? The heat source on his thighs was working diligently. The NBA All-Star Game was so exciting it made his blood boil, and his eyes lit up. Every player looked familiar, yet he could not name any of them. He had just wanted to lament that he was not nearly enough of a die-hard fan when he heard several womanly “mm” and “ah” sounds coming from beneath the bed.
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