TSMITB Chapter30

When Shen Que opened his eyes again, his entire body was tightly bound with cloth strips smeared with medicine, leaving only his head completely exposed. Even moving felt strenuous.

The room was empty. Surprisingly, not a single person remained to await his awakening. Such disregard made for a far worse experience than he had been accustomed to before.

From beyond the door came the clatter and pounding of activity, punctuated now and then by snatches of conversation, though he had no idea what was keeping them so occupied.

Shen Que waited without a word until he had nearly finished counting every nail on the ceiling. Finally, someone remembered him.

Old Qiu and Gang Zi pushed the door open to find Shen Que already awake, eyes wide, his dark, grape-like pupils flickering restlessly as if scheming over something.

The two men traded a brief look, confirmed that his mind hadn’t been tampered with, and promptly eased their guard. They turned and retreated without saying a word, closing the door unceremoniously.

“……?” Shen Que had been pretending to wait for their condolences but was met with a merciless door slam instead. He stared silently at the ceiling for a long while, suddenly realizing that he seemed to have been ostracized by them.

After another burst of noise, the door was pushed open a crack again. Ah Chao peeked in through the doorway and asked like a thief, “Do you need to pee?”

“No need, I’ll just pee the bed later.” Shen Que didn’t even lift an eyelid. He was already stewing with nowhere to vent his anger and immediately started talking nonsense in a huff.

“Don’t be angry. It’s not that we want to neglect you. Sheng Qixiao told us not to talk to you. He said you should properly reflect first.”

“Wow.” Shen Que was almost laughed out of anger. “You listen to whatever he says? How old are you? Didn’t you finish kindergarten or wear enough red scarves? He told you to shut up, and you actually did?” He never saw them listen to him much normally…

“Shh, quiet down!” Ah Chao quickly glanced at the situation outside the door, turned back, and continued in a low voice: “Mainly, we also think he makes sense. You almost didn’t make it back this time. You really should reflect.”

“I went to look for him!”

“He actually doesn’t really need you to worry about him… Anyway, just focus on recovering from your injuries. I’ve been through this too, I understand you.” Ah Chao clenched his fist as he put on a cheerful, encouraging demeanor. “You can also pretend that you’re unilaterally isolating all of us. Does that make you feel better?”

“……”

The master was right. The people in E’yun Mountain were frighteningly adept at swaying hearts. It hadn’t been long at all, yet Sheng Qixiao had already “won over” Ah Chao and the rest. Shen Que gritted his teeth while lying rigidly straight in the quilt. After less than two seconds of silence, he waved at Ah Chao again, his tone icy. “Bathroom.”

Ah Chao rolled his eyes, took a step back, and before he could turn around, his back bumped into a human wall first.

Sheng Qixiao raised his hand and pressed it on Ah Chao’s shoulder, easily pushing him aside. His movements were swift and clean. He naturally stepped forward wifb his gaze landing accurately on Shen Que. “I’ll help you.”

Ah Chao rubbed his shoulder. How was it that he remembered Sheng Qixiao looking neither this tall nor this imposing when they first met?

“Are you still not leaving?” Sheng Qixiao turned his head to look. His tone was calm and flat, yet Ah Chao detected a hint of impatience in it. He immediately greased his soles and ran.

The sound of the door closing then rang out, and the room quieted down again. Sheng Qixiao stood by the bed while looking down at Shen Que, making him feel completely uneasy.

“What are you doing?” Shen Que turned his eyes away, avoiding looking at him.

“To help you with your urgent business.”

“No need, I’m not in a hurry.”

Sheng Qixiao crouched down, his gaze level with Shen Que’s. Shen Que’s bloodless face was reflected in his light tea-colored eyes. “So, how is your reflection going?”

“Reflect on… what!” Shen Que stuck out his neck. The word “sh*t” was only half out before he immediately switched gears and changed his statement. “Those two words don’t exist in my dictionary.”

Sheng Qixiao was not in a hurry to respond either. He just continued to look at him while pondering how to add those two words to Shen Que’s life dictionary. “If I had been a moment later, you wouldn’t even have the chance to reflect.”

“I…”

“Shh.” Sheng Qixiao put two fingers together and pressed his fingertips firmly onto Shen Que’s lips. “I don’t want to hear your rationale right now.”

“You weren’t using this tone in the cave that day,” Shen Que retorted defiantly with an indistinct nasal voice, counting on Sheng Qixiao not being able to hear him clearly due to his slurred speech, and spoke boldly. “Also, you told them not to talk to me, so you shouldn’t talk either. I didn’t notice before, but you’re quite the hypocrite.”

“……” Sheng Qixiao hesitated several times, wanting to speak, then stopped. “I can understand you.”

“……”

For the next several days Shen Que was once again confined to bed, left to idle away as if sprouting mushrooms. By the end of it, even the very strands of his hair seemed to bristle with irritation. Sheng Qixiao knew he had endured to the limit before finally relenting and granting permission to leave the room.

Sheng Qixiao picked him up before steadily placing him into the wooden wheelchair they had hastily made over the past few days with Old Qiu and the others, and pushed him to the second-floor terrace.

Only then did Shen Que realize where the clanging and banging sounds came from, and some of the dissatisfaction in his heart quietly dissipated.

The fog outside had also cleared somewhat. The sky was no longer an impenetrable, deathly gray, but visibility was still low. The damp, cold moisture still persistently drilled into his bones, but at least he could distinguish the boundaries between day and night.

Shen Que looked at that patch of dim light in the sky, broken through by something unknown while silently listening to the steady breathing of the person behind him. After a long silence, he casually said, “Thank you.” The tone was understated.

A not-too-thick blanket was spread out in front of Shen Que and wrapped around both his legs. Sheng Qixiao’s gaze shifted faintly, its depths like a secluded, unfathomable pool. He did not bother to discern exactly what Shen Que was thanking him for, for his response remained the same in any case, “No need. I do it willingly. You know I like you. Didn’t you say that liking someone is dedication?”

Shen Que did not refute, and unconsciously pinched and rubbed the blanket with his fingers. He needed dedication.

But he didn’t know that Sheng Qixiao also needed it; he needed him to dedicate his entire self, including all the schemes and deceptions, completely and utterly to Sheng Qixiao.

“How did you find me that day?”

Sheng Qixiao’s gaze swept over Shen Que’s empty neck where a pendant once hung. A butterfly that glowed in the dark was sealed inside that pendant. Once Shen Que encountered danger, the pendant would break to release the butterfly that glowed in the dark and bring him to Shen Que’s side.

But he didn’t plan to tell Shen Que.

“I came back very late that day. The courtyard door wasn’t closed, and you weren’t in the small building. Old Qiu and the others said you might have gone out to look for me.” Sheng Qixiao’s tone was flat, revealing no emotion and making it impossible to discern the truthfulness of his words. “You worrying about me made me very happy.” He paused as a shallow smile curved at the corner of his mouth, but it quickly faded. “But you were disobedient again. I told you not to go out, so I was also a little angry.”

Shen Que snorted, his tone quite disdainful, “Obedience is for children. Don’t use that to demand things of me.”

“Even the most disobedient child in the village never fell and ended up looking like you.” Sheng Qixiao slowly took over the conversation, his gaze sweeping over his tightly wrapped shoulder. “It seems your level of disobedience has reached its peak.”

“Your Mandarin is getting better and better now, but unfortunately, it’s all used to ridicule me.” Shen Que pouted, quite dissatisfied. “You reminded me. I’ve recovered a lot; there’s no need to wrap me up so tightly like tying up a criminal.”

“I am caring about you.” Sheng Qixiao was unmoved. “If you’re wrapped up tightly, you can’t move, preventing you from sneaking off to places you shouldn’t go when we’re not looking.” Or else being seduced by some utterly reckless people and remain kept in the dark all the same.

Places he shouldn’t go.

Shen Que’s heart stirred as he grasped the key point, but his expression remained completely calm.

“The way you talk now is so annoying. You’re so young, don’t learn from Gang Zi.”

Gang Zi, who was washing dishes in the kitchen, suddenly sneezed while mumbling indistinctly, “Shen Que must be cursing me again.”

“En.” Sheng Qixiao heard the movement from the kitchen, chuckled softly, and did not refute while taking out a new pendant and gesturing to put it on Shen Que. “Your pendant was lost, so I made you a new one.”

As the silver chain and the pendant slid down his neck, it tickled with a cool sensation. Shen Que looked down. Perhaps Sheng Qixiao had accepted the fact that his carving skills were poor as he hadn’t tried to carve any specific shape this time. It was just a simple hemisphere set on a silver base. The texture of the butterfly wing inside could be vaguely seen through the translucent material. The complete sapphire blue was separated by a deeper dark blue, faintly glowing.

Shen Que instinctively wanted to say thank you but swallowed the words just as they were about to come out. He merely raised his hand to touch the pendant, but Sheng Qixiao grasped his wrist and pressed it down. He rubbed the bruises on the back of his hand that hadn’t completely faded with the slightly cool pad of his thumb. “Don’t move around, be careful not to pull the injury on your shoulder.”

Shen Que struggled twice but couldn’t pull away, so he let him be.

Sheng Qixiao’s scent once more filled his breath, laced with a faint herbal fragrance; the very scent he had acquired from tending and redressing Shen Que’s wounds over the past few days. Shen Que leaned back against the chair, and a thought suddenly popped into his mind, being held like this, surrounded by his scent, didn’t seem so hateful anyway.

But the moment the thought emerged, he fiercely suppressed it.

Shen Que, have you forgotten what you came here to do? Don’t be blinded by this little bit of tenderness.

Yet, Sheng Qixiao’s voice sounded at the right time, “I genuinely intend to learn from Gang Zi.”

“What do you want to learn from him? Learn how to annoy people?”

“Learn how to make you less guarded against me. The more casually you talk to me, the happier I am.” Sheng Qixiao spoke honestly, so honest that Shen Que couldn’t ask another word.

It wasn’t until he lay back in bed that night that Shen Que belatedly realized he hadn’t asked how Sheng Qixiao had found him at all. With just a few words, Sheng Qixiao deftly steered the conversation elsewhere, neatly smoothing it over along with the string of questions he had lined up, leaving him no chance to voice them.

During his recovery, Shen Que once again picked up the old book Sheng Qixiao had given him. Little by little, he was able to grasp what the illustrations were intended to depict, even though he remained entirely unfamiliar with the arcane ancient Miao script.

Meanwhile, Ah Chao, who was now fully recovered, leaned against the door frame while looking at Shen Que’s new wheelchair with a touch of envy, “Why don’t I get that treatment?”

When he previously went into the mountains, Ah Chao was severely injured and had been confined to bed for about half a month and barely stepped out of the small building. If he had a wheelchair, he could also go out and wander around properly.

“Are you that fond of sitting in a wheelchair? Then I’ll give this good fortune to you.” Shen Que said, a seemingly sincere smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

Old Qiu rubbed his nose, opened his mouth to say something, but swallowed it back at the last minute. This entire arrangement had been Sheng Qixiao’s suggestion, on the grounds that he was worried Shen Que would not be able to stay put; but he had always been against Shen Que growing too close to Sheng Qixiao. Naturally, he wasn’t willing to say anything positive at this moment.

“It’s mainly because of the nature of their relationship, how could he not be attentive?” Gang Zi, who was sucking on a toothpick like a cigarette, said, “They’re a young couple in the passionate phase of their relationship. Can you compare? Just lie there, you’re not missing out on food or drink anyway.”

“What nonsense are you spouting?” Shen Que stared at him expressionlessly, his voice stiff. The hand that was restrained and unable to lift was flipped over on his knee, and he defiantly gave Gang Zi the international friendly gesture. “Just you wait.”

His tone was quite vicious, but it intimidated zero people. Gang Zi grinned maliciously, then scurried to the doorway, escorting Sheng Qixiao, who was holding the bowl of medicine, into the room.

Sheng Qixiao had arrived outside the door while the few of them were bickering, so he naturally heard everything Gang Zi had said.

Young couple, passionate phase.

It’s a good way to put it.

Sheng Qixiao’s eyes were full of a smile. He brought the bowl of medicine to Shen Que’s mouth and said gently, “It’s time for your medicine.”

“Can I not drink it?” Shen Que glanced at the brown liquid in the bowl, his brows instinctively furrowing. He leaned his entire upper body back as far as possible, determined to distance himself from this bowl of evil liquid. “Or I’ll drink it myself later, no need for your help.”

“Is it that terrible?” Sheng Qixiao was unmoved. He swept his gaze over the others watching the scene and sighed softly, “I didn’t believe it when Gang Zi said you were afraid of taking medicine…”

“I just want to let it cool before drinking it.”

“The cooler this medicine gets, the bitter it will be.”

Shen Que had no choice but to bite the rim of the bowl and quickly gulp down the medicine while pretending he was someone without taste buds.

Only then was Sheng Qixiao satisfied. He placed the empty bowl back on the table and wiped the residual medicine from the corner of Shen Que’s mouth.

Shen Que uncomfortably turned his head away, moved his hands, and used his eyes to signal Sheng Qixiao to look over. “When will you unlock this? My hand has been fine for a while already.”

To prevent Shen Que from moving recklessly and hindering the recovery of his shoulder injury, Sheng Qixiao had specially added a small device to the wheelchair to restrict large-scale arm movement. Although he had indulged Shen Que and not used it for the past few days, for some unknown reason today, he had firmly insisted on restraining him despite Shen Que’s objections.

“If you had drunk your medicine properly, it naturally should have healed long ago.” Sheng Qixiao placed his hand on Shen Que’s shoulder and squeezed it lightly. “But you secretly used the medicine to kill a small patch of flowers downstairs, Shen Que.”

“……” Alright.